A woman who claims she was permanently injured after exercising in a mobile gym inside the back of a truck had her hopes dashed Wednesday when Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeal found she had no route to damages through her insurance company.

Plaintiff Natalie Deutsch had argued that she was entitled to uninsured motorist benefits through her policy with Geico General Insurance Co. because the Isuzu truck containing Boca Raton trainer Garrett Nodell's traveling gym was uninsured — or, at least, lacked sufficient insurance.

But the Fourth DCA sided with the trial court, finding that the truck couldn't be classed as an uninsured vehicle because it was used as a "premises" for the plaintiff's training sessions, which only occurred while the truck was parked.

The appellate panel agreed with Deutsch's assertions that the truck isn't a house, building or tract of land, but that didn't matter. What did matter was the language in Geico's policy, which the court found didn't cover vehicles used as a residence or premises.

"When used as a gym, the stationary truck was 'located for use as a' building, just as any gym in a strip mall," the opinion said.

Mobile Fitness Centers of America has no brick-and-mortar office, according to the opinion, which said equipment was bolted to the floor and powered using a generator or electricity from clients' homes.

Fourth DCA Judge Robert M. Gross wrote the opinion, with the backing of Judges Martha Warner and Melanie May.

Deutsch sued Nodell and his company in November 2014, alleging that years of training had resulted in permanent injuries, including the loss of 50% of the cartilage in her knee.

The sessions began in 2007, when the plaintiff was 15, and stopped in 2011, when she was 20, according to the complaint. Deutsch later experienced pain and spasms in her knee, neck and lower back—a result, she alleged, of training with weights that were too heavy.

Nodell denied any wrongdoing and the two parties reached a confidential settlement in 2015.

Philip Burlington and Nichole Segal of Burlington & Rockenbach in West Palm Beach, Boca Raton solo practitioner Roberta Deutsch and Stuart Cohen of Conroy Simberg Ganon Krevans & Abel in Hollywood represented the plaintiff. They did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.

Geico's attorney Sharon Degnan of Kubicki Draper in Orlando also did not respond.

Palm Beach Circuit Judge Cymonie Rowe is presiding over the case.

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