[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 21-11335

Non-Argument Calendar

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ROYAL PALM OPTICAL, INC., 

Plaintiff-Appellant,

versus

STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE 

COMPANY, 

STATE FARM FLORIDA INSURANCE COMPANY, 

Defendants-Appellees.

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2 Opinion of the Court 21-11335

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Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

D.C. Docket No. 9:20-cv-80749-AMC

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Before ROSENBAUM, GRANT, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Royal Palm Optical (“Royal Palm”) appeals the district 

court’s grant of State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company’s motion to dismiss. On appeal, Royal Palm argues that the 

district court erred when it held that under Florida law, “direct 

physical loss” required “actual physical damage to the [Property] 

itself” and that Royal Palm did not allege it had suffered that type 

of loss.

This Court recently addressed the very issue in this case: the 

meaning of “direct physical loss of or damage to” property in an 

insurance policy under Florida law. SA Palm Beach, LLC v. Certain 

Underwriters at Lloyd’s London, No. 20-14812, 2022 WL 1421414 

(11th Cir. May 5, 2022). Noting that there were no Florida state 

court cases on point, we cited the principle used by federal courts 

sitting in diversity jurisdiction that “presume[s] that [state] courts 

would adopt the majority view on a legal issue in the absence of 

indications to the contrary.” Id. at 8 (quoting Bobo v. Tenn. Valley 

Auth., 855 F.3d 1294, 1304 (11th Cir. 2017)). That majority view is 

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21-11335 Opinion of the Court 3

that intangible or incorporeal losses are excluded from coverage so 

as to “’preclude any claim against the property insurer when the 

insured merely suffers a detrimental economic impact unaccompanied by a distinct, demonstrable, physical alteration of the property.’” Id. (quoting Steven Plitt et al., 10A Couch on Insurance § 

148.46 (3d ed. & Dec. 2021 update)). We also noted that every state 

and federal appellate court to decide the meaning of the phrase in 

the Covid-19 context had reached the same decision. Id. Because 

there were no indications that Florida would decide otherwise, the 

opinion presumes Florida would adopt the majority view. Id. at 9. 

Next, we examined two Florida cases–Homeowners Choice 

Property & Casualty v. Maspons, 211 So. 3d 1067 (Fla. 3d DCA 

2017), and Azalea, Ltd. v. American States Insurance Co., 656 So. 

2d 600 (Fla. 1st DCA 1995)–that support the presumption or “at the 

very least [are] not inconsistent with that position.” Id. Maspons

explained that direct physical loss required the damage be actual 

and Azalea “dealt with tangible harm to the covered property,” 

which provided little support for the insureds’ position. Id. at 9-10. 

We examined this Court’s decision in Mama Jo’s, Inc. v. Sparta Ins. 

Co., 823 F.App’x 868, 879 (11th Cir. 2020), and held that its reliance 

on Maspons provided a correct statement of Florida law that a 

property that needed mere cleaning did not suffer a qualifying loss 

or damage and lost income could not be claimed without physical 

loss or damage. Id. at 10. Then we turned to the policies’ “Period 

of Restoration” clauses, which required a suspension or interruption of operations and covered the resulting expenses and losses 

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until the property was repaired, rebuilt, or replaced. “Any alternative meaning of the terms ‘physical loss’ or ‘physical damage’ that 

does not require a material alternation of the property would render meaningless this pre-condition to coverage for business income 

loss.” Id. at 10-11 (quoting Uncork & Create LLC v. Cincinnati Ins. 

Co., 27 F.4th 926, 932-33 (4th Cir. 2022)).

Shortly after we issued SA Palm Beach, the Third District 

Court of Appeal of Florida issued an opinion addressing the very 

issue in this case and in SA Palm Beach: the meaning of “direct 

physical loss of or damage to” property. Commodore, Inc. v. Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s London, No. 3D21-0671, __ So. 3d __, 

2022 WL 1481776 (Fla. 3d DCA May 11, 2022), confirmed our prediction in SA Palm Beach of how Florida courts would rule. The 

Commodore court rejected the insured’s interpretation of loss as 

deprivation because it ignored the qualifying adjective physical: 

“because the ordinary meaning of ‘physical’ carries a tangible aspect, ‘direct physical loss’ requires some actual alteration to the insured property.” Id. at *4.

Royal Palm’s arguments are foreclosed by the interpretations of the phrase “direct physical loss of or damage to” in SA Palm 

Beach and Commodore. Because there is no coverage for the type 

of purely economic damages that Royal Palm sought under its 

cited policy provisions, we affirm the decision of the district court.

AFFIRMED.

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