Material Handling Systems, Inc. v. United Granite Penna, LLC

DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA
FOURTH DISTRICT

MATERIAL HANDLING SYSTEMS, INC.,
Appellant,

v.

UNITED GRANITE PENNA, LLC, and
UNITED GRANITE & QUARTZ, INC.,
Appellees.

No. 4D2025-1187

[May 20, 2026]

Appeal from the County Court for the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit,
Broward County; Steven Peter DeLuca, Judge; L.T. Case No.
062024CC018104AXXXNO.

Alan Lester Raines and Elizabeth Jimenez of Raines Legal, Boca Raton,
for appellant.

Lauren Yevich and Harold Douglas Holder, III, of Bush Ross, P.A.,
Tampa, for appellees.

FORST, J.

Appellant Material Handling Systems, Inc. (“MHS”) appeals from the
county court’s denial of MHS’s petition to be granted its attorney’s fees
arising from an arbitration. We affirm because the record shows the
arbitrator was presented with multiple requests for attorney’s fees and
made a discretionary decision not to award MHS’s attorney’s fees.

Background

In 2022, MHS entered into two separate contracts with United Granite
Penna, LLC, and United Granite & Quartz, Inc. (“Appellees”). Both
contracts provided that “any and all disputes between the parties shall be
arbitrated before the American Arbitration Association” and that
“[c]ustomer shall pay to Material Handling all reasonable attorney’s fees
and expenses incurred by Material Handling[.]” Accordingly, when the
contracts were breached, MHS filed a statement of claim with the American
Arbitration Association (“AAA”), including a request for attorney’s fees.
Each of MHS’s submissions to the arbitrator, including its final hearing
memorandum, contained a request for attorney’s fees. The arbitration
hearings were not transcribed. The final arbitration award was in MHS’s
favor but did not mention attorney’s fees. The award’s last paragraph
stated that it was “in full settlement of all claims and counterclaims
submitted to this Arbitration” and that “[a]ll claims not expressly granted
herein are hereby, denied.” As for other fees, the award stated that “[t]he
administrative fees . . . shall be borne as incurred.”

Appellees timely satisfied the award. One month after the award’s
issuance, MHS brought the underlying action to the county court,
petitioning to be awarded attorney’s fees arising from the arbitration. The
county court denied MHS’s petition and granted Appellees’ motion to
dismiss MHS’s petition. MHS filed a motion for rehearing, which the
county court denied. This appeal follows.

Analysis

“The trial court’s decision to confirm or vacate the arbitration award is
reviewed for an abuse of extremely limited discretion.” Commc’ns Workers
of Am. v. Indian River Cnty. Sch. Bd., 888 So. 2d 96, 99 (Fla. 4th DCA
2004).

MHS’s main contention is that section 682.11, Florida Statutes (2022),
requires a trial court to decide the issue of attorney’s fees in connection
with an arbitration award and an arbitrator cannot decide that issue
unless the parties waive this statutory right. However, in 2013, the Florida
Legislature amended that section to allow arbitrators to award attorney’s
fees “if such an award is authorized by law in a civil action involving the
same claim or by the agreement of the parties to the arbitration
proceeding.” § 682.11(2), Fla. Stat. (2022).

MHS is correct that, before the 2013 amendment, we held that for an
arbitrator to be able to decide attorney’s fees, the parties had to expressly
waive their right to have a court determine that issue, and such express
waiver required more than mere requests for attorney’s fees in the parties’
submissions to the arbitrator. Compare Appelbaum v. Fayerman, 937 So.
2d 282, 284 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006) (a pre-statutory amendment opinion
holding the record must show an on-the-record stipulation or competent
substantial evidence to support a finding that the parties expressly waived
their right to have a court decide attorney’s fees issues); Raubvogel v.
Credit Suisse Sec. (USA) LLC, 123 So. 3d 1155, 1157 (Fla. 4th DCA 2013)
(same), with Cassedy v. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc., 751 So.

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2d 143, 149 (Fla. 1st DCA 2000) (another pre-amendment opinion, from a
sister court, holding that the parties’ actions, filings, and submissions in
that case equated to an express waiver).

