Hopps v. Smith

Howard C. HOPPS, Appellant, v. Kip A. SMITH, et al., Appellees.

District Court of Appeal of Florida

Decided February 25, 1988.

District Court of Appeal of Florida · decided 1988-02-25

Relies on 480 So. 2d 1291 - Gage v. State · 468 So. 2d 360 - Keys Lobster v. Ocean Divers · Dickson v. Dunn

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1988-02-25

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently December 2002

1 federal appellate · 5 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1Donald E. Christopher of Litchford, Christopher & Milbrath, Orlando, for appellant.

¶2Jack B. Nichols, P.A., Orlando, for appellees.

¶3COBB, Judge.

¶4Based on Dickson v. Dunn, 399 So.2d 447 (Fla. 5th DCA 1981), we reverse the award of attorney's fees to appellees, Kip and Robin R. Smith. The lower court improperly determined that the litigation arose out of a contract for sale and purchase. In actuality, the cause of action asserted in this case was for alleged misrepresentation in the inducement of that contract. A misrepresentation action does *674 not arise out of the contract itself; thus, there is no basis for an award of fees. See also Location 100, Inc. v. Gould S.E.L. Computer Systems, Inc., 517 So.2d 700 (Fla. 4th DCA 1987); Keys Lobster, Inc. v. Ocean Divers, Inc., 468 So.2d 360 (Fla. 3d DCA), review denied, 480 So.2d 1295 (Fla. 1985). Accordingly, the judgment entered below is

¶5REVERSED.

¶6DAUKSCH and ORFINGER, JJ., concur.