[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 22-11380

Non-Argument Calendar

____________________

REBECCA L. HEIKKA, 

Plaintiff-Appellant,

versus

SAFECO INSURANCE COMPANY OF ILLINOIS, 

Defendant-Appellee.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

D.C. Docket No. 0:21-cv-61885-AHS

____________________

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2 Opinion of the Court 22-11380

Before WILSON, LUCK, and BLACK, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

After Safeco Insurance Company of Illinois (Safeco) removed Rebecca Heikka’s complaint to federal court, it moved to 

dismiss the lawsuit as duplicative of another action pending in state 

court. The district court granted the motion and dismissed the removed action with prejudice. Heikka appeals from the dismissal, 

and after careful review, we affirm.

I. BACKGROUND 

Heikka and the district court have described the history of 

these cases as “long and sordid.” It began with a 2007 drunk driving 

accident in which Safeco’s insured hit Heikka. Since then, Heikka,

Safeco, and Safeco’s insured have been litigating this dispute—

mostly in state court. We begin with an overview of the four stages

in the litigation relevant to this appeal: (1) Heikka’s 2007 Original 

Action, (2) Safeco’s 2009 Declaratory Judgment Action, 

(3) Heikka’s 2019 Bad Faith Action, and (4) Heikka’s 2021 Bad Faith 

Action.1

1 Heikka has twice moved to supplement the record on appeal. Her first motion to supplement the record was granted, and she filed an amended appellate 

brief in August 2022. Safeco then filed its response brief. When Heikka filed 

her reply brief, however, she also moved to further supplement the record

with a motion in limine filed by Safeco in May 2022. Safeco opposes further 

supplementation and asks us to strike the parts of Heikka’s reply brief relying

on the motion in limine. Heikka did not present the motion in limine with 

her first motion to supplement nor did she raise the issue in her initial brief. 

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Shortly after the accident in early 2007, Safeco tendered a 

check for the insurance policy’s liability limit with a proposed release of claims. The parties, however, disagreed about whether 

they ever reached a settlement on the release. A few months later, 

Heikka filed the 2007 Original Action in state court against Safeco’s 

insured, alleging one count of negligence. Safeco was not named 

as a defendant in the Original Action, but it provided legal representation and moved to enforce the settlement as well as for summary judgment for its insured. Following an evidentiary hearing, 

the state trial court denied those motions in 2008, and proceedings 

continued in the 2007 Original Action. 

A year later, Safeco and its insured filed the 2009 Declaratory 

Judgment Action as a separate complaint to enforce the purported 

settlement before a different state trial judge. In 2012, after finding 

there was no enforceable settlement, the state court entered judgment in favor of Heikka as to the Declaratory Judgment Action. 

In 2016, a third state trial judge awarded attorneys’ fees to 

Heikka, finding the Declaratory Judgment Action was not made in 

See Schwartz v. Millon Air, Inc., 341 F.3d 1220, 1225 n.4 (11th Cir. 2003) (explaining we rarely supplement the record to include material that was not before the district court); Sapuppo v. Allstate Floridian Ins. Co., 739 F.3d 678, 683 

(11th Cir. 2014) (explaining we generally refuse to consider issues raised for 

the first time in a reply brief). We see no reason to depart from our general 

rules. Heikka’s second motion to supplement is DENIED, and Safeco’s motion to strike is GRANTED to the extent we will not consider the arguments 

related to the motion in limine.

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good faith because “Safeco should not get ‘a second bite at the apple’” after the motion to enforce the declaratory judgment in the 

2007 Original Complaint had been denied.

Following a jury verdict against Safeco’s insured in 2019, the 

state court entered judgment in favor of Heikka for over $1 million 

in the 2007 Original Action. The court reserved jurisdiction to allow Heikka to amend her pleadings to allege bad faith claims. 

