FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL

STATE OF FLORIDA

_____________________________

No. 1D2021-3296

_____________________________

JODY MEYER,

Appellant,

v.

U-HAUL CO OF FLORIDA, and

CINDY PRONTO,

Appellees.

_____________________________

On appeal from the Circuit Court for Alachua County.

Monica J. Brasington, Judge.

September 4, 2024

PER CURIAM.

AFFIRMED.

M.K. THOMAS and LONG, JJ., concur; TANENBAUM, J., dissents with 

opinion.

_____________________________

Not final until disposition of any timely and 

authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or 

9.331.

_____________________________
2

TANENBAUM, J., dissenting.

In this appeal, the court reviews a non-final order compelling 

Jody Meyer to arbitrate his slip-and-fall suit against U-Haul 

Company of Florida and one of its location managers (collectively 

referred to as “U-Haul”). Embedded in a standard storage-unit 

lease, the parties’ arbitration agreement is broad, defining a 

“claim” to include “all legal theories,” such as “all statutory and 

tort claims,” but at the same time limiting claims subject to 

arbitration to those “arising out of or relating to,” or “relating in 

any way to” the parties’ rental agreement itself, the transaction it 

reflects, and performance under the agreement, thereby making it 

coextensive with the reach of federal policy requiring 

enforceability of arbitration agreements of “rental” dealings. 

Meyer’s suit, however, does not rely on any terms of the lease or 

the dealings that led to the lease, pursuing damages based on a 

breached duty of care owed the public at large, never even 

mentioning the rental agreement. It was error for the trial court to 

have forced Meyer out of court and away from his constitutional 

right to a jury trial on his suit based on the arbitration agreement, 

there being no nexus between his theory of liability and the 

storage-unit rental reflected in the lease, a required element under 

federal policy favoring enforceability of arbitration agreements. 

We should be vacating the trial court’s arbitration order, not 

affirming it.

I

A

The “UHaul Self Storage Rental Agreement” executed by 

Meyer entitled him to usage of a “10x25x9” space in return for 

$158.39 in monthly rent. The contract was just over four pages 

long. The second page notified Meyer that “Protecting your 

property in storage is your responsibility,” making clear that UHaul would not be liable for “any loss or damage that occurs to my 

goods while in storage.” The third page had lots of details about 

Meyer’s obligations as a tenant: pay the rent on time; financial 

consequences if he fails to; and obey whatever policies, procedures, 

and restrictions that U-Haul imposes regarding access to his 

assigned room. Highlighted twice on this page was U-Haul’s 

renunciation of any responsibility for loss or damage to Meyer’s 
3

property stored on the premises, even expressly stating that it was 

“not a bailee of [Meyer’s] property.” Indeed, U-Haul took on no 

duties or responsibilities at all in the contract, promising only to 

allow Meyer “access to the rental space [] for the purpose of storing 

and removing property stored in that rental space” but foreclosing 

use of the space for “residential purposes or operation of a 

business.”

At the top of the fourth page, U-Haul once again reminded 

Meyer that it took no responsibility for his property: If he were to 

ask U-Haul to accept, on his behalf, “articles delivered for [him] 

within [his] leased space or other area designated by [U-Haul],” UHaul would “not be liable for whatever reason including 

negligence, for any article delivered . . . that is lost, stolen, 

misplaced, damaged or destroyed.”

The remainder of the document set out the “U-Haul 

Arbitration Agreement.” The key provision stated as follows:

You and U-Haul agree that any and all Claims (“Claims”

as defined below) between You and U-Haul relating in 

any way to your rental or purchase from U-Haul shall be 

submitted to binding Arbitration before the American 

Arbitration Association (“AAA”) in accordance with the 

AAA Commercial Arbitration Rules and Supplementary 

Procedures for Consumer-Related Disputes (“AAA 

Rules”), and judgment may be entered on the Arbitration 

award by a Court of competent jurisdiction.

