Horning v. Resolve Marine Group, Inc.

United States District Court

for the

Southern District of Florida

Danny J. Horning, Plaintiff, )

)

v. )

Civil Action No. 19-60899-Civ-Scola

)

Resolve Marine Group, Inc., )

Defendant. )

Order Denying the Parties’ Joint Motion to Bifurcate the Proceedings

Now before the Court is the parties’ joint motion to bifurcate the issue of

subject matter jurisdiction and incorporated memorandum of law. The parties

state that the Defendant will assert a factual challenge to this Court’s subject

matter jurisdiction under the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C. § 30104. (ECF No. 21 at ¶ 4.)

They request that, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 42(b), the subject

matter jurisdiction issue be bifurcated from the merits so that the matter will

proceed first to a jury trial on whether the Court has subject matter jurisdiction

and then to a jury trial on the merits. (Id. at ¶ 6.) For the reasons set forth below,

the Court denies the parties’ joint motion (ECF No. 21).

First, the Court notes that this case is preceding solely under the Court’s

admiralty jurisdiction is not entitled to a jury trial on either the merits or the

subject matter jurisdiction issue. Beiswenger Enterprises Corp. v. Carletta, 86

F.3d 1032, 1037 (11th Cir. 1996) (“[A]s in all admiralty cases, there is no right

to a jury trial.”); Barry v. Shell Oil Co., No. CIVA 13-6133, 2014 WL 775662, at

*3 (E.D. La. Feb. 25, 2014) (“As Plaintiff’s claims here are solely based on general

maritime law and there is a lack of diversity among the parties, there is no way

for Plaintiff to have a trial by jury in this Court.”).

Second, factual challenges to a district court’s subject matter jurisdiction

often arise in federal cases, and these proceedings are very rarely or never

bifurcated. See Lawrence v. Dunbar, 919 F.2d 1525, 1529 (11th Cir. 1990)

(“Factual attacks . . . challenge the existence of subject matter jurisdiction in

fact, irrespective of the pleadings, and matters outside the pleadings, such as

testimony and affidavits are considered”). In these cases, generally the matter is

resolved on a motion to dismiss filed with accompanying affidavits, sometimes

after the parties conduct limited jurisdictional discovery. See, e.g., Morrison v.

Amway Corp., 323 F.3d 920, 921 (11th. 2003) (resolving the factual attack to

subject matter jurisdiction on a motion to dismiss); MSP Recovery, LLC v. Allstate

Ins. Co., 276 F. Supp. 3d 1311, 1314 (S.D. Fla. 2017) (Scola, J.) (granting the

Defendant’s motion to dismiss based on a factual challenge to the Court’s subject

matter jurisdiction). This case does not present a unique situation that justifies

the burden of having two trials.

Third, in the Court’s discretion, bifurcation is unnecessary and

inappropriate here. As the parties have argued, it is within the Court’s

jurisdiction whether to bifurcate the proceedings under Rule 42(b). (ECF No. 21

at 3-4.) Whether to bifurcate the proceedings “is a matter to be decided on a

case-by-case basis and must be subject to an informed discretion by the trial

judge in each instance.” Brown v. Toscano, 630 F. Supp. 2d 1342, 1345 (S.D.

Fla. 2008) (Seltzer, J.). Here, the parties have not sufficiently demonstrated why

bifurcation is appropriate in this case, and the Court therefore denies the

parties’ motion (ECF No. 21).

Done and ordered, in Chambers, at Miami, Florida on January 9, 2020.

Robert N. Scola, Jr.

United States District Judge

1 If the parties believe that witness testimony is essential to the Court’s subject

matter jurisdiction determination, they may move for an evidentiary hearing on

their motion to dismiss.