"Plain meaning?" Apparently, not so much...

The Florida Supremes just overturned Mierzwa. It's pretty amazing that two separate Florida appeals courts (Florida Farm Bureau Cas. Ins. Co. v. Cox, 943 So.2d 823 (Fla. 1st DCA 2006); Mierzwa v. Florida Windstorm Underwriting Assn., 877 So.2d 774 (Fla. 4th DCA 2004)) can look at a statute (in this case the pre-2005 valued policy law, Fla. Stat. sec. 627.702(1)) and hold that the "plain meaning" of the statute is that the insurer has to pay the full face value of the policy when the property is a total loss, regardless of what caused the loss, and then the Florida Supremes can look at exactly the same statute and say "no it doesn't."

I guess only the Supremes can do it that way...