{"id":904170,"date":"2025-04-02T15:32:53","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T21:32:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/?p=904170"},"modified":"2025-04-02T15:32:56","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T21:32:56","slug":"dispute-resolution-provision-follow-your-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/dispute-resolution-provision-follow-your-contract\/","title":{"rendered":"Follow the Dispute Resolution Provision(s) in Your Contract"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>David Adelstein | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.floridaconstructionlegalupdates.com\/follow-the-dispute-resolution-provisions-in-your-contract\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Florida Construction Legal Updates<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When you are in a dispute, one of the first things you want to look at is the\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/dispute-resolution-provisions-in-construction-contracts\/\">dispute resolution provision(s) in your contract<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 What does the provision(s) say? (There could be more than one provision.) Do you need to mediate first? Are disputes decided via arbitration or litigation? Is there a venue provision? Is there a waiver of jury trial? Is there an attorney\u2019s fees provision? Is there a choice of law provision?\u00a0 You want to know this\u00a0<em>BEFORE<\/em>\u00a0you proceed with escalating the dispute.\u00a0<strong>Not following the dispute resolution provision(s) can have consequences<\/strong>. Below is an example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In&nbsp;<em>Pesantes v. Kelley<\/em>, 50 Fla. L. Weekly D519a (Fla. 3d DCA 2025), a residential buyer and residential seller were in a dispute. The parties entered into an&nbsp;<strong>as-is residential contract<\/strong>. The contract included a dispute resolution provision that required the parties to&nbsp;<strong>mediate<\/strong>&nbsp;their disputes and if they were unable to settle through mediation, then the parties could litigate their dispute. There was also a<strong>&nbsp;prevailing party attorney\u2019s fees provision<\/strong>&nbsp;that stated, \u201c<em>In any litigation permitted by this Contract<\/em>, the prevailing party shall be entitled to recover from the non-prevailing party costs and fees, including reasonable attorney\u2019s fees, incurred in conducting the litigation.\u201d&nbsp;<em>Pesantes, supra<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The buyer filed a lawsuit against the seller for negligence without complying with the pre-suit mediation requirement. The seller did not move to compel mediation. The seller, instead, responded claiming the dispute was governed by the contact and demanded prevailing party attorney\u2019s fees per the contract. Months later, the buyer dismissed the lawsuit and the seller moved for prevailing party attorney\u2019s fees. The trial court denied the motion. The appellate court confirmed based on the language in the dispute resolution provision(s):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>[T]he right to prevailing party attorney\u2019s fees in litigation of a claim \u2018arising out\u2019 the Contract is triggered, (i.e., \u2018permitted\u2019) only where the parties have participated in the pre-suit mediation required by paragraph 16 and have reached an impasse (i.e., \u201cnot settled\u2019) at such pre-suit mediation.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>In other words, the Contract specifically&nbsp;<em>limits<\/em>&nbsp;fee entitlement to the prevailing party in lawsuits \u2018permitted by\u2019 the Contract. Had the Contract\u2019s drafters intended for a broader application of fee entitlement \u2013 that is, for a prevailing party in any lawsuit \u2018arising out\u2019 of the Contract to be entitled to fees\u2014the drafters would have included the same, broad \u201carising out of\u2019 language that the drafters employed in paragraph 16. They did not, and this Court is powerless to rewrite the parties\u2019 agreement.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Pesantes, supra<\/em>&nbsp;(internal citations omitted).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>When one of your cases is in need of a construction expert, estimates, insurance appraisal or umpire services in defect or insurance disputes &#8211; please call Advise &amp; Consult, Inc. at 888.684.8305, or email <a href=\"mailto:experts@adviseandconsult.net\">experts@adviseandconsult.net<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>David Adelstein | Florida Construction Legal Updates When you are in a dispute, one of the first things you want to look at is the\u00a0dispute resolution provision(s) in your contract.\u00a0 What does the provision(s) say? (There could be more than one provision.) Do you need to mediate first? Are disputes decided via arbitration or litigation?&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/dispute-resolution-provision-follow-your-contract\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Follow the Dispute Resolution Provision(s) in Your Contract<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,436],"tags":[9895,224,10198],"class_list":["post-904170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-construction-contracts","category-dispute-resolution-2","tag-advise-consult","tag-construction-contract","tag-dispute-resolution-provision","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Follow the Dispute Resolution Provision(s) in Your Contract - Advise &amp; 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