Minuteman Fund Helps ACEC/Florida Secure Victory in Landmark Legal Case for Engineering Industry

Advocacy / Member Organizations

April 4, 2019

Minuteman Fund Helps ACEC/Florida Secure Victory in Landmark Legal Case for Engineering Industry

In a victory for ACEC/Florida and the Minuteman Fund, the Florida State Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from an appellate court decision upholding the enforceability of contract terms protecting design professionals from liability for consequential damages and for the first time in Florida defining the broad scope of consequential damages.

The action by the state Supreme Court in Keystone Airpark Authority v. Pipeline Contractors, Inc. means that design firms providing services under Florida law can continue to manage their risk and rely upon contractual waivers of consequential damages—a vital legal protection.

This significant legal victory for the design-build industry was assisted by a grant from the Minuteman Fund.

“Over the last twenty-plus years, professionals in Florida have endured a series of Court decisions eroding traditional contractual and legal protections resulting in significantly higher risks without corresponding increases in compensation. The Keystone decision for the first time in Florida provides a workable definition for consequential damages in the context of professional services and clearly holds there is no public policy precluding professionals and their clients from agreeing to waive those damages,” said Curtis Brown of Wright, Fulford, Moorhead & Brown, who was counsel for the professional engineer in the Keystone case and serves as general counsel for ACEC/FL.

For more information on ACEC’s Minuteman Fund, click here.

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