Florida Arbitration Law: Arbitration & Mediation

Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Arbitration & Mediation Blogs

OR PHONE (866) 635-1838 for Bankruptcy Help, (866) 635-6190 for Divorce,
(866) 635-2689 for Personal Injury or (866) 635-9402 for Criminal Defense

Find a Local Lawyer

Bankruptcy (866) 635-1838
Divorce (866) 635-6190
Personal Injury (866) 635-2689
Criminal Defense (866) 635-9402

Arbitration & Mediation

Florida Arbitration Law

Discusses trends and developments in the enforcement of arbitration and exculpatory clauses. Focuses on Florida law but covers important decisions and current events in other states.
By Christopher B. Hopkins, Esq.

Post Frequency: 1.7/day

Last Entry: March 31, 2011 at 15:49:53

Accord and Satisfaction: No Signature, No Intent, But Compelled

Posted on March 11, 2008
We sometimes question whether courts truly view arbitration clauses in the "preferred" status that the law provides. Given the number of ways that a person can escape arbitration -- explored and emphasized in nursing home cases -- we question whether the "general rule" of public-policy-favors-arbitration is going to be consummed by the exceptions, a la legal concepts like the Economic Loss Rule...

Mattel, Inc. Not Toying Around at the U.S. Supreme Court

Posted on March 06, 2008
We pick up a curious Ninth Circuit case which is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court because, of course, it involves an issue of arbitration. Moreover, while we are not SCOTUS-watchers like some people, it seems unusual that the High Court took up an unpublished federal court case...

5th Circuit Upholds Nursing Home Admission on 3rd Party Beneficiary Theory and "Concessions"

Posted on March 05, 2008
Up until 1981, the Fifth Circuit had been the federal circuit for Florida. Given that it governs our sister states and still has precedential value, we cast our gaze to their docket to find one of our favorite gems: a nursing home arbitration dispute...

Third DCA Addresses Chapter 766 Medical Malpractice Act Arbitration Loophole

Posted on March 04, 2008
We've been of the opinion for some time that Florida's Medical Negligence Act (Chapter 766) has been in need of some fine-tuning beyond the 2003 amendments. One of the potholes in the med mal road has been that it appears there are two alternative options for Chapter 766 arbitration: arbitration with caps and just plain arbitration...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

Further Analysis of 4th DCA's Slusser Decision

Posted on February 28, 2008
We were intrigued by the February 20 Fourth DCA decision in Slusser v. Life Care Centers of America et al. and the court's holding that the "police power" argument failed when the plaintiff argued it overcame the right to arbitration. So, braving State-wide power outages, non-lawyer sharks, and massive storms, we made that punishing trip two blocks to get the briefs...

PA Court Orders Lanham Act/False Advertising Claim to Arbitration

Posted on February 27, 2008
We travel north of the Mason-Dixon Line to Pennsylvania for this dispute over a credit resolution company's arbitration clause in their consumer debt settlement contract with the plaintiff in Ned J. Oyler v. Financial Independence and Resource Education (FIRE)...

Does the Fourth DCA's New Slusser Case Help Define Digati and Blankfeld?

Posted on February 26, 2008
The Fourth DCA certainly has been fodder for any number of posts on this website. In Romano v. Manor Care, the court decided there was an unprecedented "sliding scale" unconscionability analysis and then tried to suggest their was a strong Florida precedent for that approach...

Tort Claims Continue to Be Arbitrable Despite Complaint Not Referencing Contract

Posted on February 21, 2008
Frequently a plaintiff will bring a tort claim and the defendant will respond seeking arbitration and, for the first time, will interject a contract between the parties into the pleadings. The plaintiff often responds, like in Seifert v. U.S. Homes, that the tort claim has no "significant relationship" or "nexus" to the contract...

Forum Selection Clause Loses to Lien Foreclosure

Posted on February 20, 2008
The Fifth DCA recently addresses the question of the enforceability of a contractual forum selection clause when there is a companion case which must be brought in a different venue. In John Mason v. Homes By Whitaker, Inc., the parties had a contract (with a mandatory forum selection clause) to build a house in Clay County...

