940 OCEAN DRIVE, LLC
v.
SOBE USA, LLC

Fla. 3d DCA | 2025-04-02
No. 2022-1323
Logue, C.J., Lindsey, J., Bokor, J., Manno Schurr, J.
Florida District Court of Appeal, Third District (2025)

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.


Holding

A motion for rehearing and clarification is denied where the appellate court affirmed the fee judgment without discussion, and the court clarifies that when punitive damages entitlement is reversed for failure to meet the burden of proof, the amount must also be retried on remand.


Headnotes

[1] When an appellate court reverses an award of punitive damages for failure to establish entitlement by clear and convincing evidence, the amount of punitive damages must a…

Previewing 1 of 1 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

Key Quotes

“[W]here a case is affirmed no reversible error has been found by the court, and where it is reversed on a stated point, unless the contrary appear in the judgment or by certificate of the appellate court, it will be assumed that all other assignments of error have been examined and found to be without merit.”

Court citing Shayne v. Saunders to explain that affirmance without discussion means all issues were examined and found meritless.

Facts & Procedural History

The landlord appealed a trial court's sanctions order and fee judgment awarding the tenant fees and costs through June 30, 2022. The trial court had a…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court

Third District Court of Appeal

State of Florida

Opinion filed April 2, 2025.

Nos. 3D22-1323 & 3D22-2238 Lower Tribunal Nos. 22-4881 & 20-1911

940 Ocean Drive, LLC, Appellant,

vs.

Sobe USA, LLC, Appellee.

Appeals from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Valerie R. Manno Schurr, Judge.

Dentons US LLP, and Angel A. Cortiñas, for appellant.

Shutts & Bowen LLP, and Ricky L. Polston (Tallahassee), and Steven M. Ebner, and Julissa Rodriguez, and Jamie B. Wasserman; Wolfe Law Miami, P.A., and Richard C. Wolfe; Steinberg & Associates, P.A., and Richard Steinberg, for appellee.

Before LOGUE, C.J., and LINDSEY, and BOKOR, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING AND CLARIFICATION

Appellant 940 Ocean Drive, LLC (the “Landlord”) has filed a Motion for Rehearing and Clarification seeking an adjudication of the trial court's Fee Judgment, which awarded Appellee Sobe USA, LLC (the “Tenant”) fees and costs through June 30, 2022.1 The Fee Judgment was predicated on the trial court's Sanctions Order, which this Court affirmed.

The Landlord contends that we overlooked the Fee Judgment. We did not. The Fee Judgment was affirmed without discussion. See, e.g., Shayne v. Saunders, 176 So. 495, 496 (Fla. 1937) (“[W]here a case is affirmed no reversible error has been found by the court, and where it is reversed on a stated point, unless the contrary appear in the judgment or by certificate of the appellate court, it will be assumed that all other assignments of error have been examined and found to be without merit."). We therefore deny the Landlord's Motion for Rehearing and Clarification.

We do, however, briefly write to address the parties' disagreement as to the scope of this Court's decision with respect to the amount of the punitive damages award. Because the Tenant did not establish at trial, by clear and convincing evidence, entitlement to punitive damages, we reversed the punitive damages award and remanded for further proceedings. See § 768.725, Fla. Stat. (2024). Under the burden-shifting sanction, the Tenant

did not meet its burden in the context of punitive damages, we therefore reversed as to entitlement. But the same logic necessarily applies for the punitive damages amount. Therefore, while we take no position on the propriety of any particular amount, the amount awarded here suffered from the same procedural flaw as the entitlement portion. So, the further proceedings contemplated in the opinion would, in context, include a retrial on both entitlement to punitive damages as well as amount.

Motion denied.

Footnotes
1 According to the Fee Judgment, the parties stipulated to the amount of fees through June 30, 2022.

Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw