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Nature of Suit Code: 110
Nature of Suit: Insurance
Cause of Action: 

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[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 23-11645

Non-Argument Calendar

____________________

SANDRA SAFONT, 

individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated,

Plaintiff, 

THOMAS BARBATO, 

YVONNE BARBATO, 

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

versus

STATE FARM FLORIDA INSURANCE COMPANY, 

Defendant-Appellee.

____________________

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2 Opinion of the Court 23-11645

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

D.C. Docket No. 1:22-cv-22891-KMM

____________________

Before ROSENBAUM, GRANT, and LAGOA, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Thomas and Yvonne Barbato sued their insurer, State Farm 

Florida Insurance Company, for breach-of-contract after State 

Farm paid a claim under the Barbatos’ insurance policy but refused 

to pay interest on the claim. The district court dismissed the complaint with prejudice because it found that suits for the recovery of 

unpaid interest alone are barred by the limitation against private 

causes of action in Florida Statute § 627.70131(5)(a).1 During this 

appeal, Florida’s Fifth District Court of Appeal issued its decision 

in Taylor v. State Farm Fla. Ins. Co., 388 So. 3d 307 (Fla. 5th Dist. Ct. 

App. 2024), holding that an insurance policy that contains a 

standalone, independent obligation to pay interest can form the 

sole basis for a private cause of action that is not precluded by § 

627.70131(5)(a). The policy at issue here is identical to the one in

Taylor, the only Florida appellate decision addressing this issue. In 

1 The Statute was amended in 2021. The relevant interest provision was unchanged, but now appears in a different subsection. See Fla. Stat. § 

627.70131(7)(a) (2022). The Parties agree that the amendment had no substantive effect on the statute or its applicability to this case. Like the district court 

below, we refer to the applicable statutory section as (5)(a), even though it is 

now codified at (7)(a).

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light of Taylor, the district court’s basis for dismissing the complaint 

in the instant case was incorrect since, under Florida law, the Barbatos’ breach of contract claim is a viable, independent cause of 

action that is not precluded by the limitation in §(5)(a). Because we 

are bound to follow any changes in a state's decisional law that occur during an appeal, see McMahan v. Toto, 311 F.3d 1077, 1080 (11th 

Cir. 2002), we vacate the district court’s order dismissing the Barbatos’ claim. We also deny State Farm’s motion to stay the appeal 

or issue a limited remand.

I. BACKGROUND

In 2018, the Barbatos’ home was damaged by Hurricane 

Irma. At the time, the home was covered by a homeowner’s insurance policy (the “Policy”) that was issued by State Farm. An appraisal resulted in an award of $125,456.02 to the Barbatos in August 2022. After State Farm paid the claim, the Barbatos sued State 

Farm for breach of contract because the amount that State Farm 

paid did not include interest.2 As the Amended Complaint points 

out, the Policy contained a Loss Payment provision in which State 

2 The Barbatos filed their Amended Complaint on November 8, 2022. They

alleged that, in breach of the Policy, State Farm “failed to pay the principal 

amount owed to Plaintiffs pursuant to the Appraisal Award within 15 days” of 

its issuance, and that Defendant thereafter “fail[ed] to included [sic] in its payments to Plaintiffs any interest . . . from the date [it] received notice of Plaintiffs’ claim.” Thus, the Barbatos claim they “were entitled to payment of interest as required by the Policy’s Loss Payment provision and [Section 

627.70131(5)(a)],” but did not receive that interest when Defendants paid the 

Award. 

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Farm agreed that “interest will be paid in accordance with Section 

627.70131(5) of the Florida Insurance Code. State Farm moved to 

dismiss the Amended Complaint. The district court granted State 

Farm’s motion and dismissed with prejudice the Barbatos’ claim 

because it found that a cause of action was precluded under Florida

Statute § 627.70131(5)(a). 

The Barbatos then timely appealed.

II. STANDARDS OF REVIEW

We review de novo a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 

12(b)(6) dismissal for failure to state a claim, “accepting the allegations in the complaint as true and construing them in the light most 

favorable to the plaintiff.” Belanger v. Salvation Army, 556 F.3d 1153, 

1155 (11th Cir. 2009). We also review a district court’s interpretation of a statute de novo. Id.

