IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE ELEVENTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT IN AND FOR MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, FLORIDA CIRCUIT CIVIL DIVISION CASE NO. 2025-003417-CA-01 BISCAYNE BLUE AQUACULTURE, LLC, a Florida limited liability company, Plaintiff, v. ACME COMPOSITE SYSTEMS, INC., a Florida corporation, Defendant. _______________________________________________/ PLAINTIFF'S MOTION TO COMPEL PRODUCTION OF RESIN-SUBSTITUTION AND QUALITY-ASSURANCE DOCUMENTS (REQUEST NOS. 17, 22 AND 23) [Excerpt: Argument, Part II. Sample prepared for the BRON LAW public verifier from the Matter Zero test corpus. The parties, the matter and counsel are fictional; the authorities are real.] II. THE REQUESTED DOCUMENTS ARE RELEVANT TO COUNT III, AND THE ECONOMIC LOSS RULE DOES NOT MAKE THEM OTHERWISE Acme's principal objection to Request Nos. 17, 22 and 23 is not burden. It is that the documents "relate solely to a negligence theory barred by the economic loss rule" (Resp. at 9), so that nothing about the July 2024 substitution of GP-2100 resin for the specified ISO-7400 can matter to this case. That objection cannot sustain the refusal to produce under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.380(a), because its premise is wrong as a matter of Florida law. First, the Supreme Court of Florida has confined the economic loss rule to a single setting. In Tiara Condo. Ass'n v. Marsh & McLennan Cos., 110 So. 3d 399, 407 (Fla. 2013), the Court held that "the economic loss rule applies only in the products liability context," and receded from its earlier decisions to the extent they had applied the rule anywhere else. Acme's contract with Biscayne Blue was for the fabrication and installation of tank liners at the farm: a service, not the sale of a product. Whatever the rule may still do in a dispute between a manufacturer and a purchaser, it does not reach Count III. Second, even where the rule applies, it has never barred recovery for damage to other property. In Comptech Int'l, Inc. v. Milam Commerce Park, Ltd., 753 So. 2d 1219, 1221 (Fla. 1999), a landlord's negligent renovation of a leased warehouse damaged the tenant's computers stored inside it, and the Court held that "the computers that were damaged during the renovations of the warehouse meet the definition of 'other property' under the exception to the economic loss rule." The Court added that "the economic loss rule cannot be used as a barrier to legitimate causes of action whether they be statutory or common law." Id. at 1226. And it concluded, of the tenant's negligence count, that "recovery for damages to the computers is not barred under the economic loss rule." Id. The 14,180 pompano lost when Tank 7 delaminated on October 14, 2024, and the pumps, biofilter media and sump destroyed in the same event, are Biscayne Blue's other property in exactly Comptech's sense. They were not the subject of the contract; they were what the contract existed to protect. Florida law has, moreover, long permitted a commercial operator to recover in negligence for the loss of the living stock its business depends on. See Curd v. Mosaic Fertilizer, LLC, 39 So. 3d 1216 (Fla. 2010). Because Count III states a claim Florida law recognizes, the documents showing why Acme substituted the resin, who approved it, and what Acme's own quality-assurance staff concluded about the Tank 7 failure are relevant to that claim under any reading of the scope of discovery. Acme's objection should be overruled and production compelled within ten days. [Excerpt ends.] Respectfully submitted, /s/ Nadia Ferrara-Whitlock Nadia Ferrara-Whitlock, Fla. Bar No. 0184427 Counsel for Plaintiff Biscayne Blue Aquaculture, LLC 2 South Biscayne Boulevard, Suite 3200 Miami, Florida 33131