Heikka filed an amended complaint in the 2007 Original Action to add a statutory bad faith claim and a common law bad faith 

claim against Safeco. We will refer to these newly alleged bad faith 

claims as the 2019 Bad Faith Action. With respect to the common 

law claim, Heikka alleged Safeco failed to settle her claim against 

the insured, made misrepresentations to the court in an attempt to 

defeat the settlement agreement, and engaged in unfair and deceptive trade practices. 

Two years later, Heikka filed the 2021 Bad Faith Action as a 

new complaint against only Safeco. The 2021 Bad Faith Action alleged a single claim of common law bad faith and included many 

of the same allegations as the common law bad faith claim in the 

2019 Bad Faith Action. The main difference is found in subparagraphs I-N, adding allegations specifically identifying the 2009 Declaratory Judgment Action, which Heikka characterized as forum 

shopping, frivolous, duplicative, and filed in bad faith. 

Safeco removed the 2021 Bad Faith Action to federal court 

and moved to dismiss it. It argued the 2019 Bad Faith Action was 

still pending in state court and that the 2021 lawsuit was duplicative. To the extent Heikka sought to add additional facts to support 

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her bad faith claim, Safeco asserted she should have sought leave 

to file another amended complaint in the 2019 Bad Faith Action. 

Heikka responded that the 2021 Bad Faith Action brought a 

bad faith claim related to the filing of the Declaratory Judgment 

Action, which was a separate cause of action from the bad faith failure-to-settle claim. 

The district court agreed with Safeco and dismissed the 2021 

Bad Faith Action with prejudice as duplicative. The court explained the proper action would have been to amend the 2019 Bad 

Faith Action instead of filing a new action based on the same subject matter and against the same party. 

II. DISCUSSION 

“Trial courts are afforded broad discretion in determining 

whether to stay or dismiss litigation in order to avoid duplicating a 

proceeding already pending in another federal court.” I.A. Durbin, 

Inc. v. Jefferson Nat’l Bank, 793 F.2d 1541, 1551-52 (11th Cir. 1986). 

“In assessing the appropriateness of dismissal in the event of an exercise of concurrent jurisdiction,” the Supreme Court has explained a federal court may consider factors such as “the inconvenience of the federal forum,” “the desirability of avoiding piecemeal 

litigation,” and “the order in which jurisdiction was obtained by the 

concurrent forums.” Colo. River Water Conservation Dist. v. 

United States, 424 U.S. 800, 818-19 (1976). Like Florida courts, we 

have also recognized the claim-splitting doctrine “to promote judicial economy and shield parties from vexatious and duplicative litigation while empowering the district court to manage its docket.” 

Vanover v. NCO Fin. Servs., 857 F.3d 833, 843 (11th Cir. 2017); see, 

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e.g., Dep’t of Agric. & Consumer Servs. v. Mid-Fla. Growers, 570 

So. 2d 892, 901 (Fla. 1990). Where, as in this case, the district 

court’s dismissal is based on case management grounds, we review 

the dismissal for abuse of discretion. Vanover, 857 F.3d at 837-38.

The common law bad faith claims in the 2019 Bad Faith Action and 2021 Bad Faith Action involve the same parties—Heikka 

suing Safeco—and they both arise from Safeco’s handling of 

Heikka’s claim against Safeco’s insured. See id. at 841-42 (setting 

forth a two-factor test); cf. Berges v. Infinity Ins. Co., 896 So. 2d 

665, 680 (Fla. 2004) (“In Florida, the question of whether an insurer 

has acted in bad faith in handling claims against the insured is determined under the ‘totality of the circumstances’ standard.”). 

Given the history of these cases, the district court did not abuse its 

discretion in dismissing the 2021 Bad Faith Action to save scarce 

judicial resources. For similar reasons, we are not persuaded by 

Heikka’s argument that her proposed amendments would have 

saved the 2021 Bad Faith Action from dismissal. 

We affirm the district court’s dismissal of the 2021 Bad Faith 

Action and leave any issues related to Safeco’s filing of the 2009 

Declaratory Judgment Action for the state court.

AFFIRMED. 

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