III. ANALYSIS

On appeal, the Barbatos argue that the district court erred in 

dismissing their contractual claim based on the statutory limitation 

in § 627.70131(5)(a). The parties also dispute whether State Farm 

breached the contract because State Farm argues that it timely paid 

the claim, such that it did not owe interest in the first place. The 

district court, however, based its holding exclusively on the finding 

that the cause of action was barred by §(5)(a)’s limitation.3 Thus, 

3 The district court’s order did not address whether there was a breach of contract, which would have required it to determine the effect that the appraisal 

process had on the timeliness of State Farm’s payment of the claim. The district court also noted that resolving whether State Farm complied with its 

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the only issue before us is whether the district court erred when it 

determined that, under Florida law, no cause of action existed in 

this case.

Florida Statute § 627.70131(5)(a) reads in relevant part:

Any payment of an initial or supplemental claim ... 

made 90 days after the insurer receives notice of the 

claim, or made more than 15 days after there are no 

longer factors beyond the control of the insurer 

which reasonably prevented such payment, whichever is later, bears interest at the rate set forth in 

s.55.03. Interest begins to accrue from the date the insurer receives notice of the claim. The provisions of 

this subsection may not be waived, voided, nullified 

by the terms of the insurance policy ... However, failure to comply with this subsection does not form the sole 

basis for a private cause of action.

Id. (emphasis added).

Pointing to the emphasized language, the district court determined that merely couching a claim as a contract breach does 

not save it because “Florida courts routinely dismiss similarly 

styled lawsuits on the subsection’s last sentence.” The district 

court relied on the decision of a state trial court that dismissed a 

claim that was nearly identical to the one here. See Taylor v. State 

Farm Fla. Ins. Co., No. 16-2020-CA-004553, 2022 WL 3702075 (Fla. 

obligation to timely pay would involve the “thornier issue of statutory (and 

contractual interpretation),” but chose not to reach this issue because it found 

that §(5)(a) was dispositive. 

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Cir. Ct. Aug. 11, 2022) (dismissing claims), rev’d, 388 So. 3d 307 (Fla. 

5th Dist. Ct. App. 2024).

During this appeal, Florida’s Fifth District Court of Appeal

(“DCA”) reversed that trial court’s decision and rejected its interpretation of §(5)(a). See Taylor, 388 So. 3d at 311. The Fifth DCA 

phrased the question on appeal as “whether the prohibition on a 

standalone statutory cause of action contained in section 5(a) is 

broad enough ... to also bar a claim based on a breach of the insurance policy.” Id. at 309. The appellate court answered the question 

in the negative, holding that an insurance policy containing “a 

standalone, independent obligation to pay interest can form the 

sole basis for a private cause of action that is not precluded by the 

statutory limitation on action.” Id. at 311 (emphasis added).

Here, we are dealing with an identical policy provision and 

an analogous cause of action based on an alleged breach of that 

provision. State Farm acknowledges that the Loss Payment language of the policy in Taylor is materially identical to the Barbatos’ 

Policy. And in their Amended Complaint, the Barbatos alleged a 

breach of contract based on State Farm’s violation of that Loss Payment provision. As in Taylor, the policy here includes “a separate 

and independent loss payment provision that, like the statute, provided for the payment of interest.” Id. at 310. And “[t]he only reference to section 5(a) in the loss payment provision simply deals 

with the manner in which interest will be paid.” Id. In other words, 

the Policy makes a promise to pay interest, and the cause of action 

here is for a breach of that promise. While the Policy states that 

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interest will be paid “in accordance with” § (5)(a), under the Fifth 

DCA’s reasoning, that is merely a reference to the manner in which 

the contractual promise will be performed. It does not, however, 

serve to nullify State Farm’s independent contractual promise to 

pay interest. See id. at 311 (stating that the § (5)(a) limitation “does 

not limit an insured’s ability to bring an action for a failure to perform an express contractual promise to pay interest.”). Because we 

are confronted with facts that are directly analogous to Taylor, we 

are bound by that decision.4

4 State Farm notes that, in Taylor, the Fifth DCA considered the dismissal order 

at issue in this appeal and distinguished the facts here from those in Taylor. 

