PROGRESSIVE SPECIALTY INSURANCE COMPANY

v.

FLORIDA HOSPITAL OCALA, INC. D/B/A ADVENTHEALTH OCALA A/A/O SANDRA THOMAS

SIXTH DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL

STATE OF FLORIDA

_____________________________

Case No. 6D2023-1347 Lower Tribunal No. 2019-SC-034548-O _____________________________

PROGRESSIVE SPECIALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellant, v. FLORIDA HOSPITAL OCALA, INC. d/b/a ADVENTHEALTH OCALA a/a/o SANDRA THOMAS, Appellee. _____________________________

Appeal from the County Court for Orange County. Brian S. Sandor, Judge.

October¹⁴, 2024

GANNAM, J.

Progressive Specialty Insurance Company appeals the entry of summary judgment for Florida Hospital Ocala, Inc., as assignee of Sandra Thomas.¹ Because the out-of-state coverage provision of Thomas’s Maryland car insurance policy does not increase the policy’s $2,500 PIP coverage limit to conform to Florida PIP requirements, Progressive is not liable for payment of PIP benefits to Florida

I.

A.

In July 2018, Thomas purchased a Maryland car insurance policy from Progressive. At the time, Thomas resided and garaged her car in Maryland. The policy provides $2,500 in PIP benefits in addition to other coverages. The policy begins with a declarations page summarizing the limits of her coverages, including the following limits pertinent to this appeal:

Limits Liability To Others Bodily Injury Liability Property Damage Liability

$30,000 each person/$60,000 each accident $15,000 each accident Personal Injury Protection $2,500

The substantive coverage provisions of the policy track the coverage categories shown on the declarations page. “PART I—LIABILITY TO OTHERS” obligates Progressive to pay damages “for bodily injury and property damage for which an insured person becomes legally responsible because of an accident.” “PART II—PERSONAL INJURY PROTECTION COVERAGE” obligates Progressive to pay “the reasonable and necessary covered expenses incurred because

B.

In October 2018, Thomas began working and residing in Ocala, Florida. Around eight months later, in July 2019, Thomas was injured in an accident while driving her car in Florida and received medical treatment from Florida Hospital. Thomas assigned her PIP insurance benefits to Florida Hospital, and Florida Hospital billed Progressive $8,870.71 for her treatment. Progressive paid Florida Hospital $2,377.72, and paid another medical provider $122.28, for a total of $2,500.

II.

A.

Because only legal issues are presented, our review of the order granting summary judgment is de novo. See Fiddlesticks Country Club, Inc. v. Shaw, 363 So. 3d 1177, 1181 (Fla. 6th DCA 2023). The primary question on appeal is whether the out-of-state coverage provision of Thomas’s Maryland insurance policy conformed the policy to Florida coverage requirements, thereby increasing Thomas’s PIP coverage from $2,500 to $10,000, and obligating Progressive to pay Florida Hospital for her medical expenses beyond the $2,500 Progressive already paid. Answering this question requires not only interpretation of the insurance policy, but also interpretation of several lengthy and interconnected Florida statutes on car registration and insurance.³ This is because the conformity clauses of the Maryland out-of-state coverage provision depend on what Florida law says about nonresidents

2 This is the amount claimed by Florida Hospital in its summary judgment motion, representing eighty percent of seventy-five percent of the $8,870.71 billed to Progressive, less Progressive’s payment of $2,377.72. See § 627.736(5)(a)1.b., Fla. Stat. (2019) (“The insurer may limit reimbursement to 80 percent of . . . 75 percent of the hospital’s usual and customary charges.”).³ “Fear not, keep reading.” Shiloh Christian Ctr. v. Aspen Specialty Ins. Co., 65 F. 4th 623, 624 (11th Cir. 2023).

B.

Many legal obligations arise from owning and driving a car in Florida, including satisfaction of registration and insurance requirements. We begin with registration. The general requirement is that “every owner or person in charge of a motor vehicle that is operated or driven on the roads of this state shall register the

C.

The obligation to register a car in Florida carries with it the obligation to obtain PIP and liability insurance coverages under two separate but related statutory

4 Our statutory analysis is based on the Florida Statutes in effect at the time of the 2019 accident.⁵ For purposes of the registration statutes, a Florida “resident” includes “a person who has his or her principal place of domicile in this state for a period of more than⁶ consecutive months,” and a “nonresident” is “a person who is not a resident.” §§ 320.01(34), (35), Fla. Stat. (2019).

6 Section 324.022 was added in 1988 and took effect October¹, 1989. Ch. 88– 370, § 8, Laws of Fla. Prior to its enactment, the “Financial Responsibility Law, like that of many other states, require[d] compliance only after an owner or operator of a motor vehicle [was] involved in an accident.” Williams v. Newton, 236 So. 2d 98, 99–100 (Fla. 1970) (footnote omitted); see also Grant v. N.H. Ins. Co., 613 So. 2d 466, 471 n.4 (Fla. 1993).

