GEICO insurance office. Photo: Jonathan Weiss/Shutterstock.com

Florida's Third District Court of Appeal is holding a major insurance carrier's feet to the fire for failing to acknowledge a personal injury law firm's charging lien.

The appellate court Wednesday upheld a Miami-Dade Circuit Court's final judgment, which held Geico General Insurance Co. was negligent in failing to inform the Steinger, Greene & Feiner law firm of a $175,000 settlement that had been reached with a former client.

According to the opinion, the law firm — which formerly went by Steinger, Iscoe & Greene — sent Geico notice of an attorney lien after being discharged as counsel by Aniushka Monsalve, who had retained the firm for negotiations with the insurance company. However, once the settlement was reached, Geico did not include Steinger as a payee in the settlement check issued to Monsalve's new lawyer.

Steinger and Geico later entered negotiations to resolve the outstanding lien.  Once the talks broke down, the firm filed suit against the insurance company in order to obtain its fees.

“The trial court found Geico negligent, held it to be jointly and severally liable for SIG's charging lien, and entered a final judgment in favor of [Steinger] for $50,000.00,” the opinion said. Upon Geico's appeal, the appellate panel ruled the lower court had not erred in finding the company was negligent and “breached its duty to [Steinger] for failing to protect” its charging lien. Wednesday's opinion reasoned “to perfect a charging lien, the lienor-attorney need only demonstrate that he or she provided the parties to the litigation with timely notice of the interest.”

“Here, it is undisputed that upon being terminated, [Steinger] timely filed its charging lien, notifying Geico and Litigation Law of its interest in recouping the fees earned during the course of representing Monsalvo, however briefly,” the opinion said. The ruling asserted there had been several instances where Geico could have notified Steinger that the case had been resolved such as “including [Steinger] on the settlement check or obtaining [Steinger's] waiver of its lien in writing, or obtaining a Hold Harmless agreement from Litigation Law.”

Read the appellate court's opinion:

Rather, “Geico did none of these things,” the court wrote.

Young, Bill, Boles, Palmer & Duke lawyers B. Richard Young, Adam Duke, and Cody Pflueger represented Geico before the appellate court. They did not immediately return requests for comment.

Steinger's appellate counsel, Burlington & Rockenbach attorney Andrew Harris, said the Third DCA's order fortified the financial obligation insurance companies have to attorneys who may no longer be active in a case.

“Yesterday's decision reinforces that insurance carriers have an affirmative duty to ensure that prior attorneys are fairly compensated for their work that benefited the injured plaintiff,” Harris said. “All attorneys who represent injured parties will now be assured that they will not be left out of a settlement reached between successor attorneys and insurance companies. This entire litigation should have been unnecessary and would have been unnecessary if the insurance company had fulfilled its duty of care.”

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