Full Opinion

Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida Opinion filed April 15, 2020. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing. ________________ No. 3D19-1832 Lower Tribunal No. 19-11599 ________________ Victor Manuel Triggiano Hernandez and Daniela Villamizar, Appellants, vs. Jackson Memorial Hospital Public Health Trust/Jackson Health System, etc., et al., Appellees. An appeal from a non-final order from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Antonio Arzola, Judge. The Lions' Den, Attorneys at Law PLLC, and Jonathan May; and Brickell Law Group P.A., and Alvaro A. Acevedo, for appellants. Abigail Price-Williams, Miami-Dade County Attorney, and Suzanne Villano- Charif and Christopher C. Kokoruda, Assistant County Attorneys, for appellee Miami-Dade County. Before SALTER, LINDSEY, and MILLER, JJ. MILLER, J. Appellants, Victor Manuel Triggiano Hernandez and Daniela Villamizar, seek partial review of a non-final order dismissing the action for conversion alleged in their multi-count complaint against appellee, Jackson Memorial Hospital Public Health Trust (“Jackson”). For the reasons set forth below, we are constrained to dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.1 After their young daughter tragically passed away following a bone marrow transplant, appellants filed suit against Jackson seeking to recoup an advance payment tendered in anticipation of the surgery. Appellants contended they were entitled to reimbursement because all surgery-related costs were subsequently covered by available insurance. They initially crafted a four-count complaint, setting forth various causes of action, including replevin, conversion, unjust enrichment, and breach of contract. Jackson sought dismissal of the action, asserting, inter alia, it was shielded from suit by sovereign immunity. The lower tribunal granted the motion and dimissed the conversion claim with prejudice. However, it allowed appellants to amend the charging document. Appellants subsequently filed an amended complaint, asserting breach of contract and equitable estoppel, and, simultaneously, filed the instant appeal. 1 We express no opinion as to the merits of the appeal. 2 “We have long adhered to the rule that piecemeal appeals will not be permitted where claims are interrelated and involve the same transaction and the same parties remain in the suit.” 2 Cicco v. Luckett Tobaccos, Inc., 934 So. 2d 560, 561 (Fla. 3d DCA 2006) (citation omitted). Nonetheless, “when it is obvious that a separate and distinct cause of action is pleaded which is not interdependent with other pleaded claims, it should be appealable if dismissed with finality at trial level and not delayed of appeal because of the pendency of other claims between the parties.” Mendez v. W. Flagler Family Ass’n, Inc., 303 So. 2d 1, 5 (Fla. 1974). Claims are interrelated if they “arise out of the same incident.” Biasetti v. Palm Beach Blood Bank, Inc., 654 So. 2d 237, 238 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995); see Fla. R. App. P. 9.110(k) (“A partial final judgment, . . . is one that disposes of a separate and distinct cause of action that is not interdependent with other pleaded claims.”). “That different legal theories or additional facts are involved in yet-to-be resolved claims do[es] not mean the order from which an appeal is sought is distinct and separable from those unresolved 2 “[B]y forbidding piecemeal disposition on appeal of what for practical purposes is a single controversy, [courts are set] against enfeebling judicial administration. Thereby is avoided the obstruction to just claims that would come from permitting the harassment and cost of a succession of separate appeals from the various rulings to which a litigation may give rise, from its initiation to entry of judgment. To be effective, judicial administration must not be leaden-footed. Its momentum would be arrested by permitting separate reviews of the component elements in a unified cause.” Cobbledick v. United States, 309 U.S. 323, 325, 60 S. Ct. 540, 541, 84 L. Ed. 783 (1940). 3 claims.” Jay A. Yagoda, Early Appellate Remedies: Partial Final Judgments 87 Fla. Bar J. 30 (2013). Here, the conversion claim and the two counts in the amended complaint emanate from a common nucleus of facts. Indeed, the same pecuniary injury that gives rise to the claimed basis for recovery in the conversion count is asserted in each of the two pending causes of action. Consequently, we conclude that the conversion count “is not a ‘a separate and district cause of action” and is “interdependent with other pleaded claims.’” Fla. Lifestyles Realty, Inc. v. Goodwin, 917 So. 2d 1060, 1062 (Fla. 2d DCA 2006) (quoting Mendez, 303 So. 2d at 5). Hence, the appeal is hereby dismissed without prejudice to either party seeking timely appellate review of a final order, once one is rendered by the lower tribunal. Dismissed. 4