Ruben Galsky Sandelman v. Aby Galsky Sandelman

• Court: District Court of Appeal of Florida
• Decided: November 12, 2025
• Docket: 3D2024-2253
• Status: Published

Opinion

Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida

Opinion filed November 12, 2025. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

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No. 3D24-2253 Lower Tribunal No. 22-5982-CA-01 ________________

Ruben Galsky Sandelman, Appellant,

vs.

Aby Galsky Sandelman, et al., Appellees.

An Appeal from a non-final order from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Reemberto Diaz, Judge.

Caldera Law PLLC, and Courtney Caprio and Amanda Suarez, for appellant.

Berger Singerman LLP, and James D. Gassenheimer and Stephanie Marie Chaissan, for appellee Aby Galsky Sandelman.

Before SCALES, C.J., and GORDO and BOKOR, JJ.

SCALES, C.J. Appellant, a defendant below, Ruben Galsky Sandelman, a Peruvian

citizen, challenges the trial court’s November 19, 2024 non-final order

denying his motion to dismiss Appellee Aby Galsky Sandelman’s amended

complaint (the “operative complaint”).1 Appellant’s motion to dismiss

asserted that the trial court lacked long-arm jurisdiction over him.2 We

reverse the challenged order because the operative complaint fails to allege

the basis for exercising long-arm jurisdiction over Appellant.

Appellee’s operative complaint alleges that a Florida limited liability

company, defendant Pachacamak, LLC, sold a condominium unit in Sunny

Isles Beach, Florida, for $3.7 million and that Appellee was entitled to, but

did not receive, the sales proceeds. Pertinent to this appeal, the operative

complaint alleges that a $280,000 portion of the sales proceeds was paid to

Agroworld Campo, S.A.C., a Peruvian corporation owned in part and

managed by Appellant.

1 Co-defendants below – Bela Sandelman Galsky, Jessica Galsky Sandelman de Wolfensohn, Pachacamak, LLC, and Agroworld Campo S.A.C. – are not parties to this appeal. 2 We have jurisdiction to review the challenged non-final order under Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.130(a)(3)(C)(i).

2 The operative complaint’s sole jurisdictional allegation regarding

Appellant is found in the operative complaint’s paragraph 60, which reads,

in its entirety, as follows:

60. The circuit court has jurisdiction over [Appellant] pursuant to section 48.193, Florida Statutes as he committed fraudulent and tortious actions within Florida by improperly causing funds to be directed from a bank account in Florida for use of his company, Agroworld.3

Appellant filed a motion to dismiss the operative complaint asserting,

among other things, that Appellee had failed to plead an adequate basis for

the exercise of personal jurisdiction over Appellant in the operative pleading.

Specifically, Appellant asserted that: (i) an alleged fraudulent transfer is not

a tortious act upon which long-arm jurisdiction may be exercised, see

Edwards v. Airline Support Grp., Inc., 138 So. 3d 1209, 1211-12 (Fla. 4th

3 Presumably, Appellee was alleging jurisdiction based on section 48.193(1)(a)(2) of Florida’s long-arm statute which, in pertinent part, provides as follows:

A person, whether or not a citizen or resident of this state, who personally or through an agent does any of the acts enumerated in this subsection thereby submits himself or herself and, if he or she is a natural person, his or her personal representative to the jurisdiction of the courts of this state for any cause of action arising from any of the following acts: . . . Committing a tortious act within this state.

§ 48.193(1)(a)(2), Fla. Stat. (2024) (emphasis added).

3 DCA 2014); and (ii) the alleged conversion occurred where the funds were

received – Peru – and therefore the cause of action arises in Peru, not

Florida. See Merkin v. PCA Health Plans of Fla., Inc., 855 So. 2d 137, 140

(Fla. 3d DCA 2003).

In opposition to the motion to dismiss, Appellee filed a response in

which he changed his theory of long-arm jurisdiction. Instead of long-arm

jurisdiction based on Appellant allegedly committing a tort within Florida,

Appellee newly asserted that the facts showed Appellant was operating,

conducting, engaging in, or carrying on a business venture in Florida. See §

48.193(1)(a)(1), Fla. Stat. (2024). Indeed, the trial court’s order denying the

motion to dismiss finds personal jurisdiction over Appellant based on section

48.193(1)(a)(1) and makes no mention of section 48.193(1)(a)(2).

Critically, Appellee did not file, or seek leave to file, an amended

complaint, alleging facts (i) supporting Appellee’s new theory, or (ii) the

nexus between Appellant’s alleged conduct in operating a business venture

in Florida and Appellee’s claims against Appellant (fraudulent transfer in

violation of chapter 726 of the Florida Statutes and conversion) – i.e., the

connexity requirement. See Canale v. Rubin, 20 So. 3d 463, 466 (Fla. 2d

DCA 2009) (“Specific jurisdiction . . . requires a causal connection between

4 the defendant’s activities in Florida and the plaintiff’s cause of action, a

requirement known as ‘connexity.’”).

It is well established that, when reviewing whether a plaintiff has an

adequate basis for long-arm jurisdiction against a nonresident defendant, the

trial court’s first inquiry is whether the plaintiff, in his operative complaint, has

alleged a sufficient jurisdictional basis under section 48.193. Fincantieri-

Cantieri Navali Italiani, S.p.A. v. Yuzwa, 241 So. 3d 938, 941 (Fla. 3d DCA

2018). When the plaintiff’s theory of long-arm jurisdiction over the defendant

changes, the plaintiff must seek to amend the complaint with germane

jurisdictional facts or track the relevant statute. Otherwise, the judicial review

process required under the Venetian Salami rubric is upended.4

Hence, without reaching the other issues raised by the parties in this

appeal, we view Appellee’s failure to file an adequate complaint – one that

alleges both a legal and factual basis that is consistent with Appellee’s

jurisdictional theory as it relates to Appellant – as fatal to Appellee’s efforts

to establish long-arm jurisdiction over Appellant. We therefore reverse the

4 Venetian Salami Co. v. J.S. Parthenais, 554 So. 2d 499, 502 (Fla. 1989) (holding that, after the plaintiff alleges sufficient jurisdictional facts over a nonresident defendant, the burden shifts to the defendant to contest jurisdiction by filing an affidavit in support of his position, whereupon the burden shifts back to the plaintiff to prove by affidavit the basis for jurisdiction).

5 challenged order and remand for the trial court to dismiss Appellant’s

amended complaint without prejudice to Appellee filing a second amended

complaint that adequately alleges a jurisdictional basis over Appellant. See,

e.g., Belz Investco Ltd. P’ship v. Groupo Immobiliano Cababie, S.A., 721 So.

2d 787, 789 (Fla. 3d DCA 1998) (“Procedurally, the plaintiff bears the initial

burden of pleading sufficient facts to bring the action within the ambit of the

long-arm statute. This may be done by alleging facts sufficient to show that

the defendant’s actions fit within one or more of the subsections of Florida’s

long-arm statute. It may also be done merely by tracking the language of the

long-arm statute without pleading supporting facts.” (citations omitted)).

Reversed and remanded with instructions.