2026-09-10 · Florida · Courts

What happened. Two Third District Court of Appeal decisions, taken together, describe a widening gap: association liability exposure is being aggregated in ways it has not been before, while the policies associations actually carry may not answer for it.

The class action: New World Condominium Apartments

New World Condominium Apartments Condominium Association, Inc. v. Breedlove, No. 3D25-0854, was filed on 17 June 2026 (Lindsey, J., with Miller and Gooden, JJ.). The court affirmed class certification for a class of tenants and occupants displaced by the fire of 28 January 2023 that destroyed the condominium.¹

Reviewing for abuse of discretion, the panel wrote narrowly on whether the class definition was adequate and ascertainable — “It did.” — and emphasised the trial court's continuing supervisory role. If ascertaining the class “proves to be burdensome and unmanageable, the trial court must continue on in its ‘duty to monitor the propriety of this decision, and to modify or even vacate this class certification order should the interests of justice so require.’”

The detail that matters most is who is in the class: tenants and occupants, not unit owners. That is a population with no direct contractual relationship to the association — no declaration, no membership, no fee-shifting clause running between them.

The coverage case: Catalina West

Catalina West Homeowners Association, Inc. v. First Community Insurance Company, No. 3D23-1860, was filed on 18 June 2025 (Gooden, J., with Fernandez and Bokor, JJ., over a lengthy dissent).²

A resident was ambushed and shot at his home in the community. His estate sued the homeowners' association for negligent maintenance and security. The Third DCA affirmed a declaratory judgment that the association's businessowners policy owed no duty to defend or indemnify, holding the policy's terms plain and unambiguous.

The dissent would have found the policy's reference to “physical abuse” ambiguous as applied to “an ambush and shooting by an unknown assailant,” noting that the insurer “chose not to include” an assault-and-battery exclusion.

1. New World Condominium Apartments Condominium Association, Inc. v. Breedlove, No. 3D25-0854 (Fla. 3d DCA 17 June 2026) ↩
2. Catalina West Homeowners Association, Inc. v. First Community Insurance Company, No. 3D23-1860 (Fla. 3d DCA 18 June 2025) ↩
3. s. 718.111(11), Fla. Stat. (2026) — adequate property insurance ↩