Florida Lemon Law Presumptions Are Not Mandatory Prerequisites, Eleventh Circuit Rules, Reviving RV Buyer's Claim

Kevin Joyce bought a recreational vehicle on June 16, 2020, from Lazy Days RV in Wildwood, Florida. Forest River manufactured every part of the RV except the chassis; Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation made the chassis. Problems surfaced immediately — headlights failed on the drive home to Boston, Massachusetts — and persisted for almost two years despite multiple repair visits. Joyce eventually sought a refund under Florida's Lemon Law, Florida Statute § 681.104, through arbitration. The arbitration board ruled against him, finding that Joyce had not met his burden of eligibility for a refund and ordering only limited repairs. The Southern District of Florida affirmed, and Joyce appealed.

The central legal dispute was whether the statutory presumptions in Section 3 of the Lemon Law — which presume a "reasonable number of repair attempts" if a vehicle is repaired for the same nonconformity at least three times, or is out of service for at least 60 cumulative days — are mandatory prerequisites to relief. The district court treated them as mandatory and granted summary judgment to both manufacturers after concluding Joyce had not satisfied either threshold.

The Eleventh Circuit, in a published opinion authored by Judge Wilson and joined by Judges Jordan and Lagoa, held that the district court erred. The panel held that the Section 3 presumptions are not mandatory requirements but rather examples of what a reasonable number of repair attempts looks like. The statute's Section 2 requires only that a manufacturer be given a "reasonable number of attempts" to conform the vehicle to its warranty, and Section 3 offers two benchmarks that, if met, trigger a presumption of reasonableness — but failing to reach those benchmarks does not automatically defeat a consumer's claim. The panel cited a Florida appellate decision, BMW of North America, Inc. v. Singh, and a Maryland appellate court's interpretation of a similar statute for the proposition that a consumer may show reasonableness without the benefit of the presumption.

The ruling produced different outcomes for the two defendants. As to Forest River, the panel reversed the summary judgment. The RV remained at Forest River's authorized repair shops for around 114 days in total, and the panel held there is a genuine dispute over whether the 60-day out-of-service threshold was met — in part because the district court had incorrectly required Joyce to isolate which nonconformities were repaired on which days, a requirement the panel held has no support in the statute or caselaw. The panel also identified a separate genuine dispute over Forest River's argument that Florida New Motor Vehicle Arbitration Board Emergency Orders 20-002 and 20-006 should exclude the period from March 9, 2020 through November 10, 2020 due to COVID-19, holding that Forest River had not provided sufficient uncontroverted facts showing the pandemic actually delayed the specific repairs at issue.

As to Freightliner, the panel affirmed. Unlike the flexible reasonableness inquiry in Sections 2 and 3, Section 1 of the statute sets strict thresholds that must be satisfied before a consumer can even send a Motor Vehicle Defect Notice to a manufacturer. Joyce sent Freightliner that notice prematurely — Freightliner had seen the RV only once, for eight days, which satisfied neither the three-repair standard of Section 1(a) nor the fifteen-day out-of-service standard of Section 1(b). Because Joyce failed to clear Section 1's mandatory gateway, the panel held his claim against Freightliner fails regardless of the correct standard for Sections 2 and 3.

The panel also affirmed the district court's enforcement of Southern District of Florida Local Rule 56.1, which requires a party opposing summary judgment to respond paragraph by paragraph to the movant's Statement of Material Facts and to begin each response with the word "disputed" or "undisputed." Joyce filed a noncompliant statement, then filed a second one after the briefing period closed without seeking leave. The court declined to accept the late filing and deemed the manufacturers' facts admitted. The Eleventh Circuit held Joyce failed to show a clear error of judgment in that ruling.