Florida Supreme Court Agrees to Consider Validity of 2003 Attorney's Fee Amendment
In what will surely be a closely watched case, the Florida Supreme Court on 10/30/2007 agreed to accept jurisdiction in Murray v. Mariners Health, a case which I wrote about here. As it had in several other cases, the First District Court of Appeal in Murray rejected a constitutional challenge to the 2003 amendment to §440.34, Fla. Stat. That amendment restricted the amount of attorney's fees which may be awarded to a successful claimant's attorney to a percentage of the value of the benefits secured by the attorney.
You can read the Supreme Court's 4-3 decision agreeing to accept jurisdiction here. As they have recently, the justices once again split along ideological lines. The majority (Chief Justice Lewis, along with Justices Anstead, Pariente, and Quince) which agreed to accept jurisdiction is the same majority which recently prevailed in the "impact rule" cases which I wrote about here.
The Petitioner's Initial Brief is due to be served on 11/26/2007. Oral argument is scheduled for 4/9/2008 at 9:00 a.m. in Tallahassee.
