# Horning v. Resolve Marine Group, Inc.

> District Court, S.D. Florida · January 10, 2020

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10117260

## Case

- **Court:** District Court, S.D. Florida
- **Decided:** January 10, 2020
- **Opinion:** 100trialcourt
- **Cited by:** 0 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

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## Opinion text

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.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10117260. Public record. Not legal advice.