Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal did something simple and important in its decision last week in Weston v. Universal. 1 It restored the role of the jury in a classic roof-claim fight. The appellate panel reversed a trial judge who made three directed verdicts that had ended the case before jurors could weigh competing evidence. Each reversal turns on a basic trial principle that when reasonable people could see the facts differently, judges shouldn’t take the case away from the jury. The court said so explicitly, reciting the familiar standard that all evidence and inferences must be viewed in the insureds’ favor when testing a directed verdict. With factual disputes riddling the record, the only proper destination was the jury box.
The first directed verdict fell because the trial court misread what “actual cash value” could include under this policy and the record. The homeowners offered expert testimony that more than 25% of the roof was damaged, triggering the Florida Building Code’s full replacement requirement; they also provided estimates that accounted for code compliance and matching. The policy contained ordinance-or-law coverage that pays increased costs required by code to complete repairs, including work to undamaged portions needed to finish the job.
That is precisely the kind of evidence a jury must weigh when deciding whether ACV was underpaid. The trial court leaned on prior precedent to exclude matching and code-compliance costs from ACV, but the Second DCA distinguished it because the Westons’ policy expressly provided ordinance-or-law coverage and the record contained testimony that the 25 percent rule applied. With that testimony in the case, and with competing estimates on the scope and cost of repair, there was more than enough for reasonable jurors to disagree. Taking that dispute away from them was error.
The second directed verdict collapsed because the court treated the loss-settlement provision as a coverage gate rather than a timing mechanism. Universal argued it owed nothing beyond the token payment unless and until the Westons replaced the roof and submitted receipts. The appellate court pointed to the statute and policy language, making clear that initial ACV must be paid and remaining replacement benefits are paid as work proceeds—but only for covered claims. When an insurer effectively denies further coverage for the claimed repair, the insured is not required to front the full cost and hope for reimbursement before suing.
The Second DCA relied on its recent decision in Brito v. Citizens Property Insurance Corporation 2 to make the point explicit and practical: Where coverage is disputed or denied, the loss-settlement clause doesn’t bar a breach action or postpone judicial review until after the homeowner spends tens of thousands of dollars. Recasting that clause as a shield against liability was legal error.
The third directed verdict could not stand because it rested on a premise that the record undermined, that Universal paid the only ACV estimate it had before suit. Universal’s corporate representative admitted the company received the Westons’ roof-replacement estimates before litigation; the carrier simply disagreed with them. Nothing in the policy required the insureds to deliver a particular kind of “ACV estimate” to unlock their right to sue.
The trial court’s reliance on a case where the insured never provided any estimate at all was misplaced. Here, the insureds provided estimates, offered sworn proof of loss, and presented expert testimony—more than enough to create factual issues for a jury on scope, code triggers, and valuation. Treating Universal’s field-adjuster number as dispositive short-circuited the fact-finding process and amounted to another improper directed verdict.
Pulled together, the opinion is a primer on who decides what in a Florida property claim. Juries decide contested facts: whether damage passes the 25 percent threshold, whether matching is necessary to complete repairs, whether interior rooms were damaged and omitted from the carrier’s estimate, and what it all costs. Judges decide the legal framework: that ordinance-or-law coverage can bring code-driven costs within the payable loss, that the loss-settlement clause regulates payment timing rather than coverage itself, and that a plaintiff need not rebuild first after the insurer has already said “no.” On this record, the factual conflicts were many and material, so the proper course was to let jurors do their job
As someone who has spent decades watching these cases from the front row, I see Weston as a back-to-basics reminder. Insurance exists to make people whole, not to force them into financial brinkmanship to earn a day in court. If an insurer insists a handful of shingles is all that was harmed while the homeowner’s engineer and contractor point to a code-triggering roof and water-damaged rooms, a judge should not preempt the jury’s common sense. That is what the Second DCA restored.
Thought For The Day
“Representative government and trial by jury are the heart and lungs of liberty.”
—John Adams
1 Weston v. Universal Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co., No. 2D2024-1340 (Fla. 2d DCA Oct. 24, 2025).
2 Brito v. Citizens Prop. Ins. Corp., 415 So. 3d 252 (Fla. 2d DCA 2025).