DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA

FOURTH DISTRICT

EDWIN R. JONAS, III,

Appellant,

v.

LINDA B. JONAS, individually and as Trustee of a constructive trust; 

and NANCY GOLD, individually,

Appellees.

No. 4D13-1438

[December 10, 2014]

Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, Palm 

Beach County; Lucy Chernow Brown, Judge; L.T. Case No. 

502002CA005708AH.

Roderick V. Hannah of Roderick V. Hannah, P.A., Hollywood, for 

appellant.

Eric C. Christu of Shutts & Bowen, LLP, West Palm Beach, for appellee 

Linda B. Jonas.

WARNER, J.

Appellant challenges the trial court’s dismissal of his action collaterally 

attacking a domesticated foreign judgment on the grounds of comity, and 

the principles of priority. The court determined that these proceedings 

arose out of a New Jersey divorce, and taking jurisdiction would interfere 

with New Jersey’s exercise of jurisdiction. We affirm.

In 1997, the appellee/former wife domesticated judgments in Florida 

which arose from the parties’ New Jersey divorce. Those decrees awarded 

the former wife judgments for unpaid alimony and child support. The New 

Jersey court also directed the establishment of a constructive trust to be 

funded with properties owned by the appellant/former husband, which it 

instructed the former wife to sell. In its order, the court provided that the 

former wife may pay the judgments from these funds if the former husband 

otherwise defaulted on his obligations.
2

Five years later, in 2002, the former husband filed suit in Florida 

collaterally attacking the domesticated foreign judgment, for breach of 

trust, breach of fiduciary duty and negligence. He demanded an 

accounting of the New Jersey constructive trust as he claimed that the 

former wife had mismanaged the assets of the trust, and the judgments 

should have been paid from the constructive trust proceeds. Thus, he 

claimed that the domesticated judgments should be satisfied.

The proceedings became complicated, and several orders of the Florida 

courts required the former husband to return to New Jersey to litigate the 

trust issues. He had filed proceedings to litigate the issue in New Jersey, 

but the New Jersey court denied his requests for accounting without 

prejudice, because he had absconded from the jurisdiction. The court 

ruled that if he would return to the state, those claims would be 

considered.1

In the meantime, the former husband moved to Montana, and the 

former wife also domesticated the judgments in Montana. The former 

husband made the same claims in Montana as he did in Florida and 

litigated those claims. The Montana courts declined jurisdiction, requiring 

the former husband to return to New Jersey, as demanded by the New 

Jersey courts, to litigate the matter.

Not to be deterred, the former husband filed a second amended 

complaint in Florida again raising the same claims. Upon motion by the 

former wife, the trial court dismissed the claims based upon priority and 

comity.

On appeal, the former husband claims that Florida has subject matter 

jurisdiction to adjudicate a collateral attack on a domesticated judgment, 

citing to Nichols v. Nichols, 613 So. 2d 137, 139 (Fla. 4th DCA 1993), which 

holds that a foreign judgment, domesticated in Florida, can be collaterally 

attacked based upon extrinsic fraud. Nichols is inapplicable. The former 

husband is not challenging the validity of the New Jersey judgment; he is 

claiming that the Florida domesticated judgment should have been 

satisfied through application of the funds in the constructive trust. All of 

his claims revolve around the management of the constructive trust by the 

former wife and the application of its proceeds to satisfying his obligations 

to her. Nichols does not control this case.

1 Also delaying further proceedings in Florida was the former husband’s 

bankruptcy.
3

Instead, principles of comity and priority required the court to decline 

jurisdiction, as the trial court properly found. Proceedings involving this 

family began in New Jersey in the 1990s. The courts of that state assumed 

jurisdiction, adjudicated the alimony obligations and child support, and 

directed the establishment of the constructive trust which is the source of 

much of the litigation here. Although ordered to appear in New Jersey, the 

former husband has refused and absconded. When the former husband, 

through counsel, sought an accounting of the constructive trust, 

complaining that the former wife was mismanaging the funds and not 

using them to satisfy his obligations, the New Jersey courts determined 

that those claims could be considered when the former husband returned 

to New Jersey. These orders were appealed and affirmed by the New Jersey 

courts. Thus, the former husband can obtain the relief he seeks in New 

Jersey.

Comity requires the courts of this state to refrain from exercising 

jurisdiction in this case. The New Jersey courts have prior jurisdiction 

and have demanded that, in order to obtain relief, the former husband 

return to their jurisdiction, from which he absconded.

 When a court is confronted with an action that would 

involve it in a serious interference with or usurpation of this 

continuing power, ‘considerations of comity and orderly 

administration of justice demand that the nonrendering court 

should decline jurisdiction * * * and remand the parties for 

their relief to the rendering court, so long as it is apparent that 

a remedy is available there.’

Mann Mfg, Inc. v. Hortex, Inc., 439 F.2d 403, 408 (5th Cir. 1971) (footnote 

omitted); see also Cermesoni v. Maneiro, 144 So. 3d 627, 630 (Fla. 3d DCA 

2014) (quoting Mann). The Montana court also followed that principle 

when the former husband sought the same relief there. Consistent with 

the Montana court, we too require the former husband to return to New 

Jersey to pursue his relief.

While the principle of priority also applies, as New Jersey was the first 

court to assert jurisdiction, see Siegel v. Siegel, 575 So. 2d 1267 (Fla.

1991), the usual remedy in such cases is to stay the subsequent 

proceeding in favor of the prior proceeding. Under the circumstances of 

this case, however, the court did not err in dismissing the case rather than 

issuing a stay. This litigation has been pending in the Florida courts for 

twelve years. Prior orders of the Florida trial courts have determined that 

New Jersey is the appropriate forum, yet the former husband has failed to 

litigate in that forum. The interests of judicial economy and finality require 
4

that this action in Florida come to an end. If the former husband is 

successful in having the judgments in New Jersey satisfied, he can file 

those satisfactions in Florida and the domesticated judgments will also be 

satisfied.

Having been told by two states that he must pursue his claims in New 

Jersey, the former husband should do so. We affirm the ruling of the trial 

court.

TAYLOR and KLINGENSMITH, JJ., concur.

* * *

Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.