Florida Statute 736.1002
“Damages for breach of trust”
What it means
A trustee who commits a breach of trust is liable for the greater of two numbers: the amount needed to restore the trust's value and distributions to what they would have been without the breach — expressly including lost income, capital gain, or appreciation proper administration would have produced — or the profit the trustee made from the breach. Florida wrote appreciation damages into the statute, so a trustee cannot mishandle assets and settle up at old prices.
When several people are liable for the same breach, liability is shared by relative degrees of fault through pro rata contribution — unavailable to anyone who acted in bad faith or to the extent a person kept a benefit from the breach.
- Damages are the greater of restoration or the trustee's profit — §736.1002(1).
- Restoration expressly includes lost income, capital gain, or appreciation that would have resulted from proper administration.
- Co-liable persons share by relative degrees of fault, enforced through pro rata contribution.
- No contribution for a person who committed the breach in bad faith, or to the extent the person benefited from the breach.
- A separate contribution action generally must be commenced within 1 year after the judgment becomes final or after payment of the common liability.
How it plays out
§736.1002(1)(a) is the sentence we show trustees who assume a breach only risks giving back what was taken. If mishandled assets would have appreciated, the surcharge is measured at the appreciated value — in a rising market, exposure grows every year the breach goes uncorrected. It frames settlement for beneficiaries the same way: the starting number is what the trust would be worth today under proper administration, or the trustee's profit, whichever is larger.
Questions people ask
