NEIMAN NIX, ET AL.
v.
THE OFFICE OF THE COMMISSIONER OF BASEBALL, ET AL.
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Claims are barred by res judicata when they arise from identical facts and involve the same parties, even if a new individual defendant is named, provided that defendant is alleged to be an employee or agent of the original party defendant acting on its behalf.
[1] A dismissal of an action operates as an adjudication on the merits for res judicata purposes unless otherwise specifically exempted by statute or rule.
[2] Identity of parties for res judicata purposes is broadly construed to include persons in privity with record parties and agents or employees acting on behalf of record pa…
Previewing 2 of 5 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“"[A] judgment rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction, on the merits, is a bar to any future suit between the same parties or their privies upon the same cause of action, so long as it remains unreversed."”
Establishes the foundational principle of res judicata as a bar to successive litigation on the same cause of action.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceNeiman Nix, a former professional baseball player, and his company DNA Sports Performance Lab sued MLB entities for invasion of privacy, misappropriat…
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Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida
Opinion filed April 23, 2025. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.
________________
No. 3D23-1486 Lower Tribunal No. 19-2611 ________________
Neiman Nix, et al., Appellants,
vs.
The Office of the Commissioner of Baseball, et al., Appellees.
An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Lourdes Simon, Judge.
Tympanick Law, P.A., and Matthew F. Tympanick (Sarasota), for appellants.
Kobre & Kim LLP, and Adriana Riviere-Badell, for appellees.
Before EMAS, MILLER and BOKOR, JJ.
BOKOR, J.
2
Appellants Neiman Nix, a former professional baseball player, and his sports supplement company, DNA Sports Performance Lab, Inc., appeal the trial court’s grant of summary judgment on their claims against the Major League Baseball association (MLB) and affiliated entities for invasion of privacy, misappropriation of trade secrets, and aiding and abetting a tortfeasor. Because the trial court correctly found that these same claims have already been resolved on the merits in other cases and were thus barred by res judicata, we affirm.
The underlying action follows at least seven other lawsuits dating back to 2014, each founded on the same alleged facts.1 In each of these actions, Appellants claimed that agents of the MLB hacked or illegally accessed their online banking and social media accounts in order to steal personal data and
The trial court here initially granted judgment on the pleadings, finding that allegations in the pleadings from the prior actions demonstrated that the claims were barred by the statute of limitations. We reversed and remanded in 2022 on the limited ground that the trial court could not base its factual findings on unverified copies of the records from the prior cases where the court had not taken judicial notice of those records, and the parties had not stipulated to their authenticity. See Nix v. Office of the Comm’r of Baseball, 346 So. 3d 685, 686 (Fla. 3d DCA 2022). The trial court subsequently took judicial notice of such records and granted summary judgment in favor of the MLB, this time on both statute of limitations and res judicata grounds.
On this latest appeal, Appellants primarily argue that the trial court could not find their claims barred by res judicata because the facts and parties of the instant action differ from the prior ones, namely in the respect that Appellants have now identified Ricardo Burnham as the alleged MLB operative who purportedly stole their account passwords (by impersonating a police officer) and named Burnham as an individual defendant. However, as the trial court correctly found, this alone does not make the instant case distinguishable from the prior ones for res judicata purposes. “[A] judgment
2 However, we take no position on the statute of limitations issue as an alternative ground for summary judgment.
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- McGregor v. Provident Tr. Co. of Philadelphia, 119 Fla. 718 (Fla. 1935)
- Allie v. Ionata, 503 So. 2d 1237 (Fla. 1987)
- West v. Kawasaki Motors Mfg. Corp., 595 So. 2d 92 (Fla. 3d DCA 1992)
- Atl. Shores Resort, LLC v. 507 S. St. Corp. & City of Key W., 937 So. 2d 1239 (Fla. 3d DCA 2006)
- Neiman NIX v. THE Off. of the Comm'r of Baseball, 346 So. 3d 685 (Fla. 3d DCA 2022)
- Neiman Nix v. Luhnow, 397 So. 3d 694 (Fla. 4th DCA 2024)