(emphasis supplied). The arbitration agreement then defined the 

term “Claims”

broadly [] to include any dispute, Claim or cause of action 

arising out of or relating to, Your dealings with U-Haul, 

including but not limited to, the reservation and/or 

reservation process, use of any affiliated U-Haul website, 

advertising, rental or sales contract, or Equipment. Claim 

includes any and all legal theories, including but not 

limited to, all statutory and tort claims, that may be 

asserted by You.

(emphasis supplied). 
4

B

About four months after executing the rental contract, Meyer 

allegedly slipped and fell on construction dust while walking to his 

unit at the U-Haul facility, suffering bodily injury as a result. In 

his complaint for damages, Meyer alleged that U-Haul and Cindy 

Proto (a location manager) were negligent, purportedly by failing 

to clear the dust and failing to warn of its presence, making them 

liable for his resulting injury. The complaint did not rely on or 

mention the rental contract as creating a special responsibility 

owed to Meyer, referencing instead U-Haul’s and Proto’s “ow[ing] 

its invitees [as members of “the general public”] a duty to exercise 

reasonable care for their safety.” Meyer requested damages and 

costs and demanded a jury trial.

U-Haul and Proto moved to abate the suit and compel 

arbitration, asserting Meyer’s suit fell within the rental contract’s 

arbitration provision. Following a hearing, the trial court issued 

the order compelling arbitration, keying on the arbitration 

agreement’s “express reference to ‘tort claims,’” a feature absent in 

the seminal case Seifert v. U.S. Home Corp., 750 So. 2d 633 (Fla. 

1999), leading the trial court to conclude the arbitration provision

“expressly and unambiguously” applies to mandate arbitration of 

Meyer’s personal injury claim, but without explaining how it 

determined there was a “sufficient nexus” between that claim and 

the rental contract. That order now is with us on direct review. See

Fla. R. App. P. 9.130(a)(3)(I). Indeed, no nexus does exist, despite 

one still being required to some substantive degree even for 

arbitration agreements expressly covering torts. That analysis is 

where I turn next.

II

A

National public policy, reflected in the Federal Arbitration Act 

(“FAA”), favors enforcement of arbitration agreements. See 9 

U.S.C. § 2 (requiring an arbitration provision in a contract 

involving commerce to be treated as “valid, irrevocable, and 

enforceable”); Moses H. Cone Mem’l Hosp. v. Mercury Constr.

Corp., 460 U.S. 1, 24 (1983) (explaining that the FAA declares “a 

liberal federal policy favoring arbitration agreements, 
5

notwithstanding any state substantive or procedural policies to the 

contrary” and creates “federal substantive law of arbitrability”); 

see also Seifert v. U.S. Home Corp., 750 So. 2d 633, 636 (Fla. 1999) 

(“Today, arbitration provisions are common, and their use 

generally favored by the courts.”). The intent behind this law, 

“applicable in state as well as federal courts,” is “to foreclose state 

legislative attempts to undercut the enforceability of arbitration 

agreements.” Southland Corp. v. Keating, 465 U.S. 1, 16 (1984); see 

Scherk v. Alberto-Culver Co., 417 U.S. 506, 510–11 (1974)

(characterizing the FAA as “reversing centuries of judicial hostility 

to arbitration agreements”); id. at 510 n.4 (noting how “English 

courts traditionally considered irrevocable arbitration agreements 

as ‘ousting’ the courts of jurisdiction, and refused to enforce such 

agreements for this reason,” a view “adopted by American courts 

as part of the common law up to the time of the adoption of the” 

FAA); Shotts v. OP Winter Haven, Inc., 86 So. 3d 456, 461–62 (Fla. 

2011) (noting how the FAA “was intended to reverse the 

longstanding judicial hostility toward arbitration that had existed 

at English common law and that had been imported by American 

courts”).

Still, arbitration agreements are contracts, construed by 

courts as such. See AT & T Techs., Inc. v. Commc’ns Workers of 

Am., 475 U.S. 643, 648 (1986) (observing that “arbitration is a 

matter of contract” (internal quotation and citation omitted)); 

Seifert, 750 So. 2d at 636 (explaining that “because arbitration 

provisions are contractual in nature, construction of such 

provisions and the contracts in which they appear remains a 

matter of contract interpretation”). The FAA simply “places 

arbitration agreements on an equal footing with other contracts, 

and requires courts to enforce them according to their terms.” 

