Court Opinion

ID: 9959762
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-12 16:03:11.815094+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:18:52.781033
License: Public Domain

FIFTH DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
                STATE OF FLORIDA
                  _____________________________

                       Case No. 5D23-2094
                   LT Case Nos. 2022-CA-6818
                  _____________________________

FLORIDA ROADS TRUCKING, LLC,
CAPPS LAND MANAGEMENT AND
TRUCKING INC., MURUGAN
TRUCKING AND EXCAVATING,
INC.,

    Appellants,

    v.

ZION JACKSONVILLE, LLC, GEC
TRUCKING AND CONSTRUCTION,
INC. f/k/a GEC TRUCKING, INC.,
JASON’S HAULING, INC., THE
WALSH GROUP d/b/a ARCHER
WESTERN CONTRACTORS, LLC,

    Appellees.
                  _____________________________

On appeal from the Circuit Court for Duval County.
Bruce Rutledge Anderson, Jr., Judge.

Francesca M. Stein and Scott A. Cole, of Cole, Scott & Kissane,
P.A., Miami, for Appellants.

Niels P. Murphy and Davis D. Balz, of Murphy & Anderson, P.A.,
Jacksonville, and Andrew Prince Brigham and Trevor S. Hutson,
of Brigham Property Rights Law Firm, PLLC, St. Augustine, for
Appellee, Zion Jacksonville, LLC.
No Appearance for Remaining Appellees.

                           April 12, 2024

PRATT, J.

     The contract in this case provides for arbitration of “[a]ny
controversy or claim of Buyer against Seller or Seller against
Buyer or its surety.” Appellants are not the seller, the buyer, or the
buyer’s surety. Instead, Appellants assert that under a theory of
equitable estoppel, they are entitled to invoke the arbitration
provision and compel arbitration of the seller’s claims against
them. The trial court rejected their argument, and so do we. Under
Florida law, equitable estoppel cannot be used to compel
arbitration of claims that the contracting parties themselves never
agreed to arbitrate, and here, the contracting parties agreed to
arbitrate only claims between the seller, the buyer, and the buyer’s
surety. Therefore, we affirm the trial court’s order denying
Appellants’ motion to stay and compel arbitration.

                                  I.

     Appellee Zion Jacksonville, LLC (“Zion”), owns a large parcel
of undeveloped property in northeast Jacksonville. The property
contains an abundance of a particular kind of sand that The Walsh
Group, d/b/a Archer Western Contractors, LLC (“Archer
Western”), needed to perform a roadway construction project. The
two companies formed a contract under which Archer Western
would pay Zion approximately $4.6 million to excavate designated
sites and remove 850,000 cubic yards of the sand, and then re-
grade the sites to an agreed-upon elevation. The contract
contained the following arbitration language: “Any controversy or
claim of Buyer against Seller or Seller against Buyer or its surety
shall, at the option of Buyer or Buyer’s surety and at any time, be
resolved by arbitration pursuant to rules determined by Buyer.”

   In a separate agreement, Archer Western contracted with
Appellants and with Appellee GEC Trucking and Construction,

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Inc. (collectively, “the Trucking Companies”) * to haul material and
debris. We will spare our readers a dive into all the nitty gritty.
For present purposes, it’s enough to note that Zion eventually sued
Archer Western and the Trucking Companies for litter and
trespass, alleging that between April 2017 and December 2020,
they dug an enormous pit and used the property as a dump site for
mass quantities of sludge and construction debris.

      Archer Western and the Trucking Companies moved to
compel arbitration. The trial court partially granted Archer
Western’s motion and denied the Trucking Companies’ motion in
toto. Another panel of our Court recently held that Archer Western
was entitled to compel arbitration of all Zion’s claims against it.
See The Walsh Group d/b/a Archer Western Contractors, LLC v.
Zion Jacksonville, LLC, 379 So. 3d 571, 576 (Fla. 5th DCA 2024).
In this appeal, the Trucking Companies urge reversal and seek the
same outcome. But they do so from a very different perch: that of
non-parties to the arbitration agreement pursuing a theory of
equitable estoppel. As we shall see, that distinction makes a
difference here.

                                II.

    “‘The standard of review of a trial court’s order on a motion to
compel arbitration is de novo.’” Id. at 574 (quoting Northport
Health Servs. of Fla., LLC v. Louis, 240 So. 3d 120, 122 (Fla. 5th
DCA 2018)).

     The Trucking Companies assert that Zion should be estopped
from refusing to arbitrate its claims against them. The normal
rule, of course, is that “a party cannot compel arbitration under an
arbitration agreement to which it was not a party.” Beck Auto
Sales, Inc. v. Asbury Jax Ford, LLC, 249 So. 3d 765, 767 (Fla. 1st
DCA 2018); accord Olson v. Fla. Living Options, Inc., 210 So. 3d
107, 110 (Fla. 2d DCA 2016); Rolls–Royce PLC v. Royal Caribbean
Cruises LTD., 960 So. 2d 768, 770 (Fla. 3d DCA 2007). However,

    * Archer Western also contracted with Jason’s Hauling, Inc.,

which has not appeared in this appeal, and against which a clerk’s
default was entered below.

