You need a contractor to have a subcontractor.

FLORIDA LAW WEEKLY

VOLUME 51 NUMBER 15

CASES FROM THE WEEK OF APRIL 17, 2026

NO HORIZONTAL WORKERS’ COMP IMMUNITY FOR PROPERTY MANAGER– WHERE THERE IS NO “CONTRACTOR” WITH A PRIMARY CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATION TO A THIRD PARTY, THERE CAN BE NO “SUBCONTRACTORS” FOR THE PURPOSES OF SECTION 440.10(1)(e)

Teed v. Everest Campus East, LLC, 51 Fla. L. Weekly D721 (Fla. 2d DCA Apr. 8, 2026):

The plaintiff was injured while servicing a pool at a Tampa apartment complex. His employer had a pool-maintenance contract with the owner. After the incident, the plaintiff sought and received workers’ compensation benefits through his employer’s policy.

He then sued the property manager, for negligence, the defendant failed to maintain the premises in a reasonably safe condition and failed to warn of a dangerous condition.

Concluding that the property manager and pool company were both “subcontractors” on the same property, the trial court granted summary judgment for the property manager based on workers’ comp “horizontal immunity.”

The Second District reversed. The court emphasized that horizontal immunity under section 440.10(1)(e) exists only between subcontractors working for a “contractor” on the same project, and a “contractor” for section 440.10(1) purposes is an entity whose primary obligation arises from a contract with a third party.

Here, the property manager presented no evidence that the owner had any primary contractual obligation to a third party to maintain the premises or pool that it then subcontracted to either the property manager or the pool company. The only contracts in the record were (1) the management agreement between the owner and the property manager, and (2) the pool maintenance contract between the owner and the pool company. Neither of these made the owner a statutory “contractor,” nor made the property manager a “subcontractor,” under the statute.

Because the property manager was not a subcontractor working for a contractor on the same project as the plaintiff’s employer, it was not entitled to immunity, and the trial court erred in granting summary judgment.

AFTER TEN YEARS OF LITIGATION AND FOUR TRIALS, COURT AFFIRMS JUDGMENT FOR NEGLIGENT FAILURE TO WARN; COURT HOLDS SUZUKI COULD NOT USE A POST-TRIAL SUMMARY JUDGMENT MOTION TO ARGUE THAT A DESIGN-DEFECT DEFENSE VERDICT “DISPOSED OF” A SEPARATE FAILURE-TO-WARN NEGLIGENCE CLAIM—EVIDENCE OF RECALL ADMITTED DESPITE SUBSEQUENT REMEDIAL MEASURES ARGUMENT BECAUSE SUZUKI WAIVED THE ARGUMENT BY FAILING TO CHALLENGE THE TRIAL COURT’S STATED GROUNDS FOR ADMITTING THE RECALL (CONTROL/IMPEACHMENT)

Suzuki v. Winckler, 51 Fla. L. Weekly D761 (Fla. 5th DCA Apr. 10, 2026):

The plaintiff agreed to drive his friend’s 2007 Suzuki GSX-R1000 to the friend’s house, a little over a mile away. Before leaving, the plaintiff tested the front brakes, including pressing the lever and doing a “stoppie” in the driveway at about 10 mph. Before the crash there was an intersection that plaintiff stopped at, before getting back to around 30 mph.

At the next intersection, an SUV pulled in front of him. The plaintiff tried to use the front brake, but it failed to stop the motorcycle before it collided with the SUV. The plaintiff was thrown and suffered a spinal injury resulting in permanent paralysis from the waist down.

Months before the crash, Suzuki had announced a safety recall. Suzuki had notified NHTSA it was recalling certain motorcycles, including this model year, and would replace the front brake master cylinder because the brake piston inside could corrode and “may result in a reduction of fluid pressure transmission to the front brake.”

The trial court conducted four trials. The first and third ended in mistrials. At the second trial, the jury returned a defense verdict on the strict liability design defect claim, but could not reach a verdict on the negligence claim. The trial court accepted the partial verdict at Suzuki’s request. However, Suzuki never filed the required post-verdict motion for judgment in accordance with its directed verdict motion after the partial verdict was rendered.

Nine months later, Suzuki moved for summary judgment on the same issue. It argued that the defense verdict on the design-defect claim barred the negligent failure-to-warn claim.

The trial court denied the motion, reasoning that a finding that the product was not defective when placed on the market does not eliminate a manufacturer’s duty to warn of a known danger in a non-defective product and the adequacy of warnings is typically a jury question. The fourth jury (April 2024) ultimately found Suzuki negligent in failing to warn about risks of the front brake master cylinder, and final judgment followed.

The court rejected Suzuki’s attempt to convert the second-trial design-defect defense verdict into a legal bar to the separate negligence warning claim, explaining that the theories are distinct: strict liability focuses on the product and consumer expectations, while negligence focuses on duty and breach. There are separate defect types, including warning defects. Even if the design-defect verdict resolved whether the braking system was defectively designed, it did not necessarily preclude a negligent failure-to-warn claim about foreseeable risks of the braking system as designed. In any event, the court found Suzuki failed to preserve the argument when it filed a motion for summary judgment after it failed to file a timely post-verdict motion under Rule 1.480 after the second trial’s partial verdict.

