The kid didn’t rent the truck!

FLORIDA LAW WEEKLY

VOLUME 50, NUMBER 3

JANUARY 24, 2025

COURT REVERSES TRIAL COURT’S DECISION TO COMPEL ARBITRATION

Meikle v. U-Haul Co. of Florida, 50 Fla. L. Weekly D198 (Fla. 4th DCA Jan. 15, 2025):

The plaintiff was a minor when he was injured by equipment that his mother had rented from a U-Haul. Plaintiffs sued U-Haul for negligence. U-Haul then sought to enforce an arbitration agreement based on a provision in the mother’s rental contract for the equipment.

The plaintiff argued that the arbitration agreement was not valid, and even if it were, it could not be enforced against a nonparty to the rental contract. The court compelled arbitration under the contract and then delegated the resolution of issues regarding arbitrability to the arbitrator.

When ruling on a motion to compel arbitration, a court generally considers whether (1) a valid written agreement to arbitrate exists; (2) an arbitrable issue exists; (3) the right to arbitration has been waived.

Parties to a contract containing a purported arbitration agreement can agree to submit to the arbitrator any gateway questions of arbitrability, such as whether the parties have agreed to arbitrate or whether their agreement covers a particular controversy.

Based on this authority, the circuit court did correctly decide that the questions of arbitrability were left to the arbitrator. However, because the minor child was not a party to the rental contract, and because a non-contracting party cannot be bound to an arbitration agreement, the court erred in compelling arbitration.

While an exception allowing arbitration does exist when a parent signs the contract on a minor’s behalf, no parent signed the contract on the minor’s behalf in this case. It is undisputed that the plaintiff was not a party to the contract, and as a result, the court reversed the order compelling arbitration.

WORKERS’ COMPENSATION IMMUNITY—BORROWED EMPLOYEES

Carbonell v. Telemundo Television Studios, 50 Fla. L. Weekly D200 (Fla. 3d DCA Jan. 15, 2025):

In this per curiam citation affirmance, parenthetically citing Baker v. Airguide MFG, 151 So.3d 38, 41 (Fla. 3d DCA 2014), the court noted that the law extends immunity to cover employers that utilize other companies’ employees to complete their work when the circumstances indicate that the “borrowing” employer is the de facto employer of the borrowed employee at the time of the injury.