Rent-A-Ctr., W., Inc. v. Jackson, 561 U.S. 63, 67 (2010). In practical 

terms, courts may construe arbitration agreements in accordance 

with state contract jurisprudence of general applicability; they 

may not apply a “state-law principle that takes its meaning 

precisely from the fact that a contract to arbitrate is at issue.”

Perry v. Thomas, 482 U.S. 483, 492 n.9 (1987). That is, “[a] court 

may not, then, in assessing the rights of litigants to enforce an 

arbitration agreement, construe that agreement in a manner 

different from that in which it otherwise construes nonarbitration 

agreements under state law.” Id.; see Dr.’s Assocs., Inc. v. 
6

Casarotto, 517 U.S. 681, 686–87 (1996) (“Courts may not, however, 

invalidate arbitration agreements under state laws applicable only

to arbitration provisions.”). 

This appeal, though, is not about ensuring an arbitration 

provision receives the proper, “equal footing” treatment. We should 

look here to determine, not whether Meyer and U-Haul have a 

valid arbitration agreement, but what they agreed to arbitrate, 

remembering that “[a]rbitration is strictly a matter of consent, and 

thus is a way to resolve those disputes—but only those disputes—

that the parties have agreed to submit to arbitration.” Granite 

Rock Co. v. Int’l Broth. of Teamsters, 561 U.S. 287, 299 (2010)

(internal quotation and citations omitted); see Mastrobuono v. 

Shearson Lehman Hutton, Inc., 514 U.S. 52, 57 (1995) (“[T]he 

FAA’s proarbitration policy does not operate without regard to the 

wishes of the contracting parties.”). “A natural corollary of this rule 

is that no party may be forced to submit a dispute to arbitration 

that the party did not intend and agree to arbitrate.” Seifert, 750 

So. 2d at 636; cf. Granite Rock Co., 561 U.S. at 303 (explaining that 

“the presumption favoring arbitration . . . derives its legitimacy 

from[] a judicial conclusion that arbitration of a particular dispute 

is what the parties intended because their express agreement . . . 

is legally enforceable and best construed to encompass the 

dispute”).

The court should be careful here. Forcing Meyer to arbitrate 

his tort claim outside a court, against the parties’ contractual 

intent, would be to deprive Meyer of his “rights to a trial by jury, 

due process and access to the courts.” Seifert, 750 So. 2d at 642; cf.

Glob. Travel Mktg., Inc. v. Shea, 908 So. 2d 392, 398 (Fla. 2005)

(treating an arbitration agreement as a contractual 

relinquishment of “the rights of access to courts and trial by jury”); 

see Art. I, § 21, Fla. Const. (guaranteeing access to Florida’s courts 

for “redress of any injury”); Art. I, § 22, Fla. Const. (guaranteeing 

that the right to a jury trial “remain[s] inviolate”).1 Yet, as we 

1 As with a plea agreement in a criminal proceeding, an 

arbitration agreement constitutes a waiver of the constitutional 

right to a jury trial. In a civil case, a party may waive his or her 

constitutional right to a jury trial, and that waiver may be express 

or implied. In re Shambow’s Est., 15 So. 2d 837, 837 (Fla. 1943). 
7

“apply[] general state-law principles of contract interpretation,” 

here, and put the arbitration provision on “equal footing” with any 

other contract, we apparently still must give “due regard . . . to the 

federal policy favoring arbitration,” resolving “ambiguities as to 

the scope of the arbitration clause itself . . . in favor of arbitration.” 

Volt Info. Scis., Inc. v. Bd. of Trs. of Leland Stanford Junior Univ., 

489 U.S. 468, 475–76 (1989) (internal citation omitted); see Moses 

H. Cone Mem’l Hosp., 460 U.S. at 24–25 (“The Arbitration Act 

establishes that, as a matter of federal law, any doubts concerning 

the scope of arbitrable issues should be resolved in favor of 

arbitration. . . .”).

