Case Name: ALLSTATE FLORIDIAN INSURANCE CO., an Illinois corporation, a/s/o Tom Metzger, Appellant, v. RONCO INVENTIONS, LLC, a California corporation; and Popeil Inventions, Inc., a Nevada corporation, Appellees
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 2004-12-03
Citations: 890 So. 2d 300
Docket Number: No. 2D03-5900
Parties: ALLSTATE FLORIDIAN INSURANCE CO., an Illinois corporation, a/s/o Tom Metzger, Appellant, v. RONCO INVENTIONS, LLC, a California corporation; and Popeil Inventions, Inc., a Nevada corporation, Appellees.
Judges: CANADY, J., Concurs with opinion.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 890
Pages: 300–312

Head Matter:
ALLSTATE FLORIDIAN INSURANCE CO., an Illinois corporation, a/s/o Tom Metzger, Appellant, v. RONCO INVENTIONS, LLC, a California corporation; and Popeil Inventions, Inc., a Nevada corporation, Appellees.
No. 2D03-5900.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.
Dec. 3, 2004.
Mark A. Greenberg of Powers, McNalis & Torres, West Palm Beach, for Appellant.
Jeffrey D. Kottkamp of Henderson, Franklin, Starnes & Holt, Fort Myers, for Appellees.

Opinion:
DAVIS, Judge.
Allstate Floridian Insurance Company ("Allstate") appeals the order entered by the trial court setting aside the final default judgment previously entered against Ronco Inventions, LLC ("Ronco"), and Po-peil Inventions, Inc. ("Popeil"). We reverse.
Ronco is a California corporation engaged in manufacturing and selling consumer products throughout the United States. Popeil is a Nevada corporation that is engaged in a similar business. One of the products made and distributed by Ronco and Popeil is the Showtime Rotisserie and BBQ Oven.
The instant action commenced when a consumer, Tom Metzger, purchased a Showtime Rotisserie and BBQ Oven, which he claimed was defective, causing him to suffer a fire loss at his residence. As the insurer of Metzger's residence, Allstate became subrogated to Metzger's rights of recovery against Ronco and Popeil (collectively "Appellees").
Allstate filed its complaint in Lee County on May 7, 2003. Popeil's resident agent was served on May 21, 2003, and Ronco's resident agent was served on June 4, 2003. On June 27, 2003, neither Ronco nor Po-peil having filed an answer, Allstate moved for default and mailed copies of the motion to each Appellee's resident agent. On June 30, 2003, the clerk entered a default against each Appellee as to liability. The face of each of the defaults indicates that a copy of the default was mailed to each Appellee's resident agent. On July 30, 2003, Allstate filed affidavits in support of the damages it claimed. Notices of filing these affidavits were served by mail on Appellees' respective resident agents. The trial court entered final default judgment on August 7, 2003, a copy of which was mailed to each of the Appellee's respective resident agents. On September 25, 2003, seven weeks after the August 7, 2003, entry of final default judgment, Ron-co and Popeil filed a motion to vacate the final judgment. In their motion, Appel-lees alleged that they had followed their normal corporate policy of delivering the complaint to their insurance carrier, assuming that the carrier would commence immediate representation of their interests. They further alleged that they had no notice that the insurance company had not assigned an attorney to file a responsive pleading until they received a copy of the final default judgment entered on August 7, 2003. They argued that they had a meritorious defense and that they acted diligently after they learned that the default had been entered.
For a trial court to grant a motion to set aside a default final judgment, the defaulted party must show three things: (1) that the failure to file a responsive pleading was the result of excusable neglect; (2) that it has a meritorious defense; and (3) that it acted with due diligence in seeking relief from the default. Goodwin v. Goodwin, 559 So.2d 109 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990). Here, Allstate conceded that Ap-pellees' answers raised a meritorious defense; however, it argued that Appellees did not demonstrate excusable neglect or show that they acted with due diligence once they learned of the default.
The trial court ruled in favor of Appel-lees and set aside the default, concluding that their neglect was excusable since they followed their normal policy and depended upon the insurance carrier to defend them. The trial court also concluded that Appel- lees' act of filing the motion some seven weeks after learning of the entry of final judgment was sufficient -to establish that they had'acted with due diligence. While we agree with the trial court's conclusion that Appellees demonstrated excusable neglect, we disagree with its finding that they demonstrated due diligence.
