Key Points

  • Florida's Second District Court of Appeal held that an arbitrator's nonbinding decision emailed as an attachment to a billing invoice was not served under Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.820(h).
  • Service of an arbitration decision must conform to Rule 1.080(a) and Rule 2.516, including Rule 2.516(b)(2)(C)'s requirement that the email title begin with "SERVICE OF COURT DOCUMENT."
  • The court rejected the insurer's argument that Section 44.103(5) requires only that the decision be presented to the parties in writing, holding that the statute must be read with the procedural rules.
  • The homeowner's demand for trial de novo, filed the day he received the decision attached to the insurer's motion, was timely, and the judgments for Homeowners Choice were reversed and remanded.
  • The court did not reach the homeowner's excusable-neglect and hurricane-administrative-order arguments.

A Florida appeals court ruled Friday that an arbitrator's decision emailed to the parties as an attachment to a QuickBooks billing invoice was never properly served, reviving three lawsuits a homeowner had brought against his insurer over damage to his house.

The Second District Court of Appeal reversed final judgments that a Sarasota County circuit judge entered for Homeowners Choice Property & Casualty Insurance Co. after finding that the homeowner, Eldon Koppert, had missed a 20-day deadline to reject the arbitrator's ruling. Judge Silberman wrote the opinion for a unanimous three-judge panel that included Judges Northcutt and Labrit.

The decision holds that the deadline for rejecting a court-ordered, nonbinding arbitration award—an arbitrator's ruling that a judge will enforce unless a party demands a trial—does not begin to run until the award is served in the form Florida's court rules require for service by email. Those rules require the subject line of the serving email to begin with the words "SERVICE OF COURT DOCUMENT." The arbitrator's email instead announced a "New Invoice."

"This case presents a novel issue involving what type of notice a party must receive of an arbitration decision, following nonbinding arbitration, before a court can enforce that decision against the party," Judge Silberman wrote.

Koppert sued Homeowners Choice three times. He first filed a breach of contract complaint after a coverage dispute over hurricane damage to his home. A second suit alleged negligence, claiming the company failed to properly reattach a plastic tarp on his roof after inspecting the property. A third suit, also for breach of contract, followed after the home suffered additional damage from a second hurricane. All three cases went to nonbinding arbitration, and the arbitrator found for the insurer.

The arbitrator's decision went out on Sept. 16, 2024, attached to an email from a QuickBooks notification address with the subject line "New Invoice from Nicholas Mediation – Invoice 2024.0565P Case: Koppert v. Homeowners Choice."; According to the opinion, the first items the email displayed were the invoice number, the mediation firm's logo, the amount due, a "Review and pay" button and the statement that it was "Powered by QuickBooks." The email's first sentence said that the recipient's "pro-rata share" of the fees was attached, along with the "Arbitration Order" and a copy of the firm's W9.

Koppert's lawyer testified that he took the message for a bill. He said he thought the email "was simply an invoice for services as it was only a few days after the arbitration," so he forwarded it to the firm's case management system for the bookkeeping staff to pay.

Homeowners Choice moved on Oct. 14 for a judgment in conformance with the arbitration decision and attached a copy of the decision. Koppert filed a demand for trial de novo the same day. Circuit Judge Hunter W. Carroll ruled that the demand was untimely because it had been due by Oct. 7, granted the insurer's motion and entered final judgment for Homeowners Choice.

The appeals court started with Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.820(h), which gives a party 20 days from service of the arbitrator's written decision to reject it and request a trial. Because that rule turns on service, the panel looked to Rule 1.080, which provides that orders and other documents "required by statute or rule to be served in the action must be served in conformity with" Rule 2.516 of the Florida Rules of General Practice and Judicial Administration.

The arbitrator satisfied one part of Rule 2.516 by attaching the decision as a PDF to an email, the court said. "This much was done," Judge Silberman wrote. But the rule also requires the email's title to begin with "SERVICE OF COURT DOCUMENT," followed by the case number and an abbreviated case name, and requires the body to state the title of the document and the name and telephone number of the person serving it. Because the invoice email's subject line did not begin with those words, the panel held, the decision was not served in compliance with the rules.

Homeowners Choice argued that the formal service rules did not apply because Section 44.103(5) of the Florida Statutes requires only that an arbitrator's decision "be presented to the parties in writing." The panel found no merit in that argument. Rule 1.820(h) entitles a party to service of the written decision before it becomes final and binding, the court said, and "Section 44.103(5) must be read in conjunction with rule 1.080(a) and rule 2.516(b)(2)(C)."

The court pointed to the statute's own text, which provides that court-ordered, nonbinding arbitration "shall be conducted according to the rules of practice and procedure adopted by the Supreme Court." It also cited a 2024 decision of the Sixth District Court of Appeal, City of Naples v. Wolff, which said the Legislature "expressly deferred to the rules promulgated by the supreme court" in setting the deadline to request a trial after nonbinding arbitration.

Because Koppert was never served in the required manner, the panel said, he learned of the decision only when the insurer attached it to its Oct. 14 motion, and he demanded a trial that same day. "Under these circumstances, his demand was timely filed," the court held. Having decided the appeal on that ground, the panel did not address Koppert's alternative arguments that his delay was excusable neglect or was excused by hurricane-related administrative orders.

Eldon Koppert died while the appeal was pending, and Timothy Koppert, as personal representative of his estate, was substituted as the appellant. The three appeals, Nos. 2D2025-0106, 2D2025-0124 and 2D2025-0125, were consolidated.

Lawyers for the estate included Nicholas A. Shannin of Shannin Law Firm, P.A. Homeowners Choice was represented by Andrew A. Labbe of Salmon, Salmon, Labbe & Dehne, P.A.

The panel reversed the final judgments and remanded the cases to the Sarasota County circuit court for further proceedings consistent with its opinion. The opinion is subject to revision before official publication.