Now, this principle is fine, as far as it goes. Recall that I am 

talking about a federal law, Congress having enacted the FAA 

pursuant to the enumerated power “[t]o regulate Commerce . . . 

among the several States.” Art. I, § 8, U.S. CONST. The FAA 

naturally tracks that power, requiring for its applicability that the 

contract containing the arbitration provision “evidenc[e] a 

transaction involving commerce” among the States, territories, or 

foreign nations. 9 U.S.C. § 2; see also 9 U.S.C. § 1 (defining 

“commerce”). The FAA’s arbitrability provision keys off that 

transaction and the contract reflecting it, extending the national 

arbitration policy only to controversies “arising out of” the 

following: the contract of which the arbitration provision at issue 

is a part, a “transaction” under that contract, or a “refusal to 

perform” any part of the underlying contract. 9 U.S.C. § 2.2

Whether a cause of action sounds in contract or in tort is of no 

matter to determining the reach of the FAA policy. What matters—

for FAA purposes—is that the dispute to be arbitrated stems from 

the formation or interpretation of the contract, the business

Consent to such a waiver, though, “must be manifested by 

affirmative action such as a specific waiver in writing or by 

announcement in open court.” Curbelo v. Ullman, 571 So. 2d 443, 

444 (Fla. 1990) (internal quotation omitted).

2 The FAA also applies to agreements to arbitrate alreadyexisting controversies “arising out of such a contract, transaction, 

or refusal[.]” 9 U.S.C. § 2. We do not have a separate, post hoc 

arbitration agreement like that here.
8

exchange contemplated by that contract, or the performance or 

nonperformance under the contract’s terms. Any other dispute 

covered by the terms of an arbitration provision would not be 

subject to federal arbitration policy, including its requirement that 

courts construe ambiguities in favor of arbitration (and against the 

constitutional rights to court access and a jury trial) when dealing 

with a broad arbitration provision purporting to cover tort suits 

unmoored to the contract, the underlying transaction, and the 

parties’ performance of the contract terms.

B

Allow me now to turn to both the arbitration agreement in the 

U-Haul rental contract and Meyer’s tort suit. Even though the last 

sentence of the definition for “claim” mentions “statutory and tort 

claims”—on which the trial court focused—the term remains 

limited by one or both of two participial phrases: “relating in any 

way to your rental or purchase from U-Haul,” and “arising out of 

or relating to, Your dealings with U-Haul.” (emphases supplied). 

The first refers to the “transaction” just mentioned in the

preceding subpart, the second to the contract and performance 

thereunder. It is clear, then, that the intent here was to make the 

reach of this arbitration agreement commensurate with that of the 

FAA’s policy, as described above—covering contract and tort

claims stemming from the formation and interpretation of the 

rental agreement, from the rental of the storage unit, and from 

performance under the agreement.3 Because any claim is limited 

by the terms just discussed, the mention of “tort” in the definition 

of “claim” should not be read to extend arbitrability any further 

than the FAA protections.

Looking at Meyer’s complaint, the tort suit has nothing to do 

with any of these. The complaint instead purports to state run-ofthe-mine slip-and-fall causes of action, asserting that Meyer 

entered a U-Haul facility open to the general public and slipped on 

construction dust that U-Haul should have known about and 

cleaned up, relying on only a general, common-law duty of care 

3 This conclusion finds support in the arbitration agreement’s 

proviso that it is to “be construed and interpreted under the 

[FAA].”
9

owed by U-Haul to any member of the public visiting one of its 

facilities, not just a renter of one of its storage units. The complaint 

makes no mention of any special duty or obligation arising out of 

the rental agreement. 

