USCA11 Case: 22-10235 Document: 57-1 Date Filed: 02/01/2023 Page: 1 of 4
[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 22-10235
____________________
JUST PLAY, LLC,
Plaintiff-Counter
Defendant-Appellee,
versus
FITZMARK, INC.,
Defendant-Counter
Claimant-Appellant.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
D.C. Docket No. 9:20-cv-80663-AMC
USCA11 Case: 22-10235 Document: 57-1 Date Filed: 02/01/2023 Page: 2 of 4
2 Opinion of the Court 22-10235
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Before WILSON, JORDAN, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
FitzMark, Inc., a company which provides warehousing ser-
vices, appeals from a $3.9 million jury verdict in favor of Just Play,
LLC, on a claim of promissory estoppel. FitzMark argues that the
district court erred (1) in denying its Rule 50 motion for judgment
as a matter of law and (2) in instructing the jury on promissory es-
toppel and in formulating the verdict form. Following oral argu-
ment and a review of the record, we affirm.
We review the district court’s denial of FitzMark’s Rule 50
motion de novo, understanding that such a motion should be
granted “only when the plaintiff presents no legally sufficient evi-
dentiary basis for a reasonable jury to find for [it] on a material el-
ement of [its] cause of action.” St. Louis Condo. Ass’n, Inc. v. Rock-
hill Ins. Co.,
5 F.4th 1235, 1242 (11th Cir. 2021) (citation and inter-
nal quotation marks omitted). Applying the elements of promis-
sory estoppel under Florida law as set forth in W.R. Grace & Co.
v. Geodata Servs., Inc.,
547 So.2d 919, 924 (Fla. 1989), we conclude
that the jury had before it sufficient evidence to render a verdict in
favor of Just Play. There was evidence that FitzMark made prom-
ises about the warehousing services that it would provide, that Just
Play relied on those promises to its detriment, that FitzMark did
not deliver on its promises, and that injustice could be avoided only
through enforcement of those promises. Insofar as FitzMark
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22-10235 Opinion of the Court 3
argues that the jury could only have found that the relationship be-
tween the parties was governed by the May 2, 2018 Rate Quotation
and Contract it provided to Just Play, we agree with the district
court that the conflicting evidence created a jury question on the
existence of an oral or written contract, see D.E. 209 at 2–3, and
that, in light of the evidence presented at trial, a jury could have
reasonably found that the parties did not enter into a written agree-
ment. See D.E. 248 at 4–5.
Turning to the jury instruction, we see no abuse of discre-
tion. “A district court has broad discretion in formulating jury in-
structions,” Christopher v. Cutter Labs., Inc.,
53 F.3d 1184, 1190
(11th Cir. 1995), and FitzMark has not provided us with any author-
ities that require a jury instruction on promissory estoppel under
Florida law to set out the alleged promises verbatim. The main
case that FitzMark relies on, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. v. Prentice,
290 So.3d 963, 965–66 (Fla. 1st DCA 2019), approved,
338 So.3d 831
(Fla. 2022)—which involved a concealment conspiracy—is distin-
guishable because it involved a jury instruction that did not tell the
jury that it had to find that the plaintiff relied on any specific state-
ments. Even the jury instruction proposed by the defendant in
Prentice (which the First District determined was a correct state-
ment of the law and should have been given) did not set out the
alleged statements in detail. See Prentice, 290 So.3d at 965. For
essentially the same reason, the district court did not err in submit-
ting to the jury a verdict form that did not list the alleged promises
in detail.
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4 Opinion of the Court 22-10235
AFFIRMED.
