Case Name: MERCEDES HOMES, INC., A Florida Corporation, Appellant, v. Luis R. COLON, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 2007-08-10
Citations: 966 So. 2d 10
Docket Number: No. 5D05-4292
Parties: MERCEDES HOMES, INC., A Florida Corporation, Appellant, v. Luis R. COLON, Appellee.
Judges: ORFINGER, J., concurs.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 966
Pages: 10–22

Head Matter:
MERCEDES HOMES, INC., A Florida Corporation, Appellant, v. Luis R. COLON, Appellee.
No. 5D05-4292.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District.
Aug. 10, 2007.
Rehearing Denied Oct. 11, 2007.
David B. Weinstein and Kimberly S. Mello of Greenberg Traurig, P.A., Tampa, for Appellant.
Michael Manglardi of Attorneys Trial Group, Orlando, and Robert Hornstein, Jacksonville, for Appellee.

Opinion:
PALMER, C.J.
Mercedes Homes, Inc. (Mercedes) appeals an order entered by the trial court denying its motion to compel arbitration and to stay litigation. Determining that Mercedes was entitled to have its motion to compel arbitration granted, we reverse.
Luis Colon entered into a contract with Mercedes for the construction of a home. The contract included a provision requiring Mercedes to install sod on Colon's yard. Eleven days after closing on his home, Colon fell while walking in his yard. He thereafter filed suit against Mercedes, alleging negligent installation of the sod and resulting bodily injury.
Mercedes responded by filing a motion to compel arbitration and to stay the litigation based on an arbitration agreement entered into between the parties in connection with a home warranty purchased by Colon from Mercedes. The arbitration agreement, in pertinent part, reads as follows:
ARBITRATION Any and all claims, disputes and controversies by or between the Homeowner, the Builder, HBW VI, or any combination of the foregoing, arising from or related to this Warranty, to the subject Home, to any defect in or to the subject Home or the real property on which the subject Home is situated, or the sale of the subject Home by the Builder, including without limitation, any claim of breach of contract, negligent or intentional misrepresentation or nondisclosure in the inducement, execution or performance of any contract, including this arbitration agreement, and breach of any alleged duty of good faith and fair dealing, shall be submitted to arbitration .
This arbitration agreement shall be deemed to be a self-executing arbitration agreement. Any disputes concerning the interpretation or the enforceability of this arbitration agreement, including without limitation, its revoca-bility or voidability for any cause, the scope of arbitrable issues, and any defense based upon waiver, estoppel or laches, shall be decided by the arbitrator.
(Emphasis added). In the same home warranty document, negligence suits were specifically excluded from coverage under the warranty by the following language:
You are waiving the right to seek damages or other legal or equitable remedies from your Builder, his subcontractors, agents, vendors, suppliers, design professionals and materialmen, under any other common law or statutory theory of liability, including but not limited to negligence and strict liability. Your only remedy in the event of a defect in or to your Home or in or to the real property on which your Home is situated is the coverage provided to you under this express limited warranty.
(Emphasis added).
In filing its motion to compel arbitration, Mercedes argued that Colon's personal injury claim was arbitrable and further that any dispute about its arbi-trability must be decided by the arbitrator, not the trial court. Colon responded by arguing that he was not required to arbitrate because his negligence claim was excluded from the express provisions of the warranty and, thus, also excluded from the arbitration agreement. Colon did not contend that the arbitration agreement was invalid or unenforceable because of unconscionability, lack of consideration, misrepresentation, or any other cause. Rather, he simply argued that his negligence claim was beyond the scope of the arbitration agreement because the home warranty agreement which contains the arbitration agreement excludes claims for negligence. After conducting a hearing, the trial court entered a written order denying Mercedes' motion to compel arbitration. This appeal timely followed.
Mercedes argues that the trial court erred in deciding the scope of the instant arbitration argument because the parties had vested the authority to make that decision in the arbitrator. We agree.
The arbitration agreement requires the arbitrator, not the trial court, to determine the scope of arbitrable issues. The language of the arbitration agreement is clear:
Any disputes concerning the interpretation or the enforceability of this arbitration agreement, including without limitation, its revocability or voidability for any cause, the scope of arbitrable issues, and any defense based upon waiver, es-toppel or laches, shall be decided by the arbitrator.
The parties' intent to vest the arbitrator with broad authority is demonstrated by the expansive language of the arbitration agreement. Under the arbitration agreement, the arbitrator is empowered to determine any and all claims, disputes, and controversies arising from or related to the warranty and to any defect in or to Colon's home or the real property on which the home is situated. By the terms of the arbitration agreement, the parties agreed to submit claims to arbitration that were far broader than claims made under the warranty agreement, as long as those claims related to the subject home or the real property.
Our conclusion is compelled by the case of First Options of Chicago, Inc. v. Kaplan, 514 U.S. 938, 115 S.Ct. 1920, 131 L.Ed.2d 985 (1995). In First Options, Mr. and Mrs. Kaplan, along with Mr. Kaplan's wholly owned investment, company, MKI, were in a dispute- with First Options resulting from a "workout agreement." The workout agreement was embodied in four documents and governed the working out of debts owed by the Kaplans and MKI to First Options. When First Options' demands for payment went unsatisfied, it sought arbitration under an arbitration agreement contained in the workout document. MKI had signed the workout document containing the arbitration agreement; the Kap-lans had not. MKI submitted to arbitration but the Kaplans objected, arguing that their dispute was not arbitrable. The arbitrators decided they had the authority to rule on the merits and ruled in favor of First Options. Although the district court confirmed the award, the circuit court of appeals reversed, holding that the Kaplans' dispute was not arbitra-ble. The Supreme Court granted certio-rari to consider two questions regarding the standard the court of appeals used to review the determination that the Kap-lans' dispute was arbitrable.
