Title: Mintz Truppman, P.A. v. Cozen O'Connor, PLC
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: SC20-1225
State: Florida
Issuer: Florida Supreme Court
Date: August 25, 2022

Supreme Court of Florida 
 
____________ 
 
No. SC20-1225 
____________ 
 
MINTZ TRUPPMAN, P.A., etc., 
Petitioner, 
 
vs. 
 
COZEN O’CONNOR, PLC, et al., 
Respondents. 
 
August 25, 2022 
 
COURIEL, J. 
 
The question in this case is whether the Third District Court of 
Appeal in Cozen O’Connor, PLC v. Mintz Truppman, P.A., 306 So. 3d 
259 (Fla. 3d DCA 2020), did the right thing when it issued a writ of 
prohibition to prevent a circuit court from exercising jurisdiction 
over claims that, one party says, the other party was collaterally 
estopped from advancing.1  We decide that it did not. 
 
1.  We have jurisdiction.  Art. V, § 3(b)(3), Fla. Const. 
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I 
Daphne Query had a pipe burst in her home, causing 
substantial damage.  She hired Mintz Truppman, P.A. (Mintz) to 
represent her in a lawsuit against Lexington Insurance Company 
(Lexington), which was represented by Cozen O’Connor, PLC 
(Cozen).  Lexington removed the case to the United States District 
Court for the Southern District of Florida, and the parties decided 
to settle.  The judge overseeing the case approved the settlement 
and “retain[ed] jurisdiction to enforce the terms of the settlement 
and to determine the amount of attorneys’ fees.”  Amended Final 
Order of Dismissal at 1, Query v. Lexington Ins. Co., No. 15-21951 
(S.D. Fla. July 1, 2016) (Amended Final Order of Dismissal).  When 
Query and Lexington could not settle their dispute about attorney’s 
fees at mediation, they submitted it to the court for resolution. 
 
Mintz argued that it was entitled to $828,056 in fees.  As a 
basis for this demand, the firm stated that Lexington agreed to pay 
Query 100% of her losses from the property damage she sustained, 
that is, $125,000.2  Lexington and Cozen denied that Query 
 
 
2.  That sure sounds like the kind of result only a lawyer could 
love.  Mintz calculated its request for attorney’s fees using the 
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received 100 percent of what she demanded.  To prove their point, 
Lexington and Cozen filed Query’s initial settlement demand, which 
had apparently asked for more,3 with the court—a fateful decision. 
 
Two weeks later, Mintz filed this lawsuit in state court, arguing 
essentially that Lexington and Cozen had violated the 
confidentiality requirements applicable to the mediation by filing 
 
“lodestar method”: “the number of hours reasonably expended . . . 
multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate,” with the rate determined by 
twelve factors, such as “the novelty and difficulty of the question” 
and “the skill requisite to perform the legal service properly,” which 
are listed in the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of 
Professional Conduct, rule 1.5 (2021).  See Fla. Patient’s Comp. Fund 
v. Rowe, 472 So. 2d 1145, 1150 (Fla. 1985) (citing Fla. Code of Pro. 
Resp. DR 2-106(b) (1977)); Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 430 
n.3 (1983) (citing Model Code of Pro. Resp. DR 2-106 (Am. Bar Ass’n 
1980)).  The firm said one lawyer did 285.6 hours of work at a rate 
of $680 per hour, another did 36.1 hours at $250 per hour, another 
did 175.4 hours at $575 per hour, and another did 191.2 hours at 
$575 per hour—so, $414,028.  Mintz asked the court to then 
double that because, by representing Query in exchange for fees 
contingent on the outcome of the case, it undertook significant risk.  
See Fla. Patient’s Comp. Fund, 472 So. 2d at 1151 (“When the 
prevailing party’s counsel is employed on a contingent fee basis, the 
trial court must consider a contingency risk factor when awarding a 
statutorily-directed reasonable attorney fee.”); see also Standard 
Guar. Ins. Co. v. Quanstrom, 555 So. 2d 828, 834 (Fla. 1990) (“[I]f 
the trial court determines that success was unlikely at the outset of 
the case, it may apply a multiplier of 2.0 to 2.5.”). 
 
3.  How much, we cannot confidently say based on the record 
before us. 
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Query’s initial settlement demand.  Lexington and Cozen each 
moved to dismiss the case, and the circuit court denied the motions 
without elaboration.  Then Lexington and Cozen went to the Third 
District Court of Appeal for relief: Cozen filed a petition for a writ of 
prohibition or a writ of certiorari, which Lexington joined.  They 
argued that the circuit court had exceeded its jurisdiction when it 
entertained an issue that had been pled by a party without 
standing,4 and had, anyway, already been resolved in federal 
court—that is, Cozen’s collateral estoppel defense.5  Lexington 
petitioned for a writ of certiorari,6 arguing that the circuit court 
 
 
4.  Cozen argued that Mintz was not a “party” to the Query-
Lexington mediation, so it did not have access to the remedies that 
section 44.406 offers “part[ies]” for breaches of mediation 
confidentiality.  § 44.406(1), Fla. Stat. (“Any mediation participant 
who knowingly and willfully discloses a mediation communication 
in violation of s. 44.405 shall, upon application by any party to a 
court of competent jurisdiction, be subject to remedies . . . .” 
(emphasis added)). 
 