While accurate, the Taylor court appears to have assumed that there was no 

standalone Loss Payment provision in the Barbatos’ Policy. See Taylor, 388 So. 

3d at 310. But unlike the court in Taylor who did not review the policy at issue 

in this case, the Fifth DCA was misguided in distinguishing them, which State 

Farm concedes. See Appellee’s Brief at 16 (conceding that the Taylor court was 

incorrect in distinguishing the policies). Indeed, the Barbatos’ Policy includes 

an identical “Loss Payment” provision that states that “interest will be paid in 

accordance with Section 627.70131(5) of the Florida Insurance Code.” See 

Plaintiff’s Ex. 1; DE 15-1 at 5. Since the policies are identical, the Policy here 

like the policy in Taylor has an adequate standalone provision. The error by 

the Taylor court can be attributed to the Taylor court’s reliance on the district 

court’s framing of the Barbatos’ cause-of-action. The district court below described the Barbatos’ complaint as alleging a “breach of Section 

627.70131(5)(a), Fla. Stat., which is explicitly incorporated into the Policy.” In 

other words, the district court below characterized the Barbatos’ claim as one 

based on a breach of the statute, rather than a breach of their contract. But this 

framing is belied by a review of the Amended Complaint at issue here. As in 

Taylor, the plaintiffs here alleged a breach of contract based on State Farm’s 

violation of the Policy’s Loss Payment provision, which merely referenced 

§(5)(a). See Amended Complaint ¶¶ 38–42.

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On appeal, State Farm acknowledges that Taylor departs 

from the precedent that the district court below based its dismissal 

order on. But State Farm attempts to evade Taylor’s grip in several 

ways.

First, in its initial brief, State Farm argued that Taylor should 

not apply here because, at the time, it was “not final” and State 

Farm was “planning to seek rehearing in Taylor and to point out 

certain errors in that decision.” But State Farm was granted a rehearing in Taylor, and it fared no better.5

Second, after the Fifth DCA reheard and issued the mandate 

in Taylor, State Farm moved to stay the instant appeal, pursuant to 

Colorado River Water Conservation District v. United States, 424 U.S. 

800 (1976), pending resolution of the Taylor litigation that has been 

remanded back to the Florida trial court. Alternatively, State Farm 

asks us to remand this case back to the district court for the limited 

purpose of addressing the motion to stay. We decline State Farm’s 

invitation to stay the appeal or issue a limited remand.

5 The initial Fifth DCA opinion was Taylor v. State Farm Florida Insurance Co., 

No. 5D-23-0243, 2024 WL 387714 (Fla. 5th Dist. Ct. App. Feb. 2, 2024). At the 

time of briefing in this appeal, the parties agreed that Taylor was not final because State Farm sought rehearing. The Fifth DCA subsequently granted the 

motion for rehearing, withdrew that opinion, and substituted a new opinion 

in its place: Taylor v. State Farm Florida Insurance Co., 388 So. 3d 307 (Fla. 5th 

Dist. Ct. App. 2024). The superseding opinion is what is referenced throughout this opinion. 

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Colorado River abstention allows us to stay a case only in 

“limited and exceptional circumstances” where “federal and state 

proceedings involve substantially the same parties and substantially the same issues.” See Taveras v. Bank of America, N.A., 89 F.4th 

1279, 1286 (11th Cir. 2024). If there are substantially similar issues 

and parties, we then weigh six factors to decide whether to abstain. 

See id. In its motion, State Farm spills most of its ink arguing that 

the six factors weigh in its favor. We need not analyze the six factors, however, because Taylor does not involve substantially similar 

parties as to the instant case.

State Farm is the defendant in both cases. As to the plaintiffs, 

though, State Farm’s only argument for substantial similarity is 

that the proposed class in Taylor would cover the Barbatos. And the 

only case that State Farm cites in support of the parties being substantially similar is Taveras. 89 F.4th at 1286. In Taveras, all of the 

parties in the federal case were, at one time, also parties in a concurrent state action involving the same issues. See id. But the Barbatos are not, and never have been, parties in the Taylor litigation 

because no class has been certified in Taylor. See In re Checking Acct. 

