The Florida Supreme Court entered an opinion Thursday stating that state law did not permit an insured to recover “extra-contractual, consequential damages.” The high court opinion was in response to the Fifth District Court of Appeal certifying a “question of great public importance.”

And Roy Oppenheim, a co-founder and senior partner at Oppenheim Law in South Florida who is not involved in this case, said the ruling by the state’s highest court only reinforces that a person should never go to Citizens Property Insurance Corp. first, because as an “insurer of last resort,” the company has extra insulation from damages. Oppenheim reasoned that government-created insurance companies have legal protections that private insurance companies do not.