Case Name: Christian Edward COOPER, Appellant, v. Melodie AUSTIN f/k/a Melodie Ann Cooper, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 2000-01-14
Citations: 750 So. 2d 711
Docket Number: No. 5D98-3250
Parties: Christian Edward COOPER, Appellant, v. Melodie AUSTIN f/k/a Melodie Ann Cooper, Appellee.
Judges: PETERSON, J., concurs
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 750
Pages: 711–715

Head Matter:
Christian Edward COOPER, Appellant, v. Melodie AUSTIN f/k/a Melodie Ann Cooper, Appellee.
No. 5D98-3250.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District.
Jan. 14, 2000.
Rehearing Denied Feb. 9, 2000.
Steven J. Guardiano, Daytona Beach, for Appellant.
Joan Stefanec Briggs, of Adams, Briggs & Briggs, Daytona Beach, for Appellee.

Opinion:
HARRIS, J.
Cooper appeals the trial court's denial of relief from a final judgment which adopted a mediation agreement Cooper alleges was obtained by extortion and which was the basis for the court's contempt citation also appealed herein. We agree -with Cooper and reverse.
During the course of a lengthy mediation, it is undisputed that the wife sent Cooper the following note:
If you can't agree to this, the kids will take what information they have to whomever to have you arrested, etc. Although I would get no money if you were in jail — you wouldn't also be living freely as if you did nothing wrong.
Relatively soon thereafter, the parties "settled" their property matters.
Although the trial judge recognized the extortionate nature of the note, he refused to give relief because he determined that the agreement did not result from the wife's demands.
In the words of Judge Dauksch, taken from his concurring opinion in a recent case, "How the appellee . baffled the judge baffles me." In the midst of extended negotiations before the mediator, the wife sent the husband a note that constituted classic extortion. However, the wife convinced the judge that the note was merely a "wake-up" call and did not influence the agreement subsequently reached. The court relied on two established facts to reach this conclusion. First, the husband did not immediately accede to the wife's demands but continued to negotiate for a period thereafter. Second, the husband did not seek relief from the extortionate agreement until after his efforts to reconcile with the wife failed. Even accepting these facts as true, we cannot agree that they negate the effect of extortion when reviewing the remainder of the record.