A Guatemalan bank might not have to defend itself in Florida against racketeering and assault claims filed by a U.S. citizen who was shot after alleging the bank laundered money, a state appellate court ruled Wednesday.

The Third District Court of Appeal reversed an order granting jurisdiction based on the bank's activities in Florida, finding two recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions tightened requirements for establishing general jurisdiction. But the court is allowing a Miami-Dade judge to reevaluate the issue under the correct standard.

Granting jurisdiction in any state where a defendant company has “substantial, continuous and systematic” business ties is “unacceptably grasping,” the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Daimler v. Bauman in 2014, reaffirming a 2011 ruling that the company must be “essentially at home in the forum state.”

The Third DCA's ruling emphasizes what's required of the many South Floridians who do business with foreign or out-of-state companies and later seek to resolve disputes in Florida courts. Pre-2011 rulings from Florida courts accepted cases that alleged the defendant had “continuous and systematic general business contact” in the state.

Wednesday's decision arose from a Miami-Dade Circuit Court case filed in 2015 by Ricardo Rene Cortez Moreno, a U.S. citizen whose company was hired in 2008 to persuade Guatemalan immigrants in the United States to do business with Banco de los Trabajadores, or Bantrab.

Cortez alleges Guatemala's president asked him to look into suspected money laundering within the company. According to the complaint, Cortez discovered Bantrab was laundering drug trafficking proceeds through Florida.

Company directors then allegedly cut ties with Cortez. When he went to Guatemala to meet with them, 42 bullets were fired at his vehicle in 2009. He was hit in the arm and back, according to the complaint, which alleges the bank hired a hit man.

Cortez filed several claims against Bantrab and the directors, but the jurisdictional dispute applied only to the racketeering and assault claims against Bantrab. The other claims at various stages of review are racketeering and assault claims against each director individually, a breach of contract claim against Bantrab and tortious interference with a contract claim against three directors.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge William Thomas granted both general and specific jurisdiction. Specific jurisdiction applies when the alleged cause of action arises from an act committed in Florida.

After concluding the judge applied the incorrect constitutional due process standard on general jurisdiction based on the U.S. Supreme Court rulings, the Miami appellate court also reversed the specific jurisdiction findings. The finding on the racketeering claim was premature, the appellate panel ruled, and the assault claim finding was incorrect.

Although the shooting happened in Guatemala, Cortez argued specific jurisdiction was established by Bantrab's alleged conspiracy to launder money in Florida.

“The significant problem, however, with Cortez's argument is that Florida does not recognize civil conspiracy as a freestanding tort,” Third DCA Judges Kevin Emas, Thomas Logue and Edwin Scales wrote in a per curiam decision. “The conspiracy does not give rise to an independent cause of action but is a device to allow a plaintiff to spread liability to those involved in causing the underlying tort.”

Bantrab is represented by Omar Ortega, Rey Dorta and Rosdaisy Rodriguez of Dorta & Ortega in Coral Gables and Peter J. Kahn, Jonathan M. Landy and Matthew H. Jasilli of Williams & Connolly in Washington. Ortega did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trial counsel for Cortez is David Brill, Joseph Rinaldi and Michelle Medina-Fonseca of Brill & Rinaldi in Weston and Robert McKee of The McKee Law Group in Davie.

Miami solo practitioner Joel Perwin, who represented Cortez on appeal, said he was pleased with the opinion.

“The defendants were hoping to hit a home run and get rid of these counts,” Perwin said. “They really got slammed on that. These two counts are still alive, and we think they're going to stay alive.”

A former Guatemalan finance minister killed himself in 2016 after shooting two agents who arrived as his home to arrest him as part of a Bantrab money laundering probe.