Alber v. GEICO General Insurance Company

Filing 28

ORDER granting 18 Motion for Reconsideration, vacating 17 Order, granting 8 Motion to Remand, remanding case to state court, directing Clerk to close file. Signed by Judge Gregory A. Presnell on 5/17/2017. (ED)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
ORLANDO DIVISION
JOHN ALBER,
Plaintiff,
v.

Case No: 6:17-cv-160-Orl-31KRS

GEICO GENERAL INSURANCE
COMPANY,
Defendant.

ORDER
This matter comes before the Court without a hearing on the Motion for Reconsideration
(Doc. 18) filed by the Plaintiff, John Alber. Although the deadline for a response has passed, the
Defendant did not respond to the motion.
Alber seeks reconsideration of this Court’s order of March 20, 2017 (Doc. 17), denying his
motion to remand this matter back to state court. In concluding that the amount in controversy
requirement was satisfied, the Court took into consideration the amount at issue in Alber’s bad faith
claim. However, as Alber points out, that claim has been abated pending the resolution of his
uninsured motorist claim. As such, based on past precedent, the value of the bad faith claim should
not have been taken into consideration in assessing the amount in controversy. See Brown v.
Safeco Ins. Co. of Ill., No. 6:13-cv-1982-Orl-31GJK, 2014 WL 1478833 (M.D. Fla. Nov. 12, 2008).
With the bad faith claim taken out of the equation, the amount in controversy is limited to the value
of the uninsured motorist claim, which the Defendant has previously conceded is $40,000.
Accordingly, the amount in controversy requirement is not met, and remand is required.
In consideration of the foregoing, it is hereby

ORDERED that the Motion for Reconsideration is GRANTED. And it is further
ORDERED that this Court’s order of March 20, 2017 (Doc. 17) denying the Plaintiff’s
Motion to Remand (Doc. 8) is VACATED. That motion is hereby GRANTED, and the Clerk is
directed to REMAND the case to the Circuit Court of the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit, in and for
Brevard County, Florida, and close the file.
DONE and ORDERED in Chambers, Orlando, Florida on May 17, 2017.

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