Two very different rules in one section
Section 736.1013 answers a question that comes up whenever a trust deals with the outside world. When something goes wrong, does the claimant collect from the trust, or from the human being running it?
Florida splits the answer by the kind of claim. Contract claims turn on how the trustee signed. Tort claims turn on whether the trustee was personally at fault. Those are not variations on a theme. They are different tests with different evidence, and a claim can pass one while failing the other.
The tort rule, and the word that carries it
A trustee is personally liable for torts committed in the course of administering a trust or for obligations arising from ownership or control of trust property only if the trustee is personally at fault.
Section 736.1013(2), Florida Statutes.
Read that as a trustee reads it and it sounds like protection. Only if. No fault, no personal liability, and the trust bears the loss.
Read it as a claimant reads it and it is an instruction. Plead fault, prove fault, and the trustee pays personally.
Both readings are correct, which is the point. The subsection does not grant immunity. It states a condition, and where the condition is contested the section settles nothing on its own.
A trustee cited this subsection and lost the motion
In 2012 a federal judge in the Southern District of Florida had that argument in front of him, in litigation over a life insurance policy. The trustee moved for summary judgment on the ground that Florida law did not make him personally liable. He quoted this subsection to prove it. The order records what happened.
To support his contention, Muchnick cites Fla. Stat. § 736.1013(2) (2011) which provides:
A trustee is personally liable for torts committed in the course of administering a trust or for obligations arising from ownership or control of trust property only if the trustee is personally at fault.
Contrary to Muchnick’s contention, this statute actually supports Lincoln’s theory that Muchnick can be held personally liable for the torts committed if Muchnick “is personally at fault.” Thus, Muchnick’s motion for summary judgment because he is not personally liable under Florida law is denied.
Sciaretta v. Lincoln National Life Insurance Co., 899 F. Supp. 2d 1318 (S.D. Fla. 2012), Middlebrooks, J., on cross motions for summary judgment. A federal trial court decision, persuasive rather than binding on a Florida court.
The reasoning is short because the point is simple. A statute that makes liability turn on fault is not a defence to a claim that alleges fault. It is the standard the claim will be measured against, and on a summary judgment motion a disputed standard is a reason to go to trial rather than a reason to end the case.
The practical lesson for a trustee facing a tort claim is that this section is not the end of the analysis. It tells you what the claimant has to establish. It does not tell you they cannot establish it.
What Florida appellate courts have said, which is very little
Our review found no Florida appellate decision construing this section. The Fourth District mentioned it in 2015, in a passage about the nature of a breach of trust, and the mention is a citation rather than an interpretation.
A breach of trust or fiduciary duty is the equivalent of at least a negligent tort, and, under certain facts, may be an intentional tort. The breach may result in an award of damages against the trustee personally. §§ 736.1002(1), 736.1013(2), Fla. Stat. (2008).
Corya v. Sanders, 155 So. 3d 1279 (Fla. 4th DCA 2015). The section is cited in support of a proposition and is not quoted or construed.
That is worth having, because it confirms an appellate court reads this subsection as a route to a personal damages award rather than as a barrier to one. It is not a construction of the section and we do not present it as one.
A research note about that decision, and it matters
The 2015 opinion exists in the databases in more than one form, and the forms are not identical. One version was withdrawn. The court issued an opinion in November 2014, granted rehearing, and substituted a new opinion in February 2015 that expressly withdraws the earlier one. Both are retrievable.
More troubling, two records of the substituted opinion differ from each other. One contains the majority, a concurrence and a partial dissent. The other contains the majority alone, with the separate writings and the not-final legend absent. A reader working from the second would have no reason to suspect a judge disagreed in part.
We record this because it is not a curiosity. Which database record you open can change what you think a case held. The habit that catches it is checking the panel line against the writings you actually have in front of you.
Where the section sits
Section 736.1013 is about the claimant’s reach, not about the trustee’s reimbursement. If a trustee is held personally liable, whether the trust must then indemnify them is a separate question governed by other provisions and by the instrument.
It is also worth separating this from a beneficiary’s claim for breach of trust. A beneficiary suing a trustee for mismanagement is not in the territory of this section at all. This one governs the outside world (the contractor, the tort claimant, the person injured on trust property).