How do judges of the Florida District Courts of Appeal reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is merit selection with retention.

Florida District Courts of Appeal / Joined 2012 / Active

Scott Makar

Judge, Florida District Courts of Appeal

Scott Makar is a Judge of the Florida District Courts of Appeal (102 judges, selected by merit selection with retention), serving since 2012. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1959 · age 67
Tenure: Since 2012 · 14 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
2012	Florida District Courts of Appeal	–	–

Education

Mercer University
University of Florida

Judicial Record

In our data, Makar authored 54 published opinions for the court (2012–2019), plus 32 dissents and 82 concurrences. Most cited: Sylvia Higgins and Collier Higgins v. Dyck O'Neal, Inc. (44 citations).

Published, precedential opinions from the CourtListener corpus. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge. 167 of these were attributed to Makar by a unique court-, date-, and surname-match against our roster (marked ), because CourtListener recorded no author for them. Each links to the official text to verify. How we match.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
2016	Sylvia Higgins and Collier Higgins v. Dyck O'Neal, Inc.· Dissent†	201 So. 3d 157	44
2013	Powell v. State†	120 So. 3d 577	44
2013	Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. v. Staples· Dissent†	125 So. 3d 309	27
2017	State of Florida v. Brian Mitchell Lee· Concurrence†	223 So. 3d 342	25
2012	Soffer v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.†	106 So. 3d 456	25
2015	Mills v. State· Concurrence†	177 So. 3d 984	23
2013	Florida Carry, Inc. v. University of North Florida· Concurrence†	133 So. 3d 966	22
2013	Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. v. Bohatka†	112 So. 3d 596	19
2015	City of Jacksonville v. Smith· Dissent†	159 So. 3d 888	16
2016	Linda G. Morgan v. The Bank of New York Mellon etc.· Dissent†	200 So. 3d 792	15
2014	State, Department of Highway Safety & Motor Vehicles v. Wiggins†	151 So. 3d 457	15
2013	Madison v. State†	132 So. 3d 237	12
2013	Partlow v. State· Concurrence†	134 So. 3d 1027	12
2012	R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. v. Jewett†	106 So. 3d 465	12
2015	State of Florida v. Ray Mon Wright· Dissent†	180 So. 3d 1043	11

Showing the 15 most-cited of 168 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

How do judges of the Florida District Courts of Appeal reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is merit selection with retention.
Which court is Scott Makar on?: Scott Makar is a Judge of the Florida District Courts of Appeal.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

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14 years on the Florida District Courts of Appeal. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).