## Facts

- Tiara Condominium Association retained Marsh as its insurance broker to procure coverage for a condominium property.
- Marsh obtained windstorm coverage from Citizens Property Insurance Corporation with a loss limit near $50 million.
- In 2004, two hurricanes caused extensive damage to the property.
- Tiara alleged Marsh represented that the $50 million limit applied per occurrence, leading Tiara to spend over $100 million on remediation based on an expectation of up to $100 million in coverage for two storms.
- Citizens treated the $50 million limit as aggregate; Tiara settled with Citizens for about $89 million, leaving uncompensated losses.
- Tiara sued Marsh for contract and tort claims, including negligence and breach of fiduciary duty, seeking economic damages.
- The federal district court entered summary judgment for Marsh on all claims, applying the economic loss rule to bar the tort claims in a contractual setting.
- The Eleventh Circuit certified a question of Florida law; the Florida Supreme Court accepted review, restated the question, and addressed the scope of the economic loss rule.

## Issues

1. Whether Florida’s economic loss rule bars an insured’s tort claims against its insurance broker when the parties are in contractual privity and the damages sought are solely economic.
2. Whether the economic loss rule in Florida should be limited to products liability rather than applied broadly to bar tort claims arising from contractual relationships.

## Decision

- The Florida Supreme Court answered the restated certified question “no.”
- The Court held that the economic loss rule does not bar tort claims against an insurance broker merely because the parties are in contractual privity and the plaintiff seeks only economic losses.
- The Court limited the economic loss rule to products liability cases and receded from prior Florida decisions that applied the rule more broadly outside that context.
- The Court emphasized that traditional tort and contract boundary doctrines continue to control whether a pleaded tort claim is independent of a contract claim.

## Legal Principles

- In Florida, the economic loss rule applies only in products liability cases.
- The existence of a contract and purely economic damages does not, by itself, bar tort claims under the economic loss rule in non-products-liability disputes.
- Even without a broad economic loss rule bar, tort claims in contractual relationships remain constrained by ordinary tort requirements, including the need for a duty and a tort independent of any breach of contract.

## Conclusion

Florida confined the economic loss rule to products liability, allowing tort claims for purely economic losses to proceed in contractual privity settings (including insurance-broker relationships) when supported by traditional tort doctrines requiring an independent duty and a tort distinct from a contract breach.


Tiara Condo. Ass'n, Inc. v. Marsh & McLennan Cos., 110 So. 3d 399 (Fla. 2013)