Floridians for Solar Choice v. PCI Consultants, Inc.

314 F. Supp. 3d 1346 (2018)

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Floridians for Solar Choice v. PCI Consultants, Inc.

United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida
314 F. Supp. 3d 1346 (2018)

Facts

Floridians for Solar Choice, Inc. (FSC) (plaintiff) entered into several contracts with PCI Consultants (PCI) (defendant) under which PCI was to collect 700,000 signatures required under Florida law for a 2016 Florida general-election ballot initiative FSC was pursuing. The parties agreed PCI would be paid for collecting the required signatures at a fixed amount for each signature. PCI was to bear all expenses related to the exercise, but the signatures were the property of PCI until paid for in full by FSC. The first two contracts were fully performed, as amended. A dispute arose between the parties during the performance of the third contract when two events occurred. First, the parties agreed to an additional 5,000 signatures to be collected by PCI at a higher per-signature fee, which was later amended to 15,000 signatures at an even higher fee per signature plus expenses. FSC paid these fees as invoiced plus expenses for the month of October. Second, when FSC became aware of another client PCI was collecting signatures for regarding an unrelated initiative—the medical-marijuana initiative (MMI)—FSC, PCI, and MMI began discussions for FSC to share expenses with MMI, but no agreement was reached. Meanwhile, PCI sent an invoice to FSC for November expenses. FSC informed PSC it could not fund the initiative and terminated the ballot initiative. PCI responded saying it would not release the signatures FSC had already paid for unless PCI paid the outstanding invoice balance in full. The invoice included FSC’s November expenses and MMI’s expenses. FSC filed an arbitration claim seeking damages of $487,588.50, the amount it had paid for the signatures PCI was refusing to release. The arbitrator found there was no agreement for FSC to pay MMI’s fees, nor for FSC to pay the additional expenses in the November invoice, and that therefore PCI was in breach of its contract with FSC for refusing to release the paid-for signatures. The arbitrator awarded FSC a total of $1,271,250, which was the total for the full contract price, plus interest and attorney’s fees. This amount was more than what FSC sought during the hearing but was sought in post-hearing filings. PCI filed a motion to vacate the award order, claiming FSC committed fraud in seeking more damages in post-hearing than it had stated previously.

Rule of Law

Issue

Holding and Reasoning (Bloom, J.)

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