Associate Attorney
In Pasco Cypress Creek v. Neidinger, 50 Fla. L. Weekly D2336 (Fla. 2d DCA 2025), the Second District addressed a mistake that shows up frequently in landlord–tenant litigation: assuming that a loss under a consumer-protection statute automatically wipes out related contractual claims.
It doesn’t.
The tenant rented an apartment under a lease that required 60 days’ notice before the end of the term to avoid automatic conversion to a month-to-month tenancy. The lease also included a liquidated damages provision for early termination. The tenant vacated early without giving the required notice. The landlord applied the security deposit toward repair costs and sought additional sums under the lease.
The tenant sued, arguing that the liquidated damages provision violated the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act (FCCPA) because the landlord failed to give a statutorily required notice before imposing certain charges. The trial court agreed and granted summary judgment for the tenant. It then went a step further and entered judgment on the pleadings against the landlord’s counterclaim for unpaid rent and damages.
The Second DCA reversed.
The appellate court drew a clear line between statutory consumer claims and traditional contract claims. Even if the landlord failed to comply with the FCCPA (and even if that failure invalidated the liquidated damages provision), that statutory violation did not automatically extinguish the landlord’s separate claims for rent owed and for damages arising under the lease itself.
In other words, the FCCPA issue and the contract issue traveled on parallel tracks, not a single one.
Practice pointers
Don’t overread a statutory win. Success on a consumer-protection claim does not necessarily defeat independent contract claims unless the statute expressly says so.
Plead and analyze claims separately. Courts will look carefully at whether statutory and contractual causes of action involve different elements, remedies, and defenses.
For landlords, statutory compliance still matters. Failure to provide required notices can eliminate certain charges, even if other contract remedies survive.
For tenants, a consumer statute can be a shield—but it’s not always a sword that ends the case entirely.
Takeaway: A violation of the FCCPA may knock out a liquidated damages claim, but it does not automatically erase a landlord’s contractual rights to unpaid rent or repair damages. Courts will not collapse distinct legal theories into one just because they arise from the same lease.
Landlord–tenant disputes often hinge on understanding how statutory protections interact with contract law. We help clients navigate those overlapping regimes without losing viable claims—or overstating defenses.
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