HANCOCK

v.

FLORIDA FARM BUREAU GENERAL INSURANCE COMPANY

DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDA

SECOND DISTRICT

JANE HANCOCK, as personal representative of the Estate of Joseph N. Hancock,

Appellant,

v.

FLORIDA FARM BUREAU GENERAL INSURANCE COMPANY,

Appellee.

No. 2D2024-1484

September 19, 2025

Appeal from the Circuit Court for Pasco County; Kimberly Byrd, Judge.

Tracy Raffles Gunn of Gunn Appellate Practice P.A., Tampa, for Appellant.

David C. Borucke of Cole, Scott & Kissane, Tampa, for Appellee.

LABRIT, Judge. In this bad faith case, the parties dispute the propriety of the jury instructions and the verdict form. The trial court instructed the jury that the insurer's bad faith had to be the cause of the underlying excess judgment, and the verdict form required the jury to decide whether such a causal connection existed. The jury found causation lacking, so the trial court entered final judgment for the insurer. On this record, and based on the current state of bad faith law, we see no error in the trial court's rulings and affirm.

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I.

On May 28, 2016, a vehicle driven by Desiree Nathe struck and killed a bicyclist named Joseph Hancock. Ms. Nathe was insured under a policy issued by Florida Farm Bureau General Insurance Company (FFB) that provided $50,000 in bodily injury liability coverage. On May 31, 2016, FFB contacted Jane Hancock (Mr. Hancock's widow and later the personal representative of his estate) to discuss available insurance proceeds. An adjuster from FFB continued to contact her in the days and weeks that followed, and on two occasions during that timeframe the adjuster went to the Hancock home and taped an envelope containing a $50,000 check to the front door. But the adjuster was not invited or welcome, the checks were returned, and contact between Mrs. Hancock and FFB eventually ceased. Ms. Nathe petitioned for bankruptcy in December 2017, and in January 2018, Mr. Hancock's estate filed a wrongful death lawsuit against her. The bankruptcy court allowed the wrongful death suit to proceed to liquidate the estate's claim against Ms. Nathe, and FFB provided a defense to Ms. Nathe in the lawsuit. Following a trial in July 2019, the jury found Ms. Nathe completely at fault for the accident and awarded the estate $13,550,592 in damages. A final judgment in that amount was entered in favor of the estate and against Ms. Nathe in October 2019.1 And shortly thereafter, the estate paid for and received an assignment of Ms. Nathe's rights, title, and interest in any bad faith claim she might have against FFB related to the handling of the estate's wrongful death claim.

2 The parties disputed whether FFB knew that Mrs. Hancock was represented by counsel with respect to the wrongful death claim. The estate maintained that attorney Nancy Alfonso and her firm represented Mrs. Hancock from the outset, and that Mrs. Hancock informed FFB of this representation as early as May 31, 2016. According to FFB, Mrs. Hancock said attorney Alfonso was a family attorney but not necessarily representing her as to the wrongful death claim; FFB maintained that it repeatedly sought clarity from attorney Alfonso and her firm but never received a direct response as to the scope of their representation. FFB characterized the responses it did receive as "the lawyer version of Whack-A-Mole," such as attorney Alfonso reportedly stating on one occasion that she wasn't "sure they were going to represent the Hancocks," and attorney Carl DiCampli (another attorney from the same firm) declining FFB's offer to deposit the insurance proceeds in his firm's trust account and telling FFB on a separate occasion that he "anticipate[d] providing [FFB] a letter of representation" in the future, after a personal representative for the estate was appointed.

3 FFB did not appeal the jury's finding of bad faith.

II.

"[B]ad faith law was designed to protect insureds who have paid their premiums and who have fulfilled their contractual obligations by cooperating fully with the insurer in the resolution of claims." Harvey v. GEICO Gen. Ins., 259 So. 3d 1, 6 (Fla. 2018) (quoting Berges v. Infinity Ins., 896 So. 2d 665, 682 (Fla. 2004)). Consistent with this design, "an insured or a third-party claimant may bring a third-party bad-faith cause of action when an insurer has breached its duty of good faith and that breach results in an excess judgment being entered against its insured." Perera v. U.S. Fid. & Guar. Co., 35 So. 3d 893, 899 (Fla. 2010) (citing Berges, 896 So. 2d at 668). However, "[t]he damages claimed by an insured [or its assignee] in a bad faith case 'must be caused by the insurer's bad faith.' " Harvey, 259 So. 3d at 7 (quoting Perera, 35 So. 3d at 902). Put differently, "the existence of a causal connection is a prerequisite" in a third-party bad faith case, and "there must be a causal connection between the damages claimed and the insurer's bad faith." Perera, 35 So. 3d at 901, 902.

