After a car crash and a lawsuit, the fight is not always over when the jury returns a verdict. Sometimes there is a second battle over who pays the attorney’s fees — and whether the driver’s insurance company can be forced to cover them.
That question matters to injured people, to drivers who carry liability coverage, and to families handling a loved one’s estate. Insurance policies are contracts, and the specific words in those contracts can decide whether an insurer is on the hook for a fee award or not.
In Hurst v. Bell, Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal looked at exactly this kind of dispute and explained how the policy language controlled the outcome.
Key Takeaway
Whether an auto insurer must pay an attorney’s fee judgment entered against its insured depends on the exact wording of the policy. Here, the policy specifically said it did not include attorney’s fees assessed against the insured, so the court did not require the insurer to pay that portion.
What happened in this case?
A man was injured in an automobile collision and sued the other driver. That driver was insured under a Progressive auto liability policy with bodily injury limits of $100,000 per person and $300,000 per accident. Before suit, Progressive offered the $100,000 per-person limit, and the injured man turned it down.
A few months into the lawsuit, the injured man served a proposal for settlement of $160,000. It was not accepted, and the case went to trial. The jury found in the injured man’s favor, and the court later entered a separate judgment for attorney’s fees and costs against the driver based on the unaccepted proposal for settlement.
The injured man’s estate then asked the court, under section 627.4136(4), Florida Statutes, to add Progressive — the driver’s insurer — to that fee judgment. A general magistrate recommended granting that request, but the trial court sided with Progressive and denied it. (Progressive had already voluntarily paid the taxable-cost part of the judgment, so only the attorney’s fee portion was left in dispute.)
What did the policy actually say?
The court explained that the case turned entirely on the policy language, and that courts read insurance policies according to their plain words and as a whole. The relevant part appeared under a section called “Additional Payments.”
One paragraph promised to pay the expenses the insurer incurs in settling a claim or defending the insured in a lawsuit — but it expressly stated that this did not include attorney’s fees awarded or assessed against the insured. A separate paragraph promised to pay reasonable expenses, including loss of earnings up to $200 per day, that the insured incurs at the insurer’s request.
Specific language beats general language
The estate argued the broad “reasonable expenses” paragraph covered the fee award. The court held that a general phrase cannot quietly restore the exact category of fees that another, more specific paragraph expressly leaves out.
Why didn’t the general “reasonable expenses” clause cover the fees?
The court acknowledged that the word “including” usually expands rather than limits a list. But it reasoned that the example following that word — lost earnings up to $200 per day — pointed to ordinary personal costs an insured runs up when asked to help with the defense, such as attending a deposition, hearing, or trial.
Read that way, the “reasonable expenses” paragraph covers cooperation-related costs, not an adverse attorney’s fee award entered in favor of the opposing side. The court declined to read the general clause so broadly that it would swallow the specific paragraph that named and withheld those fees, noting that courts may not rewrite a contract to create coverage that the text does not support.
What about the other court decisions the estate cited?
The estate leaned on a Florida Supreme Court decision, Macedo, but the court found the policy language there was materially different. In that case, the insurer’s provision did not expressly disclaim attorney’s fees and was found ambiguous. Here, the court said, the policy answered the question the earlier policy had left open by expressly excluding fees assessed against the insured.
The estate also pointed to a federal trial-court decision, which the court treated as, at most, persuasive and distinguished on its wording and structure. The court added an important general point: the fact that different judges have interpreted similar language differently does not, by itself, make a contract ambiguous. Ambiguity comes from the text before the court, not from disagreement among other courts.
Why does this matter to injured people and policyholders?
This decision is a reminder that insurance coverage disputes are often won or lost on the precise wording of the policy. Two policies that look similar can produce different results if one expressly addresses a category of payment and another does not.
Because the court concluded the policy did not cover the attorney’s fee portion of the judgment, it held that section 627.4136(4) gave no basis to add the insurer to that judgment, and it affirmed the trial court. The practical lesson is general: the outcome depended on reading the specific and general provisions of the policy together, not on any single clause in isolation.
Disclaimer: This post is for general information only, is not legal advice, does not create an attorney-client relationship, and does not predict or guarantee any result. The hiring of a lawyer is an important decision that should not be based solely upon advertisements. Before deciding, ask for free written information about the lawyer’s qualifications and experience.