Case Name: Nenyé EGWUATU, individually, and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Appellant, v. SOUTH LUBES, INC., a Florida corporation, and Ward Huntley, an individual, Appellees
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 2008-02-06
Citations: 976 So. 2d 50
Docket Number: No. 1D07-0977
Parties: Nenyé EGWUATU, individually, and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Appellant, v. SOUTH LUBES, INC., a Florida corporation, and Ward Huntley, an individual, Appellees.
Judges: WEBSTER, J., concurs.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 976
Pages: 50–56

Head Matter:
Nenyé EGWUATU, individually, and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Appellant, v. SOUTH LUBES, INC., a Florida corporation, and Ward Huntley, an individual, Appellees.
No. 1D07-0977.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.
Feb. 6, 2008.
Rehearing Denied March 12, 2008.
Bryan S. Gowdy of Mills & Creed, P.A., Jacksonville; J. Daniel Clark of Clark & Martino, P.A., Tampa; and J. Michael Lin-dell of Lindell, Farson & Pincket, Jacksonville, for Appellant.
P. Campbell Ford of Ford Miller & Wainer, Jacksonville; and Diane H. Tutt, Davie, for Appellees.

Opinion:
PADOVANO, J.
This is an appeal from a nonfinal order denying a motion for class certification. Because the plaintiff has failed to show that the trial court's decision to deny the motion was an abuse of judicial discretion, we affirm.
South Lubes, Inc., provides routine motor vehicle service, including oil changes. The company operates under the name "Jiffy Lube" in Florida and in other Southeastern states. Ward Huntley is its president. The plaintiff, Nenyé Egwuatu, was a customer at a Jiffy Lube facility in Duval County. He seeks to represent a class of consumers in a complaint against South Lubes and Huntley for an alleged violation of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
The defendants offered a service known as the "Signature Service Oil Change" for an advertised price of $27.99 plus an environmental fee, which was added in varying amounts in a range of $1.00 to $2.50 per vehicle. The plaintiff alleged that the assessment of the fee was a deceptive trade practice, in that it appeared to be a tax the company was collecting from consumers. Alternatively, he alleged that the fee was presented as a direct expense the company was passing on to consumers.
In the hearing on the motion for class certification, the trial court considered only the plaintiffs theory that the fee appeared to be a tax. Prior to the hearing, the defendants had filed a motion in limine to exclude evidence of the expenses they incurred in disposing of used motor oil. The trial judge granted this motion and concluded that the effect of the decision was to eliminate the alternative theory that the fee appeared to be a direct cost. As the trial judge explained, the order in limine "narrowed the class certification issue . to the plaintiffs allegation that the environmental fee had the appearance of a tax and he and other consumers paid the fee because they believed it to be a tax."
After hearing two days of testimony and argument, the trial court denied the motion for class certification. The court con- eluded that the plaintiff had not established commonality, adequacy, numerosity or typicality as required by rule 1.220(a) of the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure and that the plaintiff had failed to establish the general prerequisites for class certification under either rule 1.220(b)(2) or (b)(3). In support of these conclusions, the court found that there were individualized differences among the potential plaintiffs as to whether they paid the fee or knew that the fee was not a tax. The plaintiff seeks review of this order by appeal.
This court has jurisdiction to hear an appeal from a nonfinal order denying a motion for class certification. See Fla.R.App. P. 9.130(a)(6); Whigum v. Heilig-Meyers Furniture, Inc., 682 So.2d 643 (Fla. 1st DCA 1996). Trial courts have discretion to determine whether a cause of action by an individual plaintiff can be asserted on behalf of a class of plaintiffs. See Execu-Tech Bus. Sys., Inc. v. Appleton Papers, 743 So.2d 19 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999). We therefore review the order denying the motion for class certification in this case by the abuse of discretion standard.
In the argument before this court, the plaintiff has attempted to revive his theory that the defendant deceived customers by leading them to believe the fee was a direct expense incurred in the disposal of used oil. We decline to consider this argument because we are unable to determine whether it was preserved for review, and because it would not lead us to a different conclusion in any event.
The trial judge stated that the order granting the motion in limine had the effect of narrowing the issues to the tax theory. It is fair to assume that in the course of ruling on the motion in limine the trial judge concluded for some reason that the direct expense theory was no longer at issue. Yet the plaintiff has not supplied this court with a transcript of that hearing on the motion in limine. Consequently, we do not know whether the direct expense argument was waived or, if it was preserved for appellate review, whether it was properly rejected.
We would not remand this case for consideration of the plaintiffs direct cost argument in any event, because it appears to us that the argument is merely another way of expressing his main point: the defendants collected a fee that did not represent a true expense of any kind. Whether customers thought the fee was a tax or that it was an expense the defendants were passing along to its customers is not, in our view, significant to the issues on class certification. The point of the plaintiffs case is that the environmental fee was represented as a cost of doing business when in fact it was a profit to the defendants.
On the merits of the appeal, the plaintiff contends that this court's decision in Davis v. Powertel, Inc., 776 So.2d 971 (Fla. 1st DCA 2001) compels reversal of the trial court's order denying class certification. We held in Powertel that individual differences on the issue of reliance did not preclude class litigation of a trade practices claim, because reliance was not an element of the cause of action. The defendant in that case had been selling brand name cellular telephones without disclosing the fact that the phones had been modified to render them inoperable with any other cellular service provider. Because this deceptive practice affected all of the cellular phone service customers in the same way, we concluded that the trial court erred in dismissing the complaint filed on behalf of the class.
The significance of the Powertel opinion is that it explains a key difference between a statutory action for a violation of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act and a common law action for fraud. Under Florida law, multiple claims of intrinsic fraud cannot meet the test of commonality under rule 1.220(a)(2), because the issue of reliance is unique to each person who is alleged to have been defrauded. See Osceola Groves, Inc. v. Wiley, 78 So.2d 700 (Fla.1955); Lance v. Wade, 457 So.2d 1008 (Fla.1984). This principle precludes class litigation of a claim of intrinsic fraud as a matter of course. In contrast, class litigation is not necessarily precluded in a statutory cause of action for a deceptive trade practice under section 501.211(2), Florida Statutes. See Powertel; Latman v. Costa Cruise Lines, N.V., 758 So.2d 699 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000). Because the plaintiffs need not prove reliance to establish a claim under the statute, the differences that might exist on this point do not foreclose the possibility of class litigation, as they would in a claim of fraud.
It does not follow, however, that because class litigation is possible in a statutory action for a deceptive trade practice, that it will always be appropriate. To the contrary, the plaintiff still has the burden in a deceptive trade practice case to establish all of the prerequisites for class litigation. We did not suggest otherwise in Powertel. The absence of the element of reliance merely removes the legal obstacle to class litigation that exists in fraud cases. It does not guarantee that a deceptive trade practice claim will be amenable to class litigation. There might be many other reasons why class certification would be inappropriate.
In the present case, the trial court concluded that class litigation would be impractical because there would be many differences in the facts supporting the claims of the individual plaintiffs. This conclusion was based on the fact that the defendants have employed a variety of methods over the years to inform customers that the environmental fee was not a tax. For example, they posted menu boards stating that the environmental fee was added for the handling of hazardous products; they gave verbal explanations of the fee to customers who asked about it; they posted in all of their stores a letter from defendant Huntley explaining the fee; and they posted a fee notice explaining the environmental fee on written estimates exceeding $100. In these circumstances, the trial court reasoned that it would be necessary to make a number of individual inquiries to determine which potential class members had actual knowledge that the fee was not a tax.
Additionally, the trial court noted that some of the defendants' commercial customers did not use the defendants' service exclusively but that they also did business with other oil change companies. These customers must have known that the environmental fee the defendants charged was not a tax, because the other oil change companies they were doing business with did not charge it. Hence, the court concluded that an individualized inquiry would be required to determine the facts of each of the commercial customer's experience with the defendants and whether that customer knew that the fee was not a tax.
In view of this evidence, we could not conclude that the trial court's decision to deny class certification was an abuse of judicial discretion. To the contrary, it appears to be the product of good judgment. For these reasons, we affirm the order.
Affirmed.
WEBSTER, J., concurs.
POLSTON, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part by separate opinion.
. We stand by this holding, even though our decision in Powertel has been criticized by other courts. See Philip Morris USA, Inc. v. Hines, 883 So.2d 292 (Fla. 4th DCA 2003); Black Diamond Properties, Inc. v. Haines, 940 So.2d 1176 (Fla. 5th DCA 2006). In his concurring opinion in Powertel, Judge Webster noted that the Legislature was free to amend the statute to include the element of reliance if it wished to do so. It has been six years since Judge Webster made that observation, and the statute has not been amended. We think that our reading of the statute was correct at the time of the Powertel decision for the reasons given in the opinion and that it continues to be correct.