Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

623 So. 2d 587

Docket No. 93-0951.

Sinclair Fund, Inc. v. Burton

The SINCLAIR FUND, INC. Jeffrey L. Kirsch, and Krystyna Ochocinski, Appellants, v. William H. BURTON, Jr., and Mark L. Smith, Appellees.

District Court of Appeal of Florida

Decided August 25, 1993.

District Court of Appeal of Florida · decided 1993-08-25

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“may be brought in any county in which any defendant resides.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including LIFEMARK HOSPITALS v. Roque

Relies on Miller v. Miller · L. B. McLeod Construction Co. v. State Ex Rel. Benefit of Standard Oil Co. · 400 So. 2d 206 - Inter-Medic Health Centers, Inc. v. Murphy

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1993-08-25

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently March 2011

7 state decisions

30199320002010decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1Steven H. Rubin of Haley, Sinagra & Perez, P.A., Fort Lauderdale, for appellants.

¶2Charles E. Steinberg of The Law Office of Charles E. Steinberg, P.A., Stuart, for appellee — William H. Burton, Jr.

¶3KLEIN, Judge.

¶4Defendants appeal an order denying a motion to change venue from Martin County to Broward County. We reverse.

¶5Plaintiff sued defendants in Martin County, alleging that the defendants had failed to repay a loan he made to them. He further *588 alleged that the payments were to be made in Martin County. Defendants moved to transfer venue to Broward County because one of the individual defendants is a resident of Broward County and defendant Sinclair Fund, Inc., a New Jersey corporation, has an office in Broward County.

¶6When a foreign corporation has an office in Florida, it is deemed to reside in the county in which the office is located for venue purposes. L.B. McLeod Const. Co. v. State,106 Fla. 805, 143 So. 594 (Fla. 1932). Although generally an action against multiple defendants residing in different counties may be brought in any county in which a defendant resides, section 47.021, Florida Statutes (1992), where a corporate defendant resides in the same county as an individual defendant, venue is only proper in that county of joint residence. Enfinger v. Baxley,96 So.2d 538 (Fla. 1957); Walden Leasing, Inc. v. Modicamore,559 So.2d 656 (Fla. 4th DCA 1990); Inter-Medic Health Centers, Inc. v. Murphy,400 So.2d 206 (Fla. 1st DCA 1981).

¶7Plaintiff persuaded the trial court that venue in a contract action for payment of money is in the county where payment is to be made, citing Estes v. Pioneer Bonding & Insurance Agency, Inc.,567 So.2d 44 (Fla. 4th DCA 1990). Plaintiff argues that contract actions are not governed by the principle announced in Enfinger, but cites no authority to support this argument. The first district recently applied the Enfinger rule in a breach of contract action against a corporate defendant and an individual defendant residing in the same county. Levy County School Board v. Bowdoin,607 So.2d 479 (Fla. 1st DCA 1992).

¶8Reversed.

¶9GUNTHER and POLEN, JJ., concur.

/623/so2d/587 · .json · Public domain