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Maguire v. King12/16/2005
will be in accordance with the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure and the arbitrator will resolve all discovery-related disputes. . . . This clause will survive closing.
(c) Mediation and Arbitration; Expenses: . . .
"Arbitration" is a process in which the parties resolve a dispute by a hearing before a neutral person who decides the matter and whose decision is binding on the parties. Arbitration will be in accordance with the rules of the AAA or other arbitrator agreed on by the parties. Each party to any arbitration will pay its own fees, costs and expenses, including attorneys' fees, and will equally split the arbitrators' fees and administrative fees of arbitration. In a civil action to enforce an arbitration award, the prevailing party to the arbitration shall be entitled to recover from the non-prevailing party reasonable attorneys' fees, costs and expenses. (emphasis in original).
To decide whether the trial court properly decided the motions to compel arbitration for the last three counts, we consider three elements: "(1) whether a valid written agreement to arbitrate exists; (2) whether an arbitrable issue exists; and (3) whether the right to arbitration was waived." Seifert v. U.S. Home Corp., 750 So. 2d 633, 636 (Fla. 1999) (holding that a wrongful death action resting on a tort theory of common law negligence was unrelated to the parties' contractual rights and obligations); see also Qubty v. Nagda, 817 So. 2d 952, 956 (Fla. 5th DCA 2002). The issue in this case is whether the second Seifert prong was met. We conclude that it was.
Arbitrability of a dispute turns on the parties' intent; no party must submit a dispute to arbitration it did not intend and agree to arbitrate. Seifert, 750 So. 2d at 636. However, " t is the intention as expressed by the language employed in the agreements that governs, not the after-the-fact testimony of the parties." Bill Heard Chevrolet Corp. v. Wilson, 877 So. 2d 15 (Fla. 5th DCA 2004). More important, Florida public policy favors resolving disputes through arbitration when the parties have agreed to arbitrate. Orkin Exterminating Co. v. Petsch, 872 So. 2d 259, 263 (Fla. 2d DCA 2004). To implement this policy, this court has interpreted the arbitration provision to give reasonable meaning to all terms, rather than to render part of the contract toothless. Id. at 263. All doubts regarding the scope of an arbitration agreement must be resolved in favor of arbitration. Qubty, 817 So. 2d at 956.
The supreme court in Seifert applied the "contractual nexus" test, by which courts determine a claim's arbitrability by considering the "existence of some nexus between the dispute and the contract containing the arbitration clause." Seifert, 750 So. 2d at 638; see also Hirshenson v. Spaccio, 800 So. 2d 670, 675 (Fla. 5th DCA 2001). A dispute arises from the contract if it at least raises an issue that requires reference to or construction of some portion of the contract for resolution. Seifert, 750 So. 2d at 639. Arbitrability depends on the relationship between the claim and the agreement, not the legal label attached to the dispute. Stacy David, Inc. v. Consuegra, 845 So. 2d 303, 306 (Fla. 2d DCA 2003). Therefore, although tort claims based on duties owed to the public under common law or public policy may fall outside an arbitration clause, tort claims based on duties created by a contractual relationship between the parties are normally arbitrable under broad arbitration provisions. Seifert, 750 So. 2d at 640-41; Stacy David, 845 So. 2d at 306.
This is not a case in which it is a "mere coincidence that the parties in dispute have a contractual relationship." Seifert, 750 So. 2d at 638. On the contrary, the
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