How to File a Motion to Compel Arbitration in Florida

To file a motion to compel arbitration in Florida, you file the motion in the circuit court where the lawsuit is already pending, attach the contract containing the arbitration clause, and ask the court to order arbitration and stay the case. The court will grant the motion once you establish three things: a valid written arbitration agreement exists, the dispute falls within that agreement’s scope, and the right to arbitrate has not been waived.¹ File it early. Every month you spend litigating weakens the motion.

Where to File

If a lawsuit has already been filed against you, the motion goes into that existing case in the circuit court where it is pending.¹ Serve it on opposing counsel under the ordinary motion-service rules for pending cases.

If no lawsuit exists yet and the other side simply refuses to arbitrate, you file a petition to compel in the county the arbitration clause designates for the hearing. When the clause is silent on venue, you can file in any county where the opposing party lives or does business.² Because there is no existing case, you serve the petition the same way you would serve a summons in a new civil action. Getting service wrong on an initial petition can set the process back by weeks.

What the Motion Must Contain

The motion has one job: show the court that an arbitration agreement exists and that the other side is refusing to honor it. A workable draft covers five points.

Identify the agreement by stating when the contract was signed, who signed it, and where in the document the arbitration clause appears.
Attach the contract as an exhibit. At minimum include the pages containing the arbitration clause and the signature page. The court needs to read the actual language.
Describe the refusal. Explain that you asked the opposing party to arbitrate and they declined, or that they filed suit instead of proceeding to arbitration.
Address scope. Quote the clause and connect its language to the specific allegations in the complaint, explaining why the claims fall within what the parties agreed to arbitrate.
Request the specific relief: an order compelling arbitration and a stay of the pending litigation until the arbitration concludes.

Keep the factual recitation tight. The court is not going to retry the underlying dispute at this stage, and a motion that reads like a merits brief invites unnecessary fights.

What the Court Will Require You to Prove

Florida courts conduct a summary review of three elements before ordering arbitration. The burden is on you.

A Valid Written Arbitration Agreement

The court applies standard Florida contract principles to decide whether an enforceable agreement exists, and that gateway question belongs to the court rather than the arbitrator.³ Expect the opposing party to raise unconscionability or fraud. Unconscionability has two parts in Florida: procedural (no real ability to negotiate) and substantive (unreasonably one-sided terms), weighed on a sliding scale. A take-it-or-leave-it consumer clause that also bars class actions and caps damages is the vulnerable profile; a negotiated clause between two businesses rarely is.

Fraud arguments split based on target. A claim that the entire contract was induced by fraud generally goes to the arbitrator. A claim that fraud was aimed specifically at the arbitration clause stays with the court.

If your contract contains a delegation clause clearly assigning gateway enforceability questions to the arbitrator, flag it in the motion. A valid delegation clause narrows the court’s role to deciding whether the delegation clause itself is enforceable, not the broader agreement.

The Dispute Falls Within the Clause’s Scope

Read the clause and match it against what the complaint actually alleges. Broad language, such as “any dispute arising out of or relating to” the contract, usually covers tort and statutory claims connected to the subject matter. Narrow language limited to, say, payment disputes is where real scope fights happen. When the language is ambiguous, Florida courts resolve the doubt in favor of arbitration.

One point to pre-empt in your motion: the court cannot refuse to compel arbitration because the underlying claim looks weak.¹ Merit is the arbitrator’s problem.

No Waiver

A party waives the right to arbitrate by acting inconsistently with it. Filing merits-based counterclaims, conducting extensive discovery, or running through multiple rounds of motion practice without raising arbitration all point toward waiver. The U.S. Supreme Court clarified in 2022 that courts should apply the ordinary contract-waiver standard without requiring a showing of prejudice to the other side.

The practical rule is simple: raise arbitration first. The motion should precede any merits discovery or substantive motion. If you have already litigated for months, be prepared to explain why that conduct was not inconsistent with your intent to arbitrate.

The Hearing and the Stay

Florida law requires the court to decide the motion summarily rather than through a full evidentiary trial. If the opposing party fails to appear or does not contest the motion, the court must order arbitration.¹ If the motion is contested, the court holds a hearing on the enforceability question and orders arbitration unless it finds that no enforceable agreement exists.

The lawsuit is stayed while the motion is pending, and the stay continues through the arbitration if the motion is granted.¹ When the case contains both arbitrable and non-arbitrable claims, the court may limit the stay to the arbitrable claims and let the rest of the case move forward.

Claims That Cannot Be Compelled Into Arbitration

Before you file, confirm the claims at issue are not in a category that federal law shields from mandatory pre-dispute arbitration. If they are, the court will deny the motion no matter how clean your clause looks.

The broadest carve-out is for sexual harassment and sexual assault. Under the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act, the person bringing such a claim can void a pre-dispute arbitration agreement for that claim, and the court decides whether the Act applies even when the contract contains a delegation clause.⁴ The Act covers claims that arose on or after March 3, 2022.

Other categories outside mandatory arbitration include employment contracts of seamen, railroad employees, and other transportation workers engaged in interstate commerce, regardless of whether they are classified as employees or independent contractors;⁵ motor vehicle franchise disputes, which require post-dispute consent from all parties; and claims by active-duty service members and their dependents under the Military Lending Act.

If the Court Rules Against You

Florida gives both sides an immediate right of appeal. Any nonfinal order determining a party’s entitlement to arbitration is immediately appealable to the district court of appeal under Rule 9.130.⁶ This cuts both ways: a denial can be appealed before the case moves forward, and a grant can be challenged by the party who wanted to stay in court.

The window is short. Florida appellate rules generally require a notice of appeal within 30 days of the order being rendered. Miss it and the ruling stands for the rest of the case.

1
Florida Senate. Florida Code 682.03 – Proceedings to Compel and to Stay Arbitration
2
The Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes Chapter 682 – Arbitration Code
3
Florida Senate. Florida Code 682.02 – Arbitration Agreements Made Valid, Irrevocable, and Enforceable; Scope
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 9 USC 402 – No Validity or Enforceability
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 9 USC 1 – Maritime Transactions and Commerce Defined
6
Florida Courts. Rule 9.130 – Proceedings to Review Nonfinal Orders and Specified Final Orders