The Florida Court of Appeal has just decided a case dealing primarily with Florida law that governs awards of attorneys’ fees to condemnees. It tells us more about Florida law of attorneys’ fees and the statutory scheme governing them than we ever wanted to know, but we are sure it will be useful to Florida counsel The case is Orlando/Orange Grove County Expressway Authority v. Tuscan Ridge, No. 5D10-3470, March 30, 2012.
Anyway, we glean the following facts from the opinion: Offer – $4,914,221 (“subject to apportionment claims”), later raised to $5,500,000. Verdict – $5,744,830, plus attorney fees of $816,000, $194,000 for “supplemental proceedings,” $277,422 in expert fees, and $19,000 for “reimbursements.”
The $5,500,000 verdict was not contested, but the attorneys’ fees award was vacated, and the matter remanded for recalculation of fees using only the benefit obtained for the owners by the lawyers, and for consideration of the issue of whether the Florida Constitution requires a different, more generous measure of attorneys’ fees.