Third District Court of Appeal
State of Florida
Opinion filed May 26, 2021.
Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.
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No. 3D20-1230
Lower Tribunal No. 19-33925
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American Coastal Insurance Company,
Appellant,
vs.
La Rive Gauche Condominium Association, Inc., et al.,
Appellees.
An Appeal from a non-final order from the Circuit Court for Miami-
Dade County, Martin Zilber, Judge.
White & Case LLP, and Raoul G. Cantero and Ryan A. Ulloa; Berk,
Merchant & Sims PLC, and Evelyn M. Merchant and Laura C. Tapia, for
appellant.
Alvarez, Feltman, Da Silva & Costa, P.L., and Paul B. Feltman, for
appellees.
Before FERNANDEZ, HENDON, and BOKOR, JJ.
PER CURIAM.
Affirmed. Paradise Plaza Condo. Ass’n Inc. v. Reinsurance Corp. of
New York, 685 So. 2d 937, 941 (Fla. 3d DCA 1996) (“All in all, we believe
that the issue of the order in which the issues of damages and coverage
are to be determined respectively by arbitration and the court should be left
within the discretion of the trial judge…. In exercising that discretion, the
trial court may consider all of the elements to which we have referred,
including the costs involved and the relative importance and viability of the
damages and the coverage issues, respectively. In this instance, we find
no abuse of discretion in the order for appraisal to proceed first.”); see also
Sunshine State Ins. Co. v. Rawlins, 34 So. 3d 753, 754-55 (Fla. 3d DCA
2010) (affirming Paradise Plaza’s holding that “it is the law in our district
that the order in which the issues of damages and coverage are to be
determined by arbitration and the court is left to the discretion of the trial
court”).
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