Ruckdeschel v. People’s Trust Insurance Company

When a Florida property insurer invokes its right to repair, can it force the homeowner to pay the deductible and sign a work authorization by simply filing a motion? In Ruckdeschel v. People’s Trust Insurance Company, 327 So. 3d 311 (Fla. 4th DCA 2021), the Fourth District Court of Appeal answered no: relief in the nature of specific performance must be pleaded, not requested by motion.

Facts: Hurricane Irma, Appraisal, and the Insurer’s Right to Repair

The parties and the policy. Maria and Michael Ruckdeschel, the insured homeowners, were the appellants; People’s Trust Insurance Company, their property carrier, was the appellee. Their home was damaged by Hurricane Irma in 2017. The policy contained a “Preferred Contractor Endorsement” that gave the carrier a contractual right to repair: within thirty days of its inspection, People’s Trust could elect to have Rapid Response Team, LLC make covered repairs to the dwelling or other structures in lieu of paying the claim. If the carrier made that election, the insureds were required to pay their deductible to Rapid Response.

The claim and the election. The insureds submitted their claim in March 2020. The carrier’s field adjuster inspected and estimated the loss at $8,002.80 — below the policy’s $9,224.00 hurricane deductible. People’s Trust then wrote that the claim was covered and that it was exercising its option to repair, while also stating that the damages fell below the deductible. It “hereby elect[ed] to use its preferred contractor, Rapid Response Team, LLC… to repair [the] property to its pre-loss condition by making repairs to all covered damages, once there is a determination of what those damages are.”

Appraisal changes the numbers. The carrier invoked the policy’s appraisal provision. The appraiser determined the scope of repairs at a cost of $104,965.59 — more than ten times the adjuster’s pre-appraisal estimate. People’s Trust sent the insureds a copy of the appraisal award and asked them to execute a work authorization form so the repairs could proceed in accordance with the award, consistent with its earlier right to repair election.

Procedural history. The insureds refused to let the repairs go forward and instead sued for declaratory relief, asking the court to declare that the carrier’s qualified and conditional exercise of its option to repair was not a valid acceptance, created no actual obligation on the carrier, and created no new contract for repairs. People’s Trust answered that it had successfully exercised its right to repair and that the insureds had breached the policy’s conditions. Critically, it never filed a counterclaim for specific performance.

The insureds then requested an order to show cause why the appraisal award had not been paid; the carrier countered with a motion to compel its right to repair. At the hearing the insureds objected that no suit for specific performance had ever been filed. The trial court (Judge David A. Haimes, Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, Broward County, L.T. Case No. CACE-20-11369) denied the show-cause request and granted the motion to compel, without addressing the missing pleading.

The judgment. On a nonfinal appeal, the Fourth District — Conner, C.J., Warner and Klingensmith, JJ., per curiam — reversed the order granting the motion to compel and remanded for further proceedings. The decision is reported at 327 So. 3d 311.

Issues

1. Jurisdiction. Is an order requiring the insureds to pay the deductible, execute a work authorization, and allow the carrier’s preferred contractor to perform under a right to repair endorsement an appealable nonfinal order — that is, an order granting an injunction under Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.130(a)(3)(B)?

2. Merits. May a trial court order specific performance of an insurer’s right to repair on a motion to compel, where the insurer never asserted a claim or counterclaim seeking that relief?

Holding: The Right to Repair Must Be Pleaded, Not Moved For

Yes as to jurisdiction, and no as to the merits. An order compelling the insureds to pay money and perform affirmative acts is injunctive in nature and is reviewable as a nonfinal order under rule 9.130(a)(3)(B). On the merits, the applied rule of law is that “a trial court lacks jurisdiction to hear and determine matters that were not the subject of proper pleadings and notice,” and “[t]o allow a court to rule on a matter without proper pleadings and notice is violative of a party’s due process rights.”

Because People’s Trust never pleaded a counterclaim demanding specific performance of the insureds’ duties under the Preferred Contractor Endorsement, the trial court erred in granting relief that no pleading requested. A carrier that wants a court order enforcing its right to repair must plead a claim for it.

Rationale

The order was a mandatory injunction. The court looked past the label on the motion to what the order actually required: payment of the deductible, execution of the work authorization, and access for Rapid Response Team to perform the elected repairs. Orders compelling a party to perform under a contract have long been treated as mandatory injunctions for purposes of nonfinal review. See Cabana Key Condominium Ass’n v. Schofield, 278 So. 3d 887, 888 (Fla. 5th DCA 2019); Allstate Insurance Co. v. Arvida Corp., 421 So. 2d 741, 742–43 (Fla. 4th DCA 1982).

Pleadings frame the relief a court may grant. Relying on BAC Home Loans Servicing, Inc. v. Headley, 130 So. 3d 703, 705 (Fla. 3d DCA 2013), the Fourth District reiterated that Florida courts may not adjudicate matters outside the pleadings, and that doing so offends due process. The rule is not a technicality: notice of the relief sought is what gives the responding party a fair opportunity to defend. A carrier’s right to repair may be perfectly real and contractual, but a right that is never pleaded cannot be turned into a court order.

Affirmative defenses are not a request for relief. People’s Trust had pleaded that the insureds breached the contract by refusing repairs and failing to comply with policy conditions, and it asked for judgment in its favor on the declaratory judgment count. That is a defensive posture. It never asked the court to order the insureds to perform. As the court put it, a motion seeking such relief “does not substitute for the assertion of the right to such relief in a pleading.” See Shake v. Yes We Are Mad Group, Inc., 315 So. 3d 1223, 1226 (Fla. 4th DCA 2021).

Practice Points for Florida Property Insurance Litigation

Carrier side: if you intend to enforce a right to repair after an appraisal award, plead it. File a counterclaim for specific performance (or for declaratory relief establishing the duty to cooperate) rather than relying on a motion to compel. Policyholder side: object on the record to relief that appears nowhere in the pleadings, and if the trial court enters an order commanding affirmative acts, evaluate an immediate nonfinal appeal under rule 9.130(a)(3)(B) rather than waiting for final judgment.

Ruckdeschel also illustrates the practical tension appraisal can create under a managed-repair endorsement: an adjuster’s estimate below the deductible became a six-figure appraisal award, and the parties then fought over who controlled the remedy.

Note what the opinion does not decide. The Fourth District did not hold that the carrier’s conditional election was ineffective, and it did not limit the right to repair itself; it reversed solely because the relief granted was never requested in a pleading. Those merits questions returned to the trial court on remand. The decision predates Florida’s 2022–2023 property insurance reforms, but the pleading and due-process principle it applies is unchanged. If you are weighing a similar dispute, Cox Law, PLLC handles first-party property and construction disputes throughout the Tampa Bay area.

Read the Full Opinion

Here is the full opinion for this Fourth DCA right to repair ruling: Read the 4th DCA ruling in Ruckdeschel v. People’s Trust Insurance Company (PDF). Citation: Ruckdeschel v. People’s Trust Ins. Co., 327 So. 3d 311 (Fla. 4th DCA 2021) (No. 4D20-2152, decided September 8, 2021).

This page is general information about a published appellate decision and is not legal advice; reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.