4 In our view, neither the evidence nor the parties' legal arguments drew a meaningful distinction between the failure to settle and the excess judgment. Reduced to its essence, the estate's theory of liability was that both were inevitable due to FFB's conduct in the first few months after the accident.

5 In fact, the record indicates that the trial court granted a motion in limine to limit discussion of the accident and that there was no evidence on the details of the accident or what Ms. Nathe did to cause it.

6 For example, the estate's counsel told the jury during opening statements: In this case the excess judgment was quite significant. You'll hear evidence that the excess judgment -- that the judgment in this case was $13.5 million. Eventually, you'll hear evidence that that could have been avoided had this insurance company acted ethically . . . . . . . . The evidence will show that Jane Hancock was more than willing to settle, but [FFB's] continued aggressive conduct, going behind her lawyer's back, violating ethical rules, and disregarding reasonable requests that she made, got her madder than a wet hen. Those are the exact words that she used. . . . She'll explain to you what that means, and it's something that she just couldn't get over. And at that point, the die is cast. The case was going to go to trial, and there was going to be a judgment.

7 FFB also presented evidence suggesting that the estate had no desire to settle for reasons unrelated to FFB's conduct. While the focus in a bad faith case is on the insurer's conduct, we do not consider such evidence of a claimant's conduct or motivations to be "off limits" when causation is a disputed issue. After all, our supreme court acknowledged in Harvey that bad faith law is aimed at protecting insureds "who have fulfilled their contractual obligations by cooperating fully with the insurer in the resolution of claims," and it reiterated that "the 'totality of the circumstances' standard" governs whether an insurer has acted in bad faith. 259 So. 3d at 6, 7 (quoting Berges, 896 So. 2d at 680, 682). Thus, there must be some instance where the actions of the claimant or the insured have some bearing on whether an insurer is held liable for bad faith. We recognize that an insurer cannot escape liability simply because an insured or a claimant may have contributed to an excess judgment. See id. at 11–12. But if something beyond an insurer's control precludes it from settling and avoiding an excess judgment, the

III.

This leads us to the estate's alternative argument. The estate contends that the trial court erred altogether by giving any causation instruction because the bad faith instruction already encompassed the element of causation the estate had to prove. We disagree. The trial court's bad faith instruction told the jury, consistent with standard instruction 404.4, that bad faith is the failure to settle when an insurer "could and should have done so" had it acted fairly and honestly towards its insured. And the trial court's causation instruction, which was a modified version of standard instruction 404.6(a), explained the concept of legal cause such that harm "would not have occurred" but for the insurer's bad faith conduct. We do not view these instructions as overlapping or duplicative. Indeed, they align with our supreme court's pronouncement that a claimant may bring a bad faith action "when [1] an insurer has breached its duty of good faith and [2] that breach results in an excess judgment." Perera, 35 So. 3d at 899. Standard instruction 404.4 describes conduct akin to an insurer's breach of duty, while standard instruction 404.6(a) on legal cause is consistent with the causal connection that must exist in bad faith actions. Moreover, causation was a key factual issue in dispute in this case based on the evidence the parties presented at trial. We do not deem it legal error to instruct the jury on the legal standard it must apply to resolve a factual dispute the parties put before it.

jury should be allowed to consider it in deciding whether the insurer's actions were a legal cause of the judgment.

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IV.

The trial court gave a jury instruction that was legally accurate, and its instruction related to an element of the estate's claim that the parties intensely disputed at trial. Based on the evidence and issues presented, the trial court did not reversibly err in giving a causation instruction or by including a causation question on the verdict form. We therefore affirm the final judgment for FFB.

Affirmed.

LUCAS, C.J., and VILLANTI, J., Concur.

Opinion subject to revision prior to official publication.