03/02/2026
Congratulations to our client, First Protective Insurance Company (“Frontline”), in obtaining a summary judgment victory in a hotly contested late-reported windstorm claim.
The week before trial was set to start, Colodny Fass Associate Rebecca LoPresti, Esq., and Shareholder Maria Abate successfully convinced the Honorable Heather Doyle in Manatee County that Plaintiff had no evidence to prove the damage occurred during the policy period.
Ms. LoPresti asserted that Frontline was entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law because the undisputed facts established that Plaintiff did not discover any damage until after the expiration of the policy period.
Ms. LoPresti successfully defeated Plaintiff’s opposition to summary judgment, in the form of an expert affidavit, by establishing that the affidavit was conclusory and internally inconsistent, as it relied on documentation of alleged wind damage from photos taken years after the alleged date of loss, and well past the policy’s expiration.
The Court agreed and dismissed the action, based, in part, on the holding in Gonzalez v. Citizens Property Ins. Corp., 273 So.3d, 1031, 1034 (Fla. 3d DCA 2019) (expert affidavit which is conclusory and internally inconsistent cannot be considered by the Court to defeat summary judgment).
A copy of the Order is available here: https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:VA6C2:40c4c238-e920-4fef-9bfa-1cc805b297d6