5.  Even though Mintz, in this state court litigation, invokes 
questions of mediation confidentiality that it did not raise in federal 
court, Cozen argues that the “gravamen of Mintz’s state court action 
is to recover additional attorneys’ fees.”  Cozen, 306 So. 3d at 263. 
 
6.  In Florida, the common law writ of certiorari allows circuit 
courts and district courts of appeal to review nonfinal orders of 
lower tribunals.  Art. V, §§ 4(b)(3), 5(b), Fla. Const.; Fla. R. App. P. 
9.030(b)(2), (c)(2).  Appellate review is not available for most 
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departed from the essential requirements of the law by refusing to 
dismiss Mintz’s claims.  Lexington, like Cozen, argued that Mintz 
lacked standing to bring its claims, but it also said it was immune 
to suit because it filed Query’s settlement demand during the 
course of a judicial proceeding.  See Levin, Middlebrooks, Mabie, 
Thomas, Mayes & Mitchell, P.A. v. U.S. Fire Ins. Co., 639 So. 2d 606, 
608 (Fla. 1994) (“[W]e find that absolute immunity must be afforded 
to any act occurring during the course of a judicial proceeding . . . 
so long as the act has some relation to the proceeding.”). 
 
The Third District agreed with Lexington and Cozen on the 
collateral estoppel defense and dismissed all their other arguments 
as moot.  Cozen, 306 So. 3d at 263.  The court explained it had 
“little difficulty concluding that Lexington and Cozen [had] 
established each of the four elements of collateral estoppel.”  Id. at 
 
nonfinal orders; writs of certiorari are thus an “extraordinary 
remedy” and may be granted for review of a nonfinal order only 
when the order, departing from the “essential requirements of law,” 
will injure a party such as to leave “no adequate remedy on appeal.”  
Martin-Johnson, Inc. v. Savage, 509 So. 2d 1097, 1098-99 (Fla. 
1987), superseded by statute on other grounds, § 768.72, Fla. Stat. 
(2021). 
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265.7  Based on that conclusion, the Third District held that the 
circuit court lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate Mintz’s claims, and it 
issued a writ of prohibition to prevent the circuit court from 
proceeding.  Id. 
 
Mintz appealed to this Court. 
II 
Prohibition is an extraordinary writ, extremely narrow in 
scope, by which a superior court may prevent an inferior court from 
exceeding its jurisdiction.  English v. McCrary, 348 So. 2d 293, 296 
(Fla. 1977); see also State ex rel. B. F. Goodrich Co. v. Trammell, 192 
So. 175, 176 (Fla. 1939) (“[T]he writ of prohibition is that process by 
which an inferior court is restrained by a superior court from 
 
 
7.  The Third District outlined the following four elements: 
1) [T]he issue at stake is identical to the one involved in 
the prior litigation; 2) the issue has been actually 
litigated in the prior suit; 3) the determination of the 
issue in the prior litigation was a critical and necessary 
part of the judgment in that action; and 4) the party 
against whom the earlier decision is asserted had a full 
and fair opportunity to litigate the issue in the earlier 
proceeding. 
Cozen, 306 So. 3d at 264 (quoting Baxas Howell Mobley, Inc. v. BP 
Oil Co., 630 So. 2d 207, 209 (Fla. 3d DCA 1993)). 
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usurping jurisdiction over parties or subject matter with which it 
has not been vested by law, or when action is threatened which 
would be in excess of and beyond its jurisdiction.”). 
We have consistently said that the purpose of the writ is to 
prevent a court’s action beyond the scope of its jurisdiction, not to 
correct an erroneous exercise of jurisdiction.  See McCrary, 348 So. 
2d at 296-97 (“It is preventive and not corrective in that it 
commands the one to whom it is directed not to do the thing which 
the supervisory court is informed the lower tribunal is about to do.  
Its purpose is to prevent the doing of something, not to compel the 
undoing of something already done.”); State ex rel. Sarasota Cnty. v. 
Boyer, 360 So. 2d 388, 391-92 (Fla. 1978) (“Prohibition is 
preventive and not corrective.  It cannot be used to revoke an order 
already entered.”) (footnote omitted); State ex rel. R. C. Motor Lines, 
Inc. v. Boyd, 114 So. 2d 169, 170 (Fla. 1959) (“We have several 
times announced that prohibition is a preventive rather than a 
corrective remedy. . . .  The very name of the writ suggests its 
proper use.  It is used to prohibit the doing of something, rather 
than to compel the undoing of something already done.”); State ex 
rel. Jennings v. Frederick, 189 So. 1, 3 (Fla. 1939) (“It appears well 
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settled that, ‘Another distinguishing feature of the writ is that it is a 
preventive rather than a corrective remedy, and it issues only to 
prevent the commission of a future act, and not to undo an act 
already performed.’ ” (citing James L. High, A Treatise on 
Extraordinary Legal Remedies, Embracing Mandamus, Quo 
Warranto, and Prohibition § 766 (3d ed. 1896))). 
That is not how the writ of prohibition was used here.  The 
Third District undid the trial court’s exercise of jurisdiction in 
denying Lexington’s and Cozen’s motions to dismiss on the basis of 
an affirmative defense.  That matters because, were we to permit 
litigants to seek prohibition in every case in which a trial judge 
denies a motion to dismiss based on collateral estoppel, res 
judicata, or any other affirmative defense,8 the writ could be used to 
end-run our rules on appeals generally and interlocutory appeals in 
particular.  Florida’s district courts may review only those 
 
