David Salazar, Esq., a partner in Cole, Scott & Kissane’s (“CSK’s”) Construction Group, recently filed and argued a Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings (the “Motion”) on behalf of a threshold inspector in a complex, multi-party construction lawsuit. The general contractor on the project sued CSK’s client for, among other things, professional negligence. The claimed damages exceeded $28,000,000.00. The Circuit Court in and for Miami-Dade County (the “Court”) granted the Motion and entered judgment on the pleadings as to the general contractor’s professional negligence claim against the threshold inspector.
The crux of the Motion was based on the rule that design professionals generally do not owe duties to protect parties with whom they are not in privity of contract from purely economic losses. The authority relied upon centered around AR Moyer, Inc. v. Graham, 285 So. 2d 397, 402 (Fla. 1973) and Spancrete, Inc. v. Ronald E. Frazier & Associates, P.A., 630 So. 2d 1197 (Fla. 3d DCA 1994). In AR Moyer, Florida’s Supreme Court carved out an exception to this general rule in situations where the design professional has supervisory authority over the general contractor tantamount to the power of life and death over the project. In Spancrete, Florida’s Third District Court of Appeals held that an architect’s power to inspect and reject work does not constitute the supervisory control sufficient to satisfy the AR Moyer exception. Continue reading
