Birth Injury Lawsuit Legal Fee Limits Upheld by FL Court

An appeals court in Florida upheld the constitutionality of a 2012 ruling which limited the amount of legal fees that could be collected as part of a birth injury lawsuit award.   The 2-1 ruling, delivered on July 15, expressed “sympathy” for the claim of the law firm attempting to collect fees for their representation of a child with a severe birth injury and his parents. However, they determined that Florida law limiting such fees would apply in the case.

The law firm representing the family had attempted to collect a $25 million fee, based on a preexisting agreement with the family as well as a provision in Florida state law that included a 25 percent fee-cap provision. But a guardianship court turned down the request because of a $100,000 fee limit passed in the 2012 Florida state legislative session.

Birth injury lawsuit legal fee limits upheld in 2-1 ruling

In the majority opinion (written by Judge Alan Forst, with Judge Burton Conner), the judges stated that they were “sympathetic” to the situation that the attorneys found themselves in, namely that they had purportedly incurred $500,000 in the costs of representing the family to receive only one fifth that amount in return.

They went on to add, however, that “… our responsibility in this matter is to ensure that the claims bill passed by the legislative branch of government meets constitutional muster.” However, Chief Judge Cory Ciklin provided a dissenting view in which he characterized the $100,000 limit as “draconian” and interfered with the contract drawn up between the firm and the family in an unconstitutional manner.

Judge Ciklin elaborated that “Clearly, there are people, such as the … [family in question]…, who simply cannot afford to hire a counselor-at-law on an hourly rate, nor pay the out-of-pocket costs of malpractice litigation” and that such a limitation removes the only available option for many such families. Such contingency fee contracts, he argued, are “directly related to the constitutional right of access to courts together with ethical and moral obligations of lawyers.

Original jury award of $31 million later reduced by half

The family represented by the Florida legal firm filed their lawsuit over birth injuries suffered by their child in 1997. The child suffered brain damage at birth that left him with severe disabilities and a jury found the Lee Memorial Health System of Fort Myers negligent in these injuries in a ruling from 2007.

A jury verdict called for Lee Memorial to compensate the plaintiffs $31 million for the injuries suffered. The state legislature later reduced the birth injury award to $15 million and included a limit on attorneys’ fees and costs.

In order for the attorneys to collect more than the limits, the legislature would have had to pass a so-called “claim” bill in 2012, which they did not do. Lee Memorial had lobbied against the passing of the bill, arguing that money paid in attorneys’ fees would have taken away from money that could be used to care for other children.

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