Woebse v. Health Care and Lopez v. Ernie Haire Ford: Has the Second DCA Changed Its Tune?

Posted on February 15, 2008
February 6 must have been "arbitration day" at the Second DCA with the release of Marilyn Woebse as Personal Representative for the Estate of David Kramer v. Health Care and Retirement Corporation of America and Morris Lopez et al. v. Ernie Haire Ford, Inc...

Boca Raton Nursing Home Wins Stage III Ulcer Arbitration

Posted on February 13, 2008
A Palm Beach County skilled nursing facility won an arbitrated dispute over whether it violated a Resident's Nursing Home Rights when the Resident, admitted with vascular problems and multiple reddened areas, developed bilateral Stage III decubitus ulcers...

Workers Compensation Claim Release of "Affiliate" Entities Was Not Ambiguous

Posted on February 12, 2008
Watch the wording of tort and workers compensation claim releases. At least that's the message in Robert and Joyce Churchville v. GACS Incorporated, Ryder Automotive Operations, et al. A man worked for a company (Allied Systems) which, over the years, merged several times...

Will the Florida Supreme Court Take Up A Conflict Over Waiver of Arbitration?

Posted on February 08, 2008
We certainly hope so. Previously, we reported on the case of Estate of Orlanis v. Oakwood Terrace and Regents Park where a Third DCA panel found that there was waiver of the right to arbitration due to the fact that the Defendants sent written discovery before moving to compel arbitration...

Christopher Hopkins and Frank Petosa At Southern Trial Lawyers Conference Discuss Nursing Home Arbitration and the Impact of Who Signs the Agreement

Posted on February 06, 2008
Two West Palm Beach lawyers battled out the plaintiff and defense perspectives on nursing home arbitration clauses at the recent Southern Trial Lawyers Association conference last week. Christopher Hopkins, founder of this site and partner at Cole, Scott & Kissane addressed the group along with Frank Petosa of Petosa and Associates...

Does a Lawyer Have Client Authority to Serve a Proposal of Settlement?

Posted on January 31, 2008
The question of settlement is certainly without our focus of arbitration and mediation. We note this interesting Fourth DCA case involving questions of a lawyer's authority to settle and/or serve a Proposal for Settlement. In Julio and Alejandra Ponce v...

Florida Car Dealer's Free-Standing Arbitration Agreement Violates Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act

Posted on January 30, 2008
A man and a woman purchase and finance a 2001 Ford Expedition from Maroone Honda in South Florida. The truck allegedly did not work properly and a lawsuit under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act was filed. The Defendants (car dealership and financing people) won their motion to compel arbitration...

Minor Not Demonstrate Sufficient "Maturity" For Waiver of Parental Notification for Abortion

Posted on January 28, 2008
As frequent readers of this blog are aware, "procedural unconscionability" is the first prong of analysis for the enforcement of arbitration which involves factors such as the circumstances surrounding the execution of a contract. It also includes questions of the signor's capacity to contract...

Nursing Home Arbitration Fails Due to Power of Attorney Language and Lack of Authority of Signor

Posted on January 24, 2008
As we've mentioned before, it is sometimes surprising that arbitration is "favored" despite the number of pitfalls which exist in compelling it. A nursing home chain, Alterra, is certainly aware of the morass of arbitration enforcement given its string of Florida opinions in the last 12-18 months...

Middle District of Florida Court Upholds Comcast's Arbitration Clause, Class Action Waiver, and One-Year Period to Bring Claim

Posted on January 22, 2008
A federal district court in Jacksonville handed down an order enforcing the arbitration notice between a cable company and its subscribers in Brian Sanders et al. v. Comcast Cable Holdings, LLC et al. Given that we have not seen much Florida-based case law on "billing inserts," class action waivers, and contractual terms which shorten the statute of limitation, this case may be a big decision for 2008...

