GEICO CASUALTY COMPANY

v.

MSP RECOVERY CLAIMS

Third District Court of Appeal

State of Florida

Opinion filed March³, 2021. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

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No. 3D20-1044 Lower Tribunal No. 18-42153

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Geico Casualty Company, et al.,

Petitioners,

vs.

MSP Recovery Claims, et al., Respondents.

On Petition for Writ of Certiorari from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Veronica A. Diaz, Judge. A Case of Original Jurisdiction—Prohibition. Cole, Scott & Kissane, P.A., and Thomas L. Hunker, Selina Patel, Peter D. Weinstein and Michael A. Rosenberg (Fort Lauderdale), for petitioners. MSP Recovery Law Firm, and John H. Ruiz, Michael O. Mena, Gino Moreno and Andre Vazquez; Armas Bertran Zincone, and J. Alfredo Armas, Eduardo E. Bertran and Francesco A. Zincone, III, for respondents. Coffey Burlington, and Scott A. Hiaasen; Wiggin & Dana LLP, and Michael Menapace (Hartford, CT), for American Property Casualty Insurance Association and the Personal Insurance Federation of Florida, as amici curiae. Squire Patton Boggs (US) LLP, and Andrew R. Kruppa and Amanda E. Preston; Reed Smith LLP, and Edward M. Mullins, Lisa M. Baird and Christina D. Olivos; King & Spalding LLP, and Val Leppert (Atlanta, GA), for Ethicon, Inc., American Medical Systems, Inc., and Coloplast Corp., as amici curiae. Before SCALES, LINDSEY and HENDON, JJ. SCALES, J. After the trial court entered its June 24, 2020 non-final order denying petitioners, defendants below, GEICO Casualty Company, GEICO General Insurance Company and GEICO Indemnity Company’s (collectively, “GEICO”) motions to dismiss respondents’ second amended complaint and for a protective order, GEICO filed the instant petition in this Court seeking writs of both prohibition and certiorari. We deny the petition for writ of prohibition because the circuit court has subject matter jurisdiction over the claims presented in respondents’ second amended complaint, and we dismiss the petition for writ of certiorari because GEICO has not established the requisite irreparable harm to invoke this Court’s certiorari jurisdiction.

A. Prohibition

First, GEICO seeks a writ prohibiting the trial court from exercising jurisdiction over the declaratory relief claim asserted in count I of respondents MSP Recovery Claims, MSPA Claims¹, LLC, and Series PMPI, a series of MAO-MSO Recovery II, LLC’s (collectively, “MSP”) second amended complaint. In this count, MSP seeks a declaration that it is entitled to recover from GEICO payments allegedly made by MSP’s assignors that should have been made by GEICO, the PIP insurer for the assignors’ insureds. GEICO argues that, because each claim is necessarily limited to no more than $10,000, the circuit court’s jurisdictional threshold¹ is not met and, therefore, the circuit court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over MSP’s declaratory relief claim. Even if GEICO’s jurisdictional threshold argument is correct – an issue that we need not and do not reach – it is not dispositive here because GEICO does not dispute that the circuit court has subject matter jurisdiction over count II of MSP’s second amended complaint, a pure bill of discovery. See Edgar v. Econ. Opportunity Legal Servs. Program, Inc., 230 So. 2d 487, 488 (Fla. 3d DCA 1970) (“If the amount in controversy in one count of a complaint is sufficient to invoke the jurisdiction of the circuit court, that court may not transfer to the civil court of record another count involving an amount insufficient in itself to invoke the jurisdiction of the circuit court.”); Milhet Caterers, Inc. v. N. W. Meat, Inc., 185 So. 2d 196, 197 (Fla.

B. Certiorari

Next, GEICO seeks certiorari review of that portion of the trial court’s June 24, 2020 non-final order denying GEICO’s motion for a protective order directed at the information sought by MSP in count II of MSP’s second amended complaint, a pure bill of discovery.² We dismiss the writ because GEICO “cannot demonstrate the requisite irreparable harm that would vest this Court with jurisdiction to determine whether there has been a departure from the essential requirements of the law.” Am. Med. Sys., LLC v. MSP Recovery Claims, Series LLC, 290 So. 3d 548, 549-50 (Fla. 3d DCA 2019). As this Court recognized in American Medical Systems, where the trial court denies the petitioner’s motion to dismiss the underlying claim for a pure bill of discovery, certiorari review is appropriate only when the trial court also “direct[s] the petitioner to provide the very discovery sought” by the pleading.