Third District Court of Appeal
State of Florida
Opinion filed October 28, 2026.
Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.
No. 3D25-2148
Lower Tribunal No. 22-18640-CA-01
Dr.-Ing. H.C.F. Porsche,
Appellant,
vs.
The Collection LLC,
Appellee.
An Appeal from a non-final order from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Lisa S. Walsh, Judge.
Dentons US LLP, and Trumon J. Phillip; and DLA Piper LLP, and Janelly Crespo, for appellant.
Kula & Associates, P.A., and Elliot B. Kula and William D. Mueller, and Burstyn Law PLLC, and Sean A. Burstyn, for appellee.
Before LINDSEY, MILLER and REBULL, JJ.
PER CURIAM.
Affirmed. See Ford Motor Co. v. Mont. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 592 U.S.
351, 352 (2021) (“To be subject to . . . [specific] jurisdiction, the defendant
must take ‘some act by which [it] purposefully avails itself of the privilege of
conducting activities within the forum State.’ And the plaintiff's claims ‘must
arise out of or relate to the defendant's contacts’ with the forum.” (citations
omitted)); Mazda Motor Corp. v. Triche, 365 So. 3d 403, 411 (Fla. 3d DCA
2023) (affirming exercise of specific jurisdiction over a Japanese foreign
automobile manufacturer, Mazda Japan, finding it targeted Florida by
“designing vehicles for, shipping vehicles to,” and ordering recalls for its
vehicles owned in Florida: “If not Florida, what market were these actions of
Mazda Japan intended to reach?”); see also Machtinger v. Inertial Airline
Servs., Inc., 937 So. 2d 730, 736 (Fla. 3d DCA 2006) (“Directing a conspiracy
toward Florida establishes sufficient minimum contacts to satisfy due
process.”); Mazda Motor Corp., 365 So. 3d at 414 (holding the exercise of
specific jurisdiction over Mazda Japan comported with traditional notions of
fair play and substantial justice, reasoning: “[O]nce it is established that the
non-resident defendant purposefully availed itself of the market (and
therefore the laws) of a State, the interest of the State to oversee the safety
of its residents within the State is obvious and compelling”).
LINDSEY and MILLER, JJ., concur.
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Dr.-Ing. H.C.F. Porsche v. The Collection LLC
3D2025-2148
Rebull, J., concurring.
I unreservedly join the affirmance of the learned trial judge’s decision
to deny Porsche AG’s motion(s) to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. I
write separately to briefly address its contention that the trial court erred in
failing to hold an evidentiary hearing.
This is what Porsche AG wrote in a footnote in its reply in support of its
motion to dismiss the second amended complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction:
Even if The Collection had found some evidence to cite, that
would not create personal jurisdiction: At most, it would warrant
an evidentiary hearing so that the Court could resolve the competing evidence. See Estes v. Rodin, 259 So. 3d 183, 198 (Fla.
3d DCA 2018) ("If the material facts alleged in the opposing affidavits conflict with one another, the trial court is required to hold
an evidentiary hearing to resolve the jurisdictional issue."). Fortunately, the Court need not waste its time with such a hearing
given The Collection’s failure of proof. Id. at 190 (where affidavits
"can be harmonized," no evidentiary hearing is needed).
(emphasis added).
There is no reasonable contextual reading of this as anything other
than a waiver by Porsche AG of its right to an evidentiary hearing. It rolled
the dice and decided that it could win “on the papers,” and that no evidentiary
hearing was necessary. Moreover, an argument only made in a footnote is
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legally insufficient. Cf. Dixon v. Brown, 423 So. 3d 963, 970 (Fla. 1st DCA
2025); Shobola v. Shobola, 355 So. 3d 458, 462 (Fla. 2d DCA 2022). “Proper
preservation requires the following three steps from a party: (1) a timely, contemporaneous objection; (2) a legal ground for the objection and; (3) in order
for an argument to be cognizable on appeal, it must be the specific contention asserted as legal ground for the objection, exception, or motion below.”
State v. Johnson, 295 So. 3d 710, 714 (Fla. 2020) (emphasis added) (internal
quotations and citations omitted). Beyond the footnote in the motion, the necessity of an evidentiary hearing before the trial court made any factual findings adverse to Porsche AG did not come up at all in the transcript of the
hearing held on the motion on September 8, 2025.
Had Porsche AG wished to put The Collection to its proof and require
it to prove its jurisdictional facts with admissible evidence, it should have expressly and clearly argued that to the trial court. At an evidentiary hearing, a
plaintiff must prove jurisdiction by a preponderance of the evidence. See
Stonepeak Partners, LP v. Tall Tower Capital, LLC, 231 So. 3d 548, 552 (Fla.
2d DCA 2017); see also AcryliCon USA, LLC v. Silikal GmbH, 985 F.3d 1350,
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1364 (11th Cir. 2021).1 Porsche AG did not elect to do that in this case. For
this additional reason, I concur that the decision below is properly affirmed.
1
In the Federal system, trial courts are permitted to defer resolving the factual dispute where the jurisdictional facts are “intertwined” or “overlap” with the merits of the dispute. See Grayson v. Anderson, 816 F.3d 262, 268 (4th Cir. 2016) (citing Adams v. Bain, 697 F.2d 1213, 1219 (4th Cir.1982) (noting that, “where the jurisdictional facts are intertwined with the facts central to the merits of the dispute,” deferring resolution of that factual dispute to a proceeding on the merits “is the better view”); see also Welt Indus., Inc. v. Weingart, Inc., 660 F. Supp. 424, 425 (N.D. Ga. 1987). While the Florida rules of civil procedure are patterned after the Federal rules (and more so now than ever), it does not appear that this deferral is an option for trial judges under the Venetian Salami framework. Although understandably less desirable, a defendant does have an option, however, to raise “lack of jurisdiction over the person’ as an affirmative defense in a responsive pleading – and not by motion – and save the issue for trial or summary judgment. See Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.140(b) (noting that at the pleader’s option lack of personal jurisdiction may be asserted by motion or in the responsive pleading).
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