That's how I understand it, too. CA is not a new defendant, but her conduct forms part of the factual proffer that supports a claim for punitive damages against Casey.
As matters stand now, Casey A is the sole defendant and only her assets could be used to satisfy any judgement for the plaintiff, unless there were some sort of insurance policy like HO's insurance owned by the A's that would include Casey as an "insured" AND would cover the type of conduct she has engaged in. OR unless a court would ever find that assets that are properly Casey's have been fraudulently transferred into the possession of others to avoid the collection of a judgement.
Having discussed all this so much, it has occurred to me why the defense didn't take the advice of all the defense talking heads and just allow a default judgement to be entered against Casey and also why there was such a turnout for the hearing on the amendment to add punitive damages. The defense perhaps doesn't want to open any route that would allow wholly legitimate and relevant discovery of the defendant's assets or potential ones. Depending on exactly how Florida's punitive damages law works, discovery of the defendant's net worth, assets, etc. are likely relevant during pre-trial discovery. Even without a punitive damages claim included, if defendant had defaulted early on, while the criminal case is still pending, there could have been post-judgement discovery of her assets, to see if there was anything from which to satisfy the civil default judgement. This must not make them very happy. At all.