7 For individual, private car owners, section 324.022(1) also allows satisfaction of the responsibility requirement “by having a policy which provides coverage in the amount of at least $30,000 for combined property damage liability and bodily injury liability” per accident; by a Florida insurance policy providing $10,000 per accident in property damage liability coverage plus $10,000 per accident in bodily injury liability coverage for one person and $20,000 per accident in bodily injury liability coverage for two or more persons (incorporating §§ 324.031(1), 324.021(8), and 324.021(7), Fla. Stat. (2019)); or by having “a certificate of self-insurance issued by the [Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles]” upon showing “a net unencumbered worth of at least $40,000” (incorporating §§ 324.031(3) and 324.171, Fla. Stat. (2019)).⁸ The security requirement may also be satisfied by self-insurance meeting statutory requirements. See § 627.733(3), Fla. Stat. (2019).

D.

There is an additional circumstance obligating a Florida nonresident to comply with the Financial Responsibility Law and the No-Fault Law, irrespective of car registration. The requirements of both laws are also triggered by the cumulative presence of a nonresident’s car in Florida over the course of a year, even if registration is not required. They have identical provisions requiring coverage for any car that “has been physically present within this state for more than 90 days during the preceding 365 days.” §§ 324.022(3), 627.733(2), Fla. Stat. (2019). Thus, a nonresident car owner becomes subject to the requirements of both the Financial Responsibility Law and the No-Fault Law either upon working in Florida or enrolling a child in a Florida public school, based on registration requirements, or upon having a car in the state for more than ninety of the preceding 365 days, irrespective of registration requirements.

9 A car owner who fails to maintain the required security also loses certain tort liability immunities that would otherwise be available under section 627.737. See § 627.733(4), Fla. Stat. (2019).

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III.

A.

Having reviewed the obligations of Florida’s Financial Responsibility and No-Fault Laws, we return to the primary issue on appeal: whether the out-of-state coverage provision of Thomas’s Maryland insurance policy applies. The plain language of the provision makes its application conditional, depending first on the occurrence of “an accident to which . . . Part I applies,” and second on the covered accident’s “occur[ing] in any state . . . other than the one in which a covered auto is principally garaged.” (See pt. I.A, supra.) If those threshold conditions are satisfied, then the increased coverages of the two conformity clauses depend on the laws of the state where the accident occurred. (“If . . . the state . . . has . . . a financial responsibility or similar law . . . or . . . a compulsory insurance or similar law . . . .”) The first threshold condition is the occurrence of an accident to which Part I of the policy applies. The “INSURING AGREEMENT” provision of Part I states that Progressive “will pay damages . . . for bodily injury and property damage for which an insured person becomes legally responsible because of an accident.” Thus, by its plain language, Part I applies to any accident resulting in the insured’s becoming liable for damages to another, for bodily injury or property damage. The claim at issue in this case, however, is for Thomas’s expenses for her own injuries, and the record does not tell us whether anyone claims Thomas is liable to another

B.

We must inquire further, however, because Progressive asks us not only to reverse the grant of summary judgment for Florida Hospital, but also the denial of summary judgment for Progressive. Our deciding that the trial court erred in holding that the out-of-state coverage provision did apply leaves open the question of whether the provision could apply if the threshold conditions were satisfied. For Progressive to be entitled to summary judgment here, we must determine that the out-of-state coverage provision could not apply, as a matter of law, irrespective of the threshold conditions. This determination depends on whether the Florida car registration and insurance laws we examined above trigger one of the provision’s conformity clauses. There are two conformity clauses in the out-of-state coverage provision, but Florida Hospital relies only on the second, “compulsory insurance” clause to claim

10 The first conformity clause applies only to liability coverages: if Florida has “a financial responsibility or similar law requiring limits of liability for bodily injury or property damage higher than the limits shown on the declarations page,” then the policy “will provide the higher limits.” The declarations page shows limits of $30,000 per person and $60,000 per accident for bodily injury liability, and limits of $15,000 per accident for property damage liability (see pt. I.A, supra), which limits are higher than the limits required by Florida’s Financial Responsibility Law ($10,000 per accident for property damage liability and no requirement for bodily injury liability—see part II.C, supra).

11 Because the conformity clause is within the liability part of the policy, Progressive argues that “compulsory insurance or similar law” can only mean a compulsory liability insurance law, and that the clause’s reference to “types of coverage” is limited to types of liability coverage—e.g., bodily injury and property damage. Florida Hospital counters that Progressive’s interpretation is absurd and would make the clause superfluous because it could never conform the policy to Florida law if it excludes compulsory Florida PIP coverage. But neither argument is grounded in the text of the policy. While the out-of-state provision’s placement in

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C.