As to the subsequent remedial measures issue, Suzuki argued the recall should have been excluded for lack or relevance (Suzuki framed the recall as about “spongy brakes,” not the “sudden and complete brake failure” alleged to have caused the crash), subsequent remedial measures under section 90.407, and unfair prejudice under section 90.403.

The court rejected the relevance argument, because the recall described a corrosion/gas-generation condition leading to reduced fluid pressure transmission and symptoms like spongy feel, too much lever travel, and extended stopping distance. The plaintiff’s theory treated “spongy brakes” and sudden loss of brake pressure as different versions of the same phenomenon: reduced braking pressure caused by air or gas in the braking system. The opinion also notes evidence that plaintiff’s friend had also experienced “sponginess” multiple times before the crash, and that expert testimony suggested the condition could return even after brake fluid is replaced.

The court never reached the subsequent remedial measures issue because it found that Suzuki did not attack the trial court’s stated basis for admitting the recall. The opinion explains the trial court had already ruled (in response to Suzuki’s first motion in limine) that the recall was a subsequent remedial measure, but still admissible under the “control exception,” and that it might also be used for impeachment at trial.

When the trial court later denied Suzuki’s motion in limine, it said nothing had changed and kept the same ruling. On appeal, Suzuki argued only that the recall was inadmissible as a subsequent remedial measure but never challenged the control/impeachment rationale the trial court explicitly relied upon. The court found this failure to directly address the court’s waived the argument.

As to the unfair prejudice argument, the court acknowledged recall evidence can be powerful with a jury, even with limiting instructions, but held that Suzuki had failed to demonstrate that the prejudice substantially outweighed probative value under section 90.403.

DEFENDANTS WHOSE CORPORATE REP AND PRINCIPAL REPEATEDLY FAILED TO APPEAR FOR DEPOSITIONS COULD NOT OBTAIN REVERSAL OF A SANCTIONS SUMMARY JUDGMENT WHERE THEY FAILED TO PRESERVE ANY “KOZEL” FINDINGS ISSUE AND DID NOT PROVIDE A TRANSCRIPT—IN ANY EVENT, KOZEL FINDINGS ARE ABOUT ATTORNEY MISCONDUCT AND NOT A PARTY’S OWN NONCOMPLIANCE

Rachkov v. Medvednik, 51 Fla. L. Weekly D728 (Fla. 2d DCA Apr. 8, 2026):

The plaintiffs alleged they paid the defendants (a general contractor and his company) more than $100,000 under a contract to construct two single-family homes and alleged none of the contracted construction work was performed and the money was not reimbursed.

During the litigation, the contractor (individually and as corporate representative) repeatedly failed to appear for scheduled depositions, in violation of discovery orders. The plaintiffs moved for sanctions and for entry of summary judgment, and the trial court entered final summary judgment against the defendants as a sanction.

On appeal, the defendants argued the trial court erred in imposing the sanction without addressing the Kozel factors. The Second District rejected the argument because the defendants failed to preserve the argument, noting that Kozel applies to an attorney’s non-compliance which was not evident from this record.

The court also pointed out that Kozel findings are required when the attorney is responsible (in whole or in part) for the noncompliance, not the party, which was what this record showed.

COURT REVERSES FOR ADDITUR WHERE DEFENSE CONCEDED CERTAIN DAMAGES WERE REASONABLE IN CLOSING BUT THE JURY AWARDED LESS–COURT AFFIRMS DENIAL OF POST-VERDICT JUROR INTERVIEWS/NEW TRIAL BASED ON JUROR NONDISCLOSURE

Barrera v. Rodriguez-Orengo, 51 Fla. L. Weekly D742 (Fla. 4th DCA Apr. 8, 2026)

This case arose from a rear-end crash. The defendant did not dispute that the plaintiff was rear-ended nor that the plaintiff’s initial medical treatment was reasonable. She did contest causation on the major injuries, and the defense expert attributed the plaintiff’s complaints to preexisting degenerative spinal conditions rather than the collision.

The plaintiff asked the jury for over $1 million in damages. The jury found the defendant 100% at fault, but returned a verdict of only $20,000, awarding $19,300 in past medical expenses and $700 in past lost wages, and nothing for future medical, future lost earnings, or non-economic damages.

The plaintiff sought (1) a new trial or juror interviews based on nondisclosure of litigation history by two jurors, and (2) additur up to roughly $36,000 based on what the defense conceded was reasonable during closing argument.

The court rejected the juror-interview/new-trial request. As to one juror, the court assumed materiality but found the remaining De La Rosa prongs were not satisfied (including issues of ambiguity and diligence), emphasizing how modern technology allows quick, low-cost checks of juror litigation history.  As to the other juror, the court found the nondisclosure was not material because the juror had been one of about 188 plaintiffs in a prior inverse condemnation case, with nothing indicating active or meaningful participation.

However, the court did grant the additur argument. It found that because the defense had conceded in closing that $36,670 in certain damages was reasonable, that a verdict for substantially less than that could not be supported. The court reversed and remanded with instructions to award the requested additur.