FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL

STATE OF FLORIDA

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No. 1D18-2438

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ROBERT REID,

Appellant,

v.

BERNARD F. DALEY, JR.,

Appellee.

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On appeal from the Circuit Court for Leon County.

Charles W. Dodson, Judge.

May 6, 2019

B.L. THOMAS, C.J.

Appellant, a prisoner in the state corrections system, filed a

civil suit in the Circuit Court for Leon County, alleging that he was 

the victim of fraud, deceit, dishonesty, and misrepresentation on 

the part of his postconviction attorney. The trial court ruled that 

the complaint failed to state a cause of action and dismissed the 

complaint without prejudice. Appellant filed an amended 

complaint, alleging that Appellee accepted money to file 

postconviction motions for Appellant, but then never performed 

the agreed-upon legal work. Appellant attached checks made out 

to Appellee in the amount of $4,500. He sought to recover the 

$4,500 allegedly paid to Appellee, plus $25,000 for mental anguish 

and emotional distress.
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Appellee moved to dismiss the amended complaint, arguing 

that the allegations therein were still insufficient to state a cause

of action. Appellee also argued that, by Appellant’s own admission,

the actual damages were only $4,500, putting the amount-incontroversy far below the circuit court’s $15,000 jurisdictional 

threshold. The trial court ruled that Appellant’s amended 

complaint failed to correct the deficiencies of the initial complaint 

and failed to state a cause of action. The court granted Appellee’s

motion to dismiss and instructed the clerk to close the file. 

Appellant challenges the trial court’s order, arguing that the 

court should have given him an opportunity to file a second 

amended complaint. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.

Analysis

A review of a motion to dismiss is limited to the four corners 

of the complaint; a court may therefore only consider the 

allegations in the complaint and attached documents incorporated 

therein. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. v. Bohatka, 112 So. 3d 596, 600 

(Fla. 1st DCA 2013). When a complaint is defective, a trial court 

should give the plaintiff an opportunity to amend “unless it is 

apparent that the pleading cannot be amended to state a cause of 

action.” Id. at 601 (quoting Kairalla v. John D. Catherine T. 

MacArthur Found., 534 So. 2d 774, 775 (Fla. 4th DCA 1988)).

In Florida, the circuit courts have subject matter jurisdiction 

over actions at law where the amount-in-controversy exceeds 

$15,000, exclusive of interest, costs, and attorney’s fees. §§ 

26.012(2)(a) and 34.01(1)(c), Fla. Stat. (2016). To determine if a 

complaint meets the circuit court’s $15,000 jurisdictional 

threshold, a trial court must assess whether the amount in the 

complaint was claimed in good faith. Grunewald v. Warren, 655 

So. 2d 1227, 1229 (Fla. 1st DCA 1995).

The impact rule dictates that “before a plaintiff can recover 

damages for emotional distress caused by the negligence of 

another, the emotional distress suffered must flow from physical 

injuries sustained in an impact.” R.J. v. Humana of Fla., Inc., 652 

So. 2d 360, 362 (Fla. 1995). The impact rule does not apply,

however, to a “very narrow class of cases” in which the foreseeable 

harms are predominantly emotional in nature. Rowell v. Holt, 850 
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So. 2d 474, 480 (Fla. 2003); see Tanner v. Hartog, 696 So. 2d 705, 

708 (Fla. 1997) (describing invasion of privacy and wrongful birth 

as recognized torts that fall within this narrow exception to the 

impact rule). 

Appellant did not allege that his mental anguish flowed from 

any physical injury or impact, and although he did allege that 

Appellee’s conduct caused him anger, humiliation, 

embarrassment, and hypertension, these are the sort of 

“intangible, mental injuries” which have been found inadequate to 

overcome the impact rule. See R.J., 652 So. 2d at 364. Because 

there is no connection between the alleged emotional suffering and 

any physical impact, Appellant cannot seek emotional distress 

damages unless an exception to the impact rule applies.

In Rowell, an attorney failed to turn over a document that 

would have freed his incarcerated client, and the supreme court 

held that the impact rule did not bar emotional distress damages. 

850 So. 2d at 481. The supreme court emphasized, however, that 

its holding was not intended to implicate the entire spectrum of 

legal defense work but was instead limited to those rare cases

where it “is beyond dispute that [the prisoner] was innocent of the 

crime charged, should not have been arrested, and was wrongfully 

confined on a continuing basis in pretrial detention.” Id. This 

exception to the impact rule was meant to apply only where an

attorney “is provided the means to unquestionably break down the 

walls of wrongful, unjust pretrial restraint” and either fails to do 

so or chooses not to. Id.

We decline to extend the narrow holding in Rowell to the 

circumstances here, where Appellant was not a victim of unjust

pretrial restraint, but rather was serving a lawful sentence 

following a conviction. Also, unlike in Rowell, Appellant’s 

allegations do not describe the type of conduct in which the 

foreseeable harms would be predominantly emotional, rather than 

financial, in nature. Therefore, we hold that this case does not fall 

within any recognized exception to the impact rule, and because 

there was no impact, emotional distress damages are not available.

Without emotional distress damages, the amended complaint 

does not allege an amount-in-controversy high enough to confer

jurisdiction on the circuit court. This deficiency cannot be 
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corrected by amendment, as the cashier’s checks attached to the 

amended complaint show on their face that Plaintiff’s asserted 

losses fall below the $15,000 threshold. See Sullivan v. Nova 

Univ., 613 So. 2d 597, 599 (Fla. 5th DCA 1993) (“the bare 

allegation of an amount in controversy exceeding $5,000 is 

insufficient to confer jurisdiction upon the circuit court, since 

Nova’s claim is based upon two notes attached to this complaint 

which show on their face that the principal amount of the debt is 

substantially less than $5,000”). 

Because it is apparent that Appellant cannot in good faith 

amend his complaint to allege a basis for the circuit court’s 

jurisdiction, the trial court did not err in dismissing the amended 

complaint and directing the clerk to close the file.

AFFIRMED.

KELSEY and M.K. THOMAS, JJ., concur.

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Not final until disposition of any timely and 

authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or 

9.331.

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Robert Reid, pro se, for Appellant.

Bernard F. Daley, Jr., Tallahassee, pro se, for Appellee.