Turo, Inc. v. Mobley, 51 Fla. L. Weekly D195 (Fla. 6th DCA Jan. 30, 2026).

The plaintiffs rented a vehicle through the defendant’s on-line rental platform, which matched drivers with owners willing to “rent” their vehicles on a short-term basis. The defendant promoted the subject vehicle on its platform.

When they picked up the vehicle, a tire pressure sensor warning light was illuminated. The plaintiff driver messaged the vehicle owner through the in-app messaging and was told the sensor “is on all the time” and the tires were “great.” Shortly after, the right rear tire blew out, the vehicle fishtailed, left the road, and flipped multiple times, killing one passenger and injuring the others.

The plaintiffs sought leave to add punitive damages, which the trial court granted, relying heavily on (1) the corporate representative’s testimony that the defendant had the ability to could restrict vehicles before renting them on line, including vehicles where warning lights were illuminated; (2) evidence that in 53 of the 79 pre-trip inspections before the plaintiff rented the vehicle, it had the warning light on; and (3) there was evidence that included four post-trip reviews (before the plaintiff rented the vehicle) that reflected low tire pressure issues.

The appellate court reversed the order allowing the amendment. It reiterated that section 768.72 requires a reasonable showing by evidence or proffer and that punitive damages require intentional misconduct or gross negligence.

The court found that the plaintiff could not show “actual knowledge,” since the plaintiffs theorized that the defendant failed to review the pre-trip inspections. Additionally, the post-trip reviews did not provide actual knowledge because in the “feedback” section where they were left, there were no comments made by the defendant. Finally, while the plaintiffs asserted that the driver had messaged the defendant about the tire pressure light, the driver’s message was sent to the actual owner of the vehicle (a non-party to the case), and NOT to the defendant, again fatally undermining the “actual knowledge” claim. The court  rejected plaintiffs’ assertion that they could impute the owner’s knowledge to the defendant based on some type of employer-employee relationship, which the evidence did not bear out.

Sadly, despite these facts, the court further held that even assuming constructive knowledge of a faulty warning light and a failure to restrict the listing, that the plaintiffs could still not meet the high bar for demonstrating gross negligence.