Florida Hospital argues that the trial court correctly relied on the Fifth District’s decision in Meyer v. Hutchinson, 861 So. 2d 1185 (Fla. 5th DCA 2003), to hold the Maryland policy’s out-of-state coverage provision requires Progressive to cover Florida Hospital’s claim. But Meyer has no bearing on this case because the the part of the policy titled “LIABILITY TO OTHERS” is a contextual indicator of its meaning, “a title or heading should never be allowed to override the plain words of a text.” Scalia & Garner, supra, at 222. It is the text of the out-of-state provision, not its location, that limits applicability of the conformity clause to accidents implicating the insured’s liability to another as a threshold condition. (And having the required PIP coverage in place at the time of an accident would provide an insured valuable tort liability immunities in addition to the PIP benefits—see note⁹, supra.) But the text of the clause does not limit the meaning of “compulsory insurance or similar law” to compulsory liability insurance laws. The PIP insurance coverage requirements of the No-Fault Law are compulsory, and they apply to nonresidents under certain circumstances. To be sure, the No-Fault Law effectively incorporates the compulsory liability insurance requirements of the Financial Responsibility Law into a single requirement by requiring Florida car insurance policies providing the compulsory PIP coverage to also include the compulsory liability coverage. § 627.7275(1), Fla. Stat. (2019). Cf. 3 William J. Schermer & Irvin E. Schermer, Auto. Liability Ins. 4th § 46:2 (counting Florida among “[a] large minority of . . . states . . . enacting composite compulsory liability and no-fault laws providing for the incorporation of no-fault and liability insurance coverages into policies furnished as a condition of motor vehicle registration.”). Given this practical merger of the No-Fault and Financial Responsibility Laws, it would be unnatural to read “compulsory insurance or similar law” to exclude the No-Fault Law. In any event, whether “compulsory insurance or similar law” encompasses the No-Fault Law, the Financial Responsibility Law, or both—a question we need not decide—it is the failure of the “whenever” condition of the conformity clause that prevents its application here. This interpretation of the text’s plain meaning does not foreclose the applicability of the clause under another state’s “compulsory insurance or similar law” and, thus, does not render the clause superfluous.

17 language of the out-of-state coverage provision interpreted in Meyer is materially different from the Maryland provision at issue in this case. In Meyer, an at-fault driver (Meyer) claimed the out-of-state coverage provision of her Michigan car insurance policy conformed the policy’s coverage to Florida’s No-Fault requirements. 861 So. 2d at 1186. The Michigan provision stated, in pertinent part: If an insured is in another state or Canada and, as a nonresident, becomes subject to its motor vehicle compulsory insurance, financial responsibility, or similar law: (a) this policy will be interpreted to give the coverage required by the law and (b) the coverage given replaces any coverage in this policy to the extent required by the law for the insured’s operation, maintenance, or use of an owned automobile, a temporary substitute automobile, or a non-owned automobile. Id. at 1186–87. The Fifth District concluded that “her policy specifically provides coverage required under any state’s financial responsibility laws when the insured vehicle is being operated in that state.” Id. at 1188. The conditions to coverage under the out-of-state provision in the Meyer Michigan policy are materially different from the conditions to coverage in Thomas’s Maryland out-of-state provision. The plain language of the Michigan outof-state coverage provision in Meyer means that it applied only “if an insured is in another state . . . and, as a non-resident, becomes subject to” the state’s compulsory

IV.

Progressive’s contractual defense prevails. The Maryland policy’s out-ofstate coverage provision does not increase the policy’s $2,500 PIP coverage limit to $10,000 to conform to the requirements of the Florida No-Fault Law. Thus,

REVERSED and REMANDED with instructions.

NARDELLA and BROWNLEE, JJ., concur. GANNAM, J., concurs specially, with opinion.

Michael C. Clarke and Joye B. Walford, of Kubicki Draper, P.A., Tampa, for Appellant.

Chad A. Barr and Dalton L. Gray, of Law Office of Chad Barr, P.A., Altamonte Springs, for Appellee.

NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE MOTION FOR REHEARING

AND DISPOSITION THEREOF IF TIMELY FILED

GANNAM, J., specially concurring.

The court’s opinion explains why Progressive prevailed on its contractual defense. I write separately to identify important questions that due process principles prohibited the court from answering in this case—questions raised by Progressive’s alternative defense that Thomas is personally liable for the PIP benefits required by the No-Fault Law because she failed to obtain a Florida insurance policy providing the required PIP benefits. See § 627.733(3)(a), Fla. Stat. (2019) (“Such security shall