It is that missing connection between the tort suit and the UHaul rental agreement that militates in favor of vacating the trial 

court’s order. Our supreme court tells us that “even in contracts 

containing broad arbitration provisions, the determination of 

whether a particular claim must be submitted to arbitration 

necessarily depends on the existence of some nexus between the 

dispute and the contract containing the arbitration clause,” stating 

a principle that comports with the federal policy described in the 

preceding subpart. Seifert, 750 So. 2d at 638; cf. Telecom Italia, 

SpA v. Wholesale Telecom Corp., 248 F.3d 1109, 1116 (11th Cir. 

2001) (“Disputes that are not related—with at least some 

directness—to performance of duties specified by the contract do 

not count as disputes ‘arising out of’ the contract, and are not 

covered by the standard arbitration clause.” (emphasis supplied)). 

Seeing that the U-Haul arbitration agreement included “torts,” the 

trial court seemingly assumed from there that “the mere fact that 

the dispute would not have arisen but for the existence of the 

contract and consequent relationship between the parties” was 

sufficient “by itself to transform a dispute into one ‘arising out of 

or relating to’ the agreement,” but the supreme court says 

otherwise. See Seifert, 750 So. 2d at 638 (explaining, to the 

contrary, that this is “insufficient,” that “the mere coincidence that 

the parties in dispute have a contractual relationship will 

ordinarily not be enough to mandate arbitration of the dispute”).

Simply put, inclusion of the word “tort” in an arbitration 

agreement does not create a nexus between it and a tort suit 

between the parties.

Rather, to say a tort claim arises out of or relates to a contract, 

or even to the parties’ dealings or their performance regarding the 

contract, the claim “must, at a minimum, raise some issue the 

resolution of which requires reference to or construction of some 

portion of the contract itself.” Id. Of course, the reference cannot 

be just some passing reference, not a mere mention as background 

for why the plaintiff happened to be at the location where the 

accident happened. The minimum reference must be substantive, 
10

as a source of the duty that was breached or of a special 

relationship giving rise to an obligation not owed to the public at 

large. See id. at 638–39 (discussing approvingly Hersman, Inc. v. 

Fleming Cos., Inc., 19 F.Supp.2d 1282, 1287 (M.D.Ala.1998), aff’d,

180 F.3d 271 (11th Cir.1999), which set out this required 

“relationship between the claims asserted and the underlying 

contractual obligations”); see also id. at 640 (requiring a tort claim, 

for it to be arbitrable under a contract, to stem from the breach of 

a “new dut[y]” created by the parties’ “unique relationship” under 

their contract, rather than breach of a duty generally “imposed by 

law . . . owed to others besides the contracting parties” (internal 

quotation and citation omitted)); id. (agreeing that a suit 

“predicated upon a tort theory of common law negligence unrelated 

to the rights and obligations of the [underlying] contract was not 

contemplated by the parties when the contract was made and 

should not be subject to arbitration”); Jackson v. Shakespeare 

Found., Inc., 108 So. 3d 587, 593 (Fla. 2013) (explaining that even 

under an expansive arbitration agreement “a claim does not have 

a nexus to a contract if it pertains to the breach of a duty otherwise 

imposed by law or in recognition of public policy, such as a duty 

under the general common law owed not only to the contracting 

parties but also to third parties and the public” (citing Seifert, 750 

So. 2d. at 639)).

The supreme court’s later decision in Laizure v. Avante at 

Leesburg, Inc., 109 So. 3d 752 (Fla. 2013) does not require a 

different result. In that case, the court considered the breadth of 

arbitration agreement’s reach: to “any claim based on . . . breach 

of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud or misrepresentation, 

common law or statutory negligence, gross negligence, malpractice 

or a claim based on any departure from accepted standards of 

medical or nursing care”; distinguishing this text from that in 

Seifert, concluding that “the terms of the arbitration agreement in 

[Laizure] specifically ‘contemplated the existence and arbitration 

of future tort claims for personal injuries based on a party’s 

common law negligence.’” Laizure v. Avante at Leesburg, Inc., 109 

So. 3d 752, 758 (Fla. 2013) (quoting Seifert, 750 So. 2d at 642). 