Alabama Supreme Court Rules on Waiver of Arbitration -- Follows Federal Procedure, Not Florida's

Posted on January 18, 2008
We've mentioned before that, in Florida state courts, there exists a different standard to prove waiver of arbitration than if you are in federal court. Essentially, Florida courts require a vague proof of waiver only whereas in federal court one must prove waiver and substantial prejudice...

Motion to Stay Litigation Pending Outcome of Arbitration

Posted on January 16, 2008
Tangential to the motion to compel arbitration is the motion to stay litigation pending the outcome of arbitration. We mentioned this back in 2006 in a Florida federal court order in Hudson Global Resource Management v. Beck et al. The same court has re-visited the issue with a November 2007 order in Gerd Petrik v...

Arguments That Arbitrator "Exceeded Authority" Rarely Work

Posted on January 14, 2008
The general rule is that if you take your claim to arbitration, you had best be prepared to accept the results. We've mentioned the unlikely nature of vacating arbitration awards before -- even if a trial court could not have done what the arbitrator did...

Lawyer Sued for Malpractice-type Theories Can't Invoke the Arbitration Clause He Wrote

Posted on January 11, 2008
The Fourth DCA denied arbitration in a case because the parties to the suit had not agreed to arbitrate. This was not, however, the typical scenarios such as questioning the breadth of the agreement nor whether the parties were signatories. In David Hart, P...

Carnival Cruise Ticket's "Forum Selection Clause" Is (again) Deemed Valid by 3rd DCA

Posted on January 09, 2008
Clever lawyers from West Palm Beach may have breathed the last clever argument in the war waged by injured passengers seeking to avoid cruise line forum selection clauses. But they did not win and the Southern District will have another cruise injury case...

Verdict + Costs = Judgment, When Determining Entitlement to Attorney Fees in Non-Binding Arbitration

Posted on January 07, 2008
Many of you will recall that section 44.103(6) was revised by the Florida Legislature so that, as of October 1, 2007, the loser of non-binding arbitration would be exposed to the winner's attorney's fees and costs if the judgment was 25% more than the arbitration award...

Fourth DCA Holds A Stay is NOT Required While A Motion to Compel Arbitration is on Appeal

Posted on January 04, 2008
Sometimes technicalities can override common sense. Such may be the case in Open MRI of Okeechobee, LLC, Andrew S. Galant, Andrew T. Walker and Henry R. Zayas v. Peter Aldana, Iqbal Ahmed, and John Chang. We do not know the nature of the dispute but we do know the defendants lost a motion to compel arbitration and appealed...

First DCA Rules on Waiver of Arbitration in Collective Bargaining Case

Posted on January 02, 2008
The question of waiver of arbitration continues to be a hot topic and, arguably, this case will not help clear the differences of opinion among the various district courts of appeal. The case of City of Jacksonville, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office v...

Five Ways to Bind a Non-Signatory -- But Not The CEO of a Party

Posted on December 20, 2007
The Fourth District handed down a denial of arbitration in Mark J. Johnson v. Carl Pires, Everett Pires, Marc Miller and All Top Granite, Inc. This case is interesting as the court held that the CEO (Johnson) who signed the contract on behalf of his company was not individually bound to arbitrate...

4th DCA Agains Re-Visits Broad Arbitration Language and the Arbitrability of Statutory Claims

Posted on December 18, 2007
More and more, Florida courts are consistently ruling on the breadth of arbitration clauses based upon their wording. We've reported on this quite a bit, most recently another 4th DCA case, Florida Environmental Services, Inc. v. Michael and Cher Rentoumis, where the court discussed "all disputes," "arising under, and "arising out of and relating to...

Can A State Prohibit a Nursing Home From Using an Arbitration Clause?

Posted on December 13, 2007
In early 2003, at the apex of nursing home litigation and the emergence of long term care arbitration provisions, the Center for Medicare and Medical Services fired a warning shot at the nursing home industry with this memo, suggesting there were going to be repercussions for using arbitration clauses in long term care admission agreements...

Previous | Next

Related Law Bulletins

Will Binding Arbitration Replace Med-Mal Lawsuits?
Found via Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report:"The use of binding ar...