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352 So. 2d 539

Arison Shipping Co. v. Hatfield

District Court of Appeal of Florida

Decided November 22, 1977

District Court of Appeal of Florida · decided 1977-11-22

Relies on Heaney v. Purdy · 127 Ill. App. 2d 84 - Siegel v. City of Chicago · Jackson v. Biscayne Medical Center

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1977-11-22

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently August 2014

6 state decisions

3019771980199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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ARISON SHIPPING COMPANY, a Florida Corporation, Ted Arison, Harvey Levinson, Mr. Brain, Inc., a Florida Corporation and Georgian Bay Lines, Inc., an Illinois Corporation, Appellants,
v.
Milton H. HATFIELD, Individually and Milton H. Hatfield, and James W. Kindelan and Others D/B/a Coopers and Lybrand, a Partnership F/K/a Lybrand, Ross Brothers & Company, Appellees.

No. 76-1632.

¶1District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.

November 22, 1977.
Rehearing Denied December 21, 1977.

¶2Law Offices of Howard W. Mazloff, Coral Gables, for appellants.

¶3Paul & Thomson and Sanford L. Bohrer, Miami, for appellees.

¶4Before HENDRY, C.J., and PEARSON and HUBBART, JJ.

¶5HENDRY, Chief Judge.

¶6Appellants/plaintiffs appeal from an order dismissing their amended complaint for malicious prosecution.

¶7The sole issue presented by this appeal is whether a dismissal "for lack of jurisdiction over the subject matter" in a prior civil lawsuit filed against the present plaintiffs is a bona fide termination of the lawsuit sufficient to state a cause of action for malicious prosecution. We hold that it is not.

¶8There are six elements needed to be established by a plaintiff to sustain a cause of action based upon malicious prosecution: first, the commencement or continuance of an original criminal or civil judicial proceeding; second, its legal causation by the present defendant against the present plaintiff; third, its bona fide termination in favor of the present plaintiff; fourth, absence of probable cause; fifth, presence of malice; and sixth, damage conforming to the legal standards resulting to the plaintiff. Applestein v. Preston,335 So.2d 604 (Fla.3d DCA 1976). Such a "bona fide termination" of the prior civil suit must be an adjudication on the merits in a judicial proceeding. Jackson v. Biscayne Medical Center, Inc.,347 So.2d 721 (Fla.3d DCA 1977).

¶9*540 It is our opinion that a dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction is not an adjudication on the merits and thus, not a bona fide termination of the prior civil suit. See Weber v. Johnston Fuel Liners, Inc.,540 P.2d 535 (Wyo. 1975); Heaney v. Purdy,29 N.Y.2d 157, 324 N.Y.S.2d 47, 272 N.E.2d 550 (1971); Roy v. Landers,467 S.W.2d 924 (Mo. 1971); Siegel v. City of Chicago,127 Ill. App.2d 84, 261 N.E.2d 802 (1970).

¶10Accordingly, the judgment of dismissal is hereby affirmed.

¶11Affirmed.

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