Overdraft Litig., 780 F.3d 1031, 1037 (11th Cir. 2015) (“Certification 

of a class is the critical act which reifies the unnamed class members 

and, critically, renders them subject to the court's power.”). State 

Farm cites no authority to support the proposition that a yet-to-becertified class renders all putative members to be parties to the litigation. We therefore refrain from exercising the “extraordinary 

and narrow exception” of abstention here. See Taveras, 89 F.4th at 

1286.

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Third, and lastly, State Farm contends that “Florida courts 

routinely reject” claims like the one here and that we should follow 

the lead of those courts. Instead of Taylor, State Farm urges us to 

apply several other decisions, all but one of which are non-state

court cases. 

In diversity cases, however, we do not choose which of the 

forum state’s cases to apply. We apply the state’s law. When a 

state’s supreme court has not opined on an issue of state law, we 

must apply the “decisions of the state’s intermediate appellate 

courts unless there is some persuasive indication that the highest 

court of the state would decide the issue differently.” McMahan, 

311 F.3d at 1080. “That rule is, if anything, particularly appropriate 

in Florida” because Florida’s Supreme Court “has held that ‘the decisions of the district courts of appeal represent the law of Florida 

unless and until they are overruled.’” Id. (alterations adopted)

(quoting Pardo v. State, 596 So. 2d 665, 666 (Fla. 1992)). And particularly relevant here, “we are bound to follow any changes in a 

state’s decisional law that occur during the case.” Id.

The only Florida appellate decision that the district court’s 

dismissal order cited is State Farm Florida Insurance Co. v. Silber, 72 

So. 3d 286, 289–90 (Fla. 4th Dist. Ct. App. 2011). On appeal, State 

Farm urges us to apply Silber instead of Taylor. State Farm characterizes Silber and Taylor as conflicting cases from Florida’s intermediate appellate courts, such that Taylor is not dispositive here. As a

preliminary matter, if Silber and Taylor did conflict, it would still be 

inappropriate for us to affirm unless persuasive authority indicated 

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that the Florida Supreme Court would accept one interpretation 

over the other. State Farm acknowledges this, suggesting that “if 

this Court has concerns about potentially conflicting Florida decisions (e.g., Silber and Taylor), it can certify a question of Florida law 

to the Florida Supreme Court.” 

More importantly, though, Taylor does not conflict with Silber. In fact, in Taylor, the Fifth DCA expressly distinguished the 

issue from the one decided in Silber. 388 So. 3d at 310. The Taylor 

court found that Silber “simply held that insureds cannot move for 

confirmation of an appraisal award that had already been paid in an 

attempt to recover attorney’s fees.” Id. In contrast to the issue here 

and in Taylor, the Silber opinion did not discuss “whether the insured’s breach of policy claim was an independent standalone claim 

sufficient to withstand section 5(a)’s ban on causes of action.” Id. 

The Taylor court also noted that Silber, in its discussion of §(5)(a), 

stated that insureds could still pursue a claim if a viable independent cause of action existed. Id. (citing Silber, 72 So. 3d at 290).

Taylor is the only decision of Florida’s intermediate appellate 

courts that addresses the issue in this appeal. Namely, whether an 

alleged breach of a standalone interest-payment provision creates 

a basis for a claim that can withstand §(5)(a)’s bar on causes of action. Taylor held that §(5)(a) does not bar a cause of action in that 

instance, because such a claim does not arise out of §(5)(a), but rather arises from the insurer’s breach of the contract. In other 

words, there is a viable independent cause of action. Taylor involved facts directly analogous to those here, including an identical 

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policy provision and a contract claim based on the insurer’s alleged 

breach of that provision. As things currently stand, the Fifth DCA’s

decision in Taylor “represent[s] the law of Florida” and binds us in 

this case. See McMahan, 311 F.3d at 1080 (quoting Pardo, 596 So. 2d 

at 666).

IV. CONCLUSION

For these reasons, we vacate the district court’s order dismissing the Barbatos’ claim and we remand for further proceedings 

consistent with this opinion. We also deny State Farm’s motion to 

stay the appeal or issue a limited remand. 

VACATED AND REMANDED.

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