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as the Trucking Companies point out, “Florida and federal courts
have recognized that principles of equitable estoppel sometimes
allow a non-signatory to compel arbitration against someone who
had signed an arbitration agreement.” Beck Auto Sales, 249 So. 3d
at 767 (emphasis in original). Courts have done so in two
situations: first, “when the signatory’s claims allege ‘substantially
interdependent and concerted misconduct’ by [another] signatory
and the non-signatory,” and, second, “when the claims relate
directly to the contract and the signatory is relying on the contract
to assert its claims against the non-signatory.” Id. (citing Koechli
v. BIP Int’l, Inc., 870 So. 2d 940, 944 (Fla. 1st DCA 2004); Bailey v.
ERG Enters., LP, 705 F.3d 1311, 1320 (11th Cir. 2013)).

    The Trucking Companies argue that Zion’s claims fit both
paradigms. First, they contend that Zion alleges Archer Western—
a signatory—and the Trucking Companies acted in concert to
dump and conceal waste on Zion’s property. Second, they contend
that resolution of Zion’s claims will require reference to the
contract. Zion’s claims for trespass and illegal dumping, the
argument goes, turn on whether Zion contracted to allow Archer
Western’s and the Trucking Companies’ uses of the property.

     Even assuming arguendo that the Trucking Companies meet
the rubric for equitable estoppel, we still must ask whether the
dispute that they seek to have arbitrated is one that the
arbitration clause covers. It is well-established that “no party may
be forced to submit a dispute to arbitration that the party did not
intend and agree to arbitrate.” Seifert v. U.S. Home Corp., 750 So.
2d 633, 636 (Fla. 1999). It follows that, while equitable estoppel to
some extent puts a non-signatory in a signatory’s shoes, the
doctrine does not “expand the scope of disputes subject to
arbitration.” Beck Auto Sales, 249 So. 3d at 768. For that reason,
courts will not compel arbitration of claims against non-signatories
where the contract does not reflect an agreement to arbitrate such
claims. See, e.g., id. at 767–69 (rejecting a non-signatory’s attempt
to invoke an arbitration clause that “generally limited its
applicability to disputes ‘between the parties’ to the arbitration
agreement”); Kroma Makeup EU, LLC v. Boldface Licensing +
Branding, Inc., 845 F.3d 1351, 1353, 1357 (11th Cir. 2017)
(applying Florida law to hold that a non-signatory cannot compel
arbitration where the contract provides for arbitration of “disputes

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arising between” the contracting parties); cf. Koechli, 870 So. 2d at
945 (“We note that this is not a situation in which the language of
the contract expressly restricts arbitration to the signing
parties.”).

     The contract between Zion and Archer Western provides for
arbitration only of controversies and claims “of [Archer Western]
against [Zion] or [Zion] against [Archer Western] or its surety.”
The Trucking Companies are not Archer Western or its surety, so
the claims that they seek to arbitrate plainly fall outside the scope
of the arbitration clause. Therefore, even if the Trucking
Companies can invoke equitable estoppel, they cannot compel
arbitration of Zion’s claims against them, because doing so would
exceed the scope of the arbitration clause.

     In rejecting the Trucking Companies’ attempt to compel
arbitration, we acknowledge that Florida courts occasionally have
allowed non-signatories to invoke arbitration clauses that are
confined to disputes between the contracting parties. However, “in
those cases the non-signatory defendants were officers and agents
of a signatory, and they had themselves received rights and taken
on obligations under the agreement.” Kroma Makeup, 845 F.3d at
1355 (citing Koechli, 870 So. 2d at 946; Ocwen Fin. Corp. v.
Holman, 769 So. 2d 481, 483 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000)). This case does
not fit that description. The Trucking Companies were not officers
or agents of Archer Western and had not received any rights, or
incurred any obligations, under the contract between Zion and
Archer Western. To the contrary, any of the Trucking Companies’
rights and obligations derived from their own, separate contract
with Archer Western. The Trucking Companies cite no authority—
and we aren’t aware of any—that would allow us to consider them
Archer Western’s officers or agents simply because they have their
own, separate contractual relationship with Archer Western.

                                III.

     Where a contract subjects to arbitration claims between
certain enumerated parties, that limiting language matters.
Under appropriate circumstances, a non-signatory might invoke
equitable estoppel to access an arbitration clause, but not to

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excavate it and fill it with new terms. We affirm the trial court’s
order denying Appellants’ motion to stay and compel arbitration.

    AFFIRMED.

MAKAR and WALLIS, JJ., concur.

                 _____________________________

    Not final until disposition of any timely and
    authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or
    9.331.
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