For this court to reverse an order granting a motion for relief from a default, the appellant must show a gross abuse of discretion by the trial court. Marshall Davis, Inc. v. Incapco, Inc., 558 So.2d 206 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990). This extremely high standard of review reflects the implementation of the "principle of liberality" in setting aside defaults so that lawsuits may be decided on their merits. Lindell Motors, Inc. v. Morgan, 727 So.2d 1112, 1113 (Fla. 2d DCA 1999) (citing Bland v. Viking Fire Protection, Inc. of the Southeast, 454 So.2d 763 (Fla. 2d DCA 1984)). The troublesome nature of our review here is the admittedly high "gross abuse of discretion" standard. The definition of an abuse of discretion has been provided by the Florida Supreme Court in Canakaris v. Canakaris, 382 So.2d 1197, 1203 (Fla.1980):
Discretion . is abused when the judicial action is arbitrary, fanciful, or unreasonable, which is another way of saying that discretion is abused only where no reasonable man would take the view adopted by the trial court. If reasonable men could differ as to the propriety of the action taken by the trial court, then it cannot be said that the trial court abused its discretion.
However, we have no definition of what a "gross" abuse of discretion includes or how it differs from an abuse of discretion. We can only assume that it is more egregious than a typical abuse of discretion.
In this case, Appellees successfully established the existence of two of the three factors required to set aside a default final judgment. First, Allstate does not contest the fact that Appellees raised a meritorious defense. Second, Appellees' claims of excusable neglect were sufficient to overcome the gross abuse of discretion standard of review given the fact that they claimed to have followed their' normal corporate practice of submitting the complaints to their insurance carrier, which then failed to file timely answers. See Mercury Marine Indus., Inc. v. Dillon, 779 So.2d 356 (Fla. 2d DCA 2000); Kapetanopoulos v. Herbert, 449 So.2d 947 (Fla. 2d DCA 1984). But see Westinghouse Credit Corp. v. Steven Lake Masonry, Inc., 356 So.2d 1329, 1330 (Fla. 4th DCA 1978) ("Negligence by a litigant's representative may be grounds for an independent suit, but it will not support the setting aside of a default judgment save under exceptional circumstance.").
However, the third prong of the test, whether Appellees acted with due diligence, is a more troublesome issue. At the hearing on the motion to set aside the final judgment and default, the trial court found that the motion was filed seven weeks after the entry of the final judgment. Appellees' counsel agreed with that finding. Accordingly, we must determine whether, in light of all the circumstances of this case, the trial court's conclusion that Ronco and Popeil acted with due diligence was a gross abuse of discretion. See Apolaro v. Falcon, 566 So.2d 815 (Fla. 3d DCA 1990). We conclude that it was.
At the hearing on the motion, trial counsel for Ronco and Popeil argued that Techvend, Inc. v. Phoenix Network, Inc., 564 So.2d 1145 (Fla. 3d DCA 1990), supported their claim that they had demonstrated due diligence. However, Appellees completely misconstrued Techvend. Appellees argued that Techvend and Garvin v. South Carolina Insurance Co., 528 So.2d 929 (Fla. 2d DCA 1988), which was cited with approval in Techvend, stood for the proposition that any delay of up to six months was acceptable in the Second District. In reality, Techvend found a three-month delay to be unacceptable. It cited Garvin as support because Garvin had found a six-month delay to be unacceptable, not acceptable, as argued by Appellees. Thus, not only can Techvend not be read to set the upper limit of reasonable delay at six months, it stands for the proposition that a three-month delay is unreasonable and that, pursuant to Fischer v. Barnett Bank, 511 So.2d 1087 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987), even a five-week delay may be considered unreasonable. Therefore, any reliance that the trial court placed on Appellees' interpretation of Techvend as allowing a six-month delay was misplaced.
Moreover, most of the recent cases out of this court that have found the existence of due diligence have involved time periods of but a few days. For example, in Coquina Beach Club Condominium Ass'n v. Wagner, 813 So.2d 1061 (Fla. 2d DCA 2002), a one-week delay from the time the defendant learned of the existence of the default until it filed a motion to set it aside was considered due diligence. In Lindell Motors, 727 So.2d 1112, a three-day delay was determined to be reasonable. Likewise, six days was found to constitute due diligence in Goodwin, 559 So.2d 109. In Marshall Davis, 558 So.2d 206, the accepted delay was fifteen days; in Ponderosa, Inc. v. Stephens, 539 So.2d 1162 (Fla. 2d DCA 1989), a next-day filing was considered reasonable.
In sum, it appears that although this court has found that a fifteen-day delay constitutes due diligence while a six-month delay does not, we have enunciated no "bright line" rule by which to measure the seven weeks that expired in this case. In the absence of such a rule, we must measure this period of time by the standard of reasonableness, which necessarily requires us to consider not only the duration of the delay, but also any other factors that might bear upon the issue of reasonableness.