 
8.  “An affirmative defense is a defense which admits the cause 
of action, but avoids liability, in whole or in part, by alleging an 
excuse, justification, or other matter negating or limiting liability.”  
State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Curran, 135 So. 3d 1071, 1079 
(Fla. 2014) (quoting St. Paul Mercury Ins. Co. v. Coucher, 837 So. 2d 
483, 487 (Fla. 5th DCA 2002)). 
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interlocutory orders allowed by the rules of this Court.  Art. V, § 
4(b)(1), Fla. Const.  We have found only some categories of nonfinal 
orders, such as those concerning venue or personal jurisdiction, 
appropriate for interlocutory appeal.  Fla. R. App. P. 9.130.  Here, 
rule 9.130 would likely bar interlocutory appeal of the circuit 
court’s nonfinal order denying Lexington’s and Cozen’s motion to 
dismiss.  See Bd. of Cnty. Commr’s of Madison Cnty. v. Grice, 438 
So. 2d 392, 394 (Fla. 1983) (“An order on a motion to dismiss may 
not be final, but an order which actually dismisses the complaint 
is.” (citing Gries Inv. Co. v. Chelton, 388 So. 2d 1281, 1282 (Fla. 3d 
DCA 1980) (“An order granting a motion to dismiss is not final and 
not appealable.”))). 
In the cases where we have found a writ of prohibition to be an 
appropriate remedy, it has not been deployed to reverse a trial 
court’s order on the merits of a case on the basis of an affirmative 
defense.  We have found it properly issued where a court has 
proposed to act in excess of its subject matter jurisdiction.  For 
example, in Nicoll v. Baker, 668 So. 2d 989 (Fla. 1996), we found 
that the Second District Court of Appeal was right to issue the writ 
where a claim for alimony was not cognizable under the Uniform 
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Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act, section 88.031, Florida 
Statutes (1993), and thus the circuit court lacked jurisdiction to 
enforce it.  668 So. 2d at 989. 
Similarly, in State ex rel. McKenzie v. Willis, 310 So. 2d 1 (Fla. 
1975), we held that a writ of prohibition was properly issued to 
protect the Florida Public Service Commission’s “judicial or quasi-
judicial powers” as provided by statute from an action in circuit 
court—again, addressing a matter of limited subject matter 
jurisdiction.  Id. at 3 (“The controversies involved in the two suits 
are resolvable by the Commission within its jurisdiction subject to 
review by the Supreme Court.  They do not lie within the 
jurisdiction of the Circuit Courts.”). 
The Third District’s issuance of the writ here is different; it is 
closer to what we described in McCrary as an order “to compel the 
undoing of something already done” by the trial court in the 
exercise of a matter within its subject matter jurisdiction.  348 So. 
2d at 297.  The fact that it comes to us on review of the denial of a 
motion to dismiss is not alone dispositive—Nicoll did, too.  Nicoll, 
668 So. 2d at 989.  That procedural reality, plus the fact that the 
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writ was used here to revisit the trial court’s weighing of an 
affirmative defense, made its issuance improper. 
III 
We therefore quash the decision below and remand to the 
Third District with instructions to deny Lexington’s and Cozen’s 
claims for a writ of prohibition and adjudicate the arguments for 
certiorari that it previously declared moot. 
It is so ordered. 
MUÑIZ, C.J., and CANADY, POLSTON, LAWSON, and 
GROSSHANS, JJ., concur. 
LABARGA, J., concurs in result. 
 
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION 
AND, IF FILED, DETERMINED. 
 
Application for Review of the Decision of the District Court of Appeal 
Direct Conflict of Decisions 
 
Third District – Case Nos. 3D18-1975 and 3D18-1976 
 
(Miami-Dade County) 
 
Timothy H. Crutchfield of Mintz Truppman, P.A., North Miami, 
Florida, 
 
for Petitioner 
 
Charles C. Kline and Reid Kline of Cozen O’Connor, Miami, Florida, 
 
for Respondents Cozen O’Connor, P.C. and John David 
Dickenson 
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Thomas E. Scott and Alexandra Valdes of Cole Scott & Kissane, 
P.A., Miami, Florida, 
 
for Respondent Lexington Insurance Company