These mentions of “common law” and “statutory negligence,” 

among other theories, mattered in Laizure, however, only because 

the underlying suit stemmed from the services provided under the 
11

parties’ contract, the breached duties arising from a special 

relationship existing between the parties.4

4 The arbitration agreement was part of the parties’ admission 

agreement, requiring arbitration of a claim arising out of or 

relating to the agreement or connected to the resident’s stay at the 

nursing home. Id. at 755. The suit was filed on behalf of a deceased 

nursing-home resident, asserting “against each of the defendants 

a claim for deprivation or infringement of [his] statutory nursing 

home residents’ rights pursuant to the Florida Nursing Home 

Residents’ Rights Act (NHRRA), embodied in chapter 400, Florida 

Statutes (2008).” Id. An alternative wrongful death claim was 

asserted based on the nursing home’s “alleged negligence, 

specifically the failure ‘to render care, treatment and services in a 

reasonably prudent manner and in accordance with accepted 

standards of care and practice in the nursing home facilities 

industry.’” Laizure v. Avante at Leesburg, Inc., 44 So. 3d 1254, 1258 

(Fla. 5th DCA 2010), approved, 109 So. 3d 752 (Fla. 2013). In the 

light of these facts, the conclusion that the tort claims fell under 

the arbitration agreement is quite unremarkable.

The suit in Laizure was based on the decedent’s status as an 

admitted “resident” of the nursing-home defendant at the time, 

challenging the level of care (read: performance) and services 

provided under the parties’ contract. Indeed, chapter 400, Florida 

Statutes, lists “rights and responsibilities of the residents” of a 

nursing home, including a “right to receive adequate and 

appropriate health care and protective and support services,” 

which the facility had to honor. § 400.022, Fla. Stat. The chapter 

also establishes an “exclusive cause of action for negligence or a 

violation of residents’ rights as specified under this part which 

alleges direct or vicarious liability for the personal injury or death 

of a nursing home resident arising from such negligence or 

violation of rights,” one that seeks “damages for such injury or 

death” against the facility. § 400.023(1), Fla. Stat. The suit in 

Laizure depended on the relationship created and the duties owed 

because of the parties’ underlying contract, differentiating the 

decedent’s status from that of a member of the public.
12

By contrast there is no such special relationship underlying 

Meyer’s suit. His

allegations rely on obligations that would extend to 

anyone, third parties as well as [him], who might be 

injured by [U-Haul’s purported] tortious conduct. Indeed, 

it appears [from the complaint’s allegations] to be entirely 

fortuitous that it was [Meyer], and not [another member 

of the public visiting the facility], who was injured as a 

result of the alleged neglect by [U-Haul].

See Seifert, 750 So. 2d at 641. Like the decedent-plaintiff in Seifert, 

it is highly unlikely that Meyer would have been at the U-Haul 

location “but for” the storage-unit contract. But that is all we have 

here—the “existence of such contract,” which by itself is not 

enough to support compelling arbitration of Meyer’s suit, a suit 

bearing no “significant relationship to the contract,” one not 

asserting a duty or obligation of U-Haul arising from or governed 

by it. Id. at 642. Federal policy does not require arbitration here, 

and we should not “stretch” an interpretation of the U-Haul 

arbitration agreement to “waive [Meyer’s constitutional rights” or 

allow it to “be used as a shield to block [Meyer’s] access to a judicial 

forum” for his slip-and-fall suit. See id. (internal quotation and 

citation omitted).

* * *

Meyer cannot be compelled to arbitrate his personal injury 

suit against U-Haul. The requisite nexus between the storage-unit 

rental contract and the complaint’s slip-and-fall allegations is 

lacking. In turn, the trial court’s order compelling arbitration of 

Meyer’s claim was rendered in error, necessitating a vacatur 

rather than the affirmance given by the majority.

_____________________________
13

Donald E. Pinaud of All Florida Justice, LLC, Jacksonville, for 

Appellant.

Thomas A. Valdez, Stevie E. Baker, and Vilma Martinez of 

Quintairos, Prieto, Wood & Boyer, P.A., Tampa and Orlando, for 

Appellees.