In examining the reasonableness of a delay in seeking relief from a default and resulting final judgment, Techvend suggested that as a "rule of thumb," we might start with the period in which a defendant must file his answer after initially being served, i.e., twenty days.
While the theoretical underpinning of the due diligence requirement has perhaps not so far been fully explicated, it would appear that the requirement that one move expeditiously to nullify a default is directly related to the reasons for the entry of the default in the first place — -to provide for the prompt disposition of legal proceedings. See B.C. Builders Supply Co. v. Maldonado, 405 So.2d 1345, 1348 (Fla. 3d DCA 1981). In essence, one might say, then, that timely action is required to avoid "defaulting" upon the opportunity to set aside a previously entered default. On this basis, the time provided initially to answer the complaint, twenty days, might well serve as a rule of thumb for the period in which a defendant must act to vacate a default after learning of its entry.
Techvend, 564 So.2d at 1146. Although this suggestion has not been accepted by this court as a bright line rule, it does provide a starting point for our analysis. Once the twenty days have passed, as here, other factors must be considered.
We first observe that Appellees were served with numerous documents leading up to the final judgment. Although the affidavit upon which Appellees rely states that Appellees did not learn that their insurance carrier had failed to file responsive pleadings until their representative received a copy of the judgment, the record reveals that Appellees were notified both of the pending suit and of the entry of the default. The complaint and summons were personally served on Ronco's resident agent in California and on Popeil's resident agent in Nevada. Both corporate entities acknowledged that they received the complaints from their agents and forwarded them to their carrier. Further, Ronco and Popeil admit that they received copies of the final judgment that had been mailed to their resident agents. Indeed, they allege that this was their first indication that there was a problem.
The record shows that at least three additional notices were mailed to the resident agents prior to entry of final judgment: (1) copies of the motion for default; (2) copies of the default; and (3) copies of the notice of filing the affidavit in support of final judgment. Significantly, the affidavit filed by Appellees' representative does not state that he did not receive these notices; it states that he was busy with a new project and was not aware that the insurer had not assigned counsel to the case until he received the final judgment. Neither does his affidavit say that he was not given notice of the clerk's default; rather, he claims that he did not recognize that the clerk's default was the result of the carrier's failure to defend against the lawsuit. There is no explanation in the affidavit as to why it is that the complaint and final judgment reached Appellees but these three intervening documents did not.
It must be remembered that Ronco and Popeil are not "mom and pop" operations. They are large corporations that are, due to nationwide television advertising, household names throughout the United States. As such, the corporations are certainly familiar with legal actions. By his own admission, counsel for Ronco advised the trial court that Ronco dealt with "zillions" of these suits.
Moreover, by his own admission in the affidavit, Popeil's representative recognized the implications of the final judgment. The fact that he was too busy with a new project to deal with the legal notices he received prior to final judgment only adds to the unreasonableness of the seven-week delay. Given the above-described "shower" of notices, we conclude that the seven-week delay here was unreasonable. See Otero v. Gov't Employees Ins. Co., 606 So.2d 443 (Fla. 2d DCA 1992).
Based on the facts as demonstrated in this record, we conclude that, the trial court grossly abused its discretion in finding that Appellees acted with due diligence. In its order, the trial court referred to the affidavit filed by Appellees' representative and their memorandum of law as the basis for its findings. However, because the affidavit offers no explanation as to why it took seven weeks to seek relief from the default judgment after receiving the judgment, there is no factual support for the trial court's finding. Reaching the legal conclusion that Appel-lees had shown due diligence when there was no evidence presented upon which to make such a finding is clearly an abuse of discretion. When considered in light of the facts of this case, we consider the ruling to be a gross abuse of discretion requiring reversal.
Reversed and remanded.
CANADY, J., Concurs with opinion.
WALLACE, J., Dissents with opinion.
. Ronco and Popeil are separate corporate entities that were sued independently in this lawsuit. However, they filed the motion to vacate the final judgment jointly. The lawyer who appeared at the hearing on that motion orally represented to the trial court that he represented only Ronco. The affidavit upon which both Ronco and Popeil rely was executed by Michael Johnson, who averred in that affidavit that he represented Popeil. Given our disposition of this case, we need not address the issues posed by these facts.
. In a footnote in Emmer v. Brucato, 813 So.2d 264, 265 n. 1 (Fla. 5th DCA 2002), the Fifth District suggests that there is but one standard and that the word "gross"- was merely surplusage used by the Florida Supreme Court in North Shore Hospital, Inc. v. Barber, 143 So.2d 849 (Fla.1962), where the standard was adopted.