However, all the events giving rise to the present dispute happened in
2022 or later, almost a decade after the 2013 statutory amendment.
Contrary to MHS’s assertion, no reason exists why section 682.11(2)’s pre-
2013 version would apply to these facts. While Florida courts previously
recognized attorney’s fees as a statutory “carve-out” from arbitrators’
authority to award relief, leaving that power exclusively with a trial court
unless that right was waived, this is no longer the case after the statutory
amendment. Instead, more recent case law recognizes that the arbitrator
is permitted to decide attorney’s fees issues as long as a statutory or
contractual basis exists for recovery of attorney’s fees. As held in Baron v.
L.P. Evans Motors WPB, Inc., 333 So. 3d 1152 (Fla. 3d DCA 2022):

Florida’s case law interpreting the former version of the
statute prescribed that claims for attorneys’ fees incurred in
an arbitration proceeding were within the exclusive province
of trial courts and such claims could be adjudicated only
through litigation unless waived by the parties. See Turnberry
Assocs. v. Serv. Station Aid, Inc., 651 So. 2d 1173, 1175 (Fla.
1995). Plainly, the Legislature adopted the current version of
section 682.11(2)—and included in the provision the
permissive “may”—to alter this former prohibition and
specifically to allow an arbitrator to adjudicate an attorneys’
fee claim, so long as the claim is premised on a statute or
contract authorizing the entitlement to fees. Put another way,
contrary to prior law, an arbitrator may now award fees, so
long as the fee claim is authorized by contract or statute. We
do not read the statute’s inclusion of the word “may” to negate
an arbitration agreement’s language and allow a party to elect
to have its fee claim either litigated or arbitrated.

We reverse the final judgment awarding attorneys’ fees and
costs to L.P. Evans because the parties plainly agreed to
arbitrate, rather than to litigate, all disputes and claims
arising out of the parties’ contractual arrangement. Because
L.P. Evans’s claim for attorneys’ fees and costs arose out of
that arrangement, it was subject to arbitration.

Id. at 1156-57; see also Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law:
The Interpretation of Legal Texts 112 (1st ed. 2012) (“Mandatory words
impose a duty; permissive words grant discretion. The traditional,

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commonly repeated rule is that shall is mandatory and may is
permissive.”) (emphasis added).

We agree with our sister court’s reasoning. Here, MHS elected to
arbitrate its claims pursuant to a clause in its contracts with Appellees
and included a request for attorney’s fees in all filings to the arbitrator.
This is incompatible with MHS’s belated assertion that it intended to have
a trial court decide attorney’s fees.

On appeal, MHS argues that, “most importantly, the arbitration award
did not specifically indicate that the attorneys’ fees issue had been
considered.” This confusion on MHS’s part is understandable, and the
legislature created a process to follow in such a situation. Pursuant to
section 682.10, Florida Statutes (2022), the parties had the ability to make
a motion to the arbitrator to: (1) “modify or correct an award [b]ecause the
arbitrator has not made a final and definite award upon a claim submitted
by the parties to the arbitration proceeding,” § 682.10(1)(b), Fla. Stat.
(2022); or (2) “clarify the award,” § 682.10(1)(c), Fla. Stat. (2022). MHS
failed to pursue either option. Instead, MHS brought this case to the
county court in an impermissible attempt to circumvent the arbitration
process (which MHS had elected) because MHS disliked part of the
arbitrator’s ruling.

Conclusion

Like the parties in Baron, MHS “plainly agreed to arbitrate, rather than
to litigate, all disputes and claims arising out of the parties’ contractual
arrangement.” 333 So. 3d at 1157. Thus, MHS’s attorney’s fees claim was
subject to arbitration and was denied when the arbitrator ruled, “[a]ll
claims not expressly granted herein are hereby, denied.” As noted above,
the arbitrator had statutory and contractual authority to award the
attorney’s fees which MHS requested, but the arbitrator chose not to.
Rather than pursue modification, correction, or clarification through the
designated process for parties traveling in the arbitration lane, MHS
attempted to change lanes to the trial court lane. 1 Accordingly, the trial
court appropriately denied MHS’s petition for attorney’s fees and granted
Appellees’ motion to dismiss MHS’s petition.

Affirmed.

1 Chapter 682 sets forth three bases whereby a party that has received notice of

an arbitration award may seek “[m]odification or correction of award” from the
trial court. § 682.14(1), Fla. Stat. (2022). MHS’s petition does not assert any of
these bases.

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KUNTZ, C.J., and MAY, J., concur.

* * *

Not final until disposition of timely-filed motion for rehearing.

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