The Supreme Court first identified the three types of disagreements involved:
First, the Kaplans and First Options disagree about whether the Kaplans are personally hable for MKI's debt to First Options. That disagreement makes up the merits of the dispute. Second, they disagree about whether they agreed to arbitrate the merits. That disagreement is about the arbitrability of the dispute. Third, they disagree about who should have the primary power to decide the second matter. Does that power belong primarily to the arbitrators (because the court reviews their arbitra-bility decision deferentially) or to the court (because the court makes up its mind about arbitrability independently)? We consider here only this third question.
First Options, 514 U.S. at 942, 115 S.Ct. 1920.
The Supreme Court, thereafter, set forth the following standard for considering "who" should decide the arbitrability of a dispute:
Wé believe the answer to the "who" question (i.e., the standard-of-review question) is fairly simple. Just as the arbitrability of the merits of a' dispute depends upon whether the parties agreed to arbitrate that dispute, so the question "who has the primary power to decide arbitrability" turns upon what the parties agreed about that matter. Did the parties agree to submit the arbi-trability question itself to arbitration? If so, then the court's standard for reviewing the arbitrator's decision about that matter should not differ from the standard courts apply when they review any other matter that parties have agreed to arbitrate. That is to say, the court should give considerable leeway to the arbitrator, setting aside his or her decision only in certain narrow circumstances. If, on the other hand, the parties did not agree to submit the arbitra-bility question itself to arbitration, then the court should decide that question just as it would decide any other' question that the parties did not submit to arbitration, namely, independently. These two answers flow inexorably from the fact that arbitration is simply á matter of contract between the parties; it is a way to resolve those disputes-but only those disputes-that the parties have agreed to sübmit to arbitration.
We agree with First Options, therefore, that a court must defer to an arbitrator's arbitrability decision when the parties submitted that matter to arbitration. When deciding whether the parties agreed to arbitrate a certain matter (including arbitrability), courts generally (though with a qualification we discuss below) should apply ordinary state-law principles that govern the formation of contracts.
Courts should not assume that the parties agreed to arbitrate arbitrability unless there is "clea[r] and unmistakabl[e]" evidence that they did so.
First Options, 514 U.S. at 943-44, 115 S.Ct. 1920 (quoting AT & T Technologies, Inc. v. Communications Workers, 475 U.S. 643, 649, 106 S.Ct. 1415, 89 L.Ed.2d 648 (1986) (internal citations omitted)).
In Howsam v. Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc., 537 U.S. 79, 83, 123 S.Ct. 588, 154 L.Ed.2d 491 (2002), the Supreme Court reiterated that
[t]he question whether the parties have submitted a particular dispute to arbitration, i.e., the "question of arbitrability" is an issue for judicial determination [ujnless the parties clearly and unmistakably provide otherwise.
(quoting AT & T Technologies, Inc., 475 U.S. at 649, 106 S.Ct. 1415).
Here, the language of the arbitration agreement clearly and unmistakably requires the arbitrator to decide, in the first instance, the scope of the arbitration provision and the enforceability of any purported limitation of Mr. Colon's right to pursue a claim for personal injuries. Thus, the trial court erred in denying Mercedes' motion to compel arbitration.
The Second District Court of Appeal reached the same conclusion in Mercedes Homes, Inc. v. Rosario, 920 So.2d 1254 (Fla. 2d DCA 2006). In that case, the Rosarios contracted with Mercedes to build a house and they received the same home warranty and arbitration agreement at issue in this case. After they moved in, the Rosarios noticed that the windows were leaking, causing mold to grow. They sued Mercedes for breach of contract, violation of Florida's building code, violation of Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, and fraudulent concealment. Mercedes moved to compel arbitration. Among other things, the Rosarios argued that the arbitration agreement did not apply because the warranty excluded coverage for violations of the building code, mold damage, and personal injury. The Second District rejected the Rosarios' argument, holding that the trial court should have compelled arbitration because the arbitration agreement "clearly states that disputes regarding the interpretation of the arbitration clause, including the scope of arbitrable issues, will be decided by the arbitrator." Rosario, 920 So.2d at 1256.
In closing, we note that the dissent argues that, at the least, we should remand the case to the trial court to consider the issue of unconscionability. However, Colon's issues on appeal did not include either an argument that the provision was unconscionable or a request that we remand for consideration of unconscionability. Accordingly, it would not be proper for us to remand for that purpose. See Norris v. Edwin W. Peck, Inc., 381 So.2d 353 (Fla. 5th DCA 1980).
We reverse and remand for further action consistent with this opinion.
REVERSED and REMANDED.
ORFINGER, J., concurs.
GRIFFIN, J., dissents with opinion.
. This court has jurisdiction pursuant to Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.130(a)(3)(C)(iv).