## Facts

- T & S Enterprises Handicap Accessibility, Inc. hired Wink Industrial Maintenance & Repair, Inc. to perform repair work on T & S’s premises.
- Brian Clark, an employee of Wink, was injured while performing that work and alleged T & S’s negligence caused his injuries.
- Brian Clark and his wife sued only T & S for negligence; Wink was not named as a defendant.
- T & S filed a third-party complaint against Wink seeking contribution, alleging Wink’s negligence in training, supervision, equipment, and workplace safety contributed to Clark’s injury.
- T & S did not plead Wink’s comparative fault as a nonparty for allocation of fault in the underlying negligence action.

## Issues

1. Whether a defendant may maintain a third-party claim for contribution under Florida’s Uniform Contribution Among Tortfeasors Act, § 768.31, before paying more than its pro rata share of a common liability, in a negligence regime that has abolished joint and several liability.

## Decision

- The appellate court affirmed dismissal of T & S’s third-party contribution complaint.
- The court held that, as pleaded, T & S had no present right to contribution because it had not paid more than its pro rata share of any common liability.
- The court treated earlier decisions permitting pre-payment contribution claims as tied to the former joint-and-several-liability framework and not controlling on these facts.

## Legal Principles

- Under § 768.31, a contribution claim is limited to a tortfeasor who has paid more than its pro rata share of a common liability; recovery is limited to the excess paid.
- After abolition of joint and several liability in negligence cases, each defendant’s judgment exposure is generally limited to its percentage of fault, reducing the circumstances in which contribution is available or ripe.
- A third-party complaint framed solely as statutory contribution does not state a claim absent allegations showing payment in excess of the pleader’s pro rata share or some other legally distinct basis for shifting loss (e.g., indemnity).

## Conclusion

The court affirmed dismissal because T & S sought only statutory contribution and had not paid more than its pro rata share; in Florida’s comparative-fault negligence system without joint and several liability, such a pre-payment third-party contribution claim was not viable on the facts alleged.


T & S Enters. Handicap Accessibility, Inc. v. Wink Indus. Maint. & Repair, Inc., 11 So. 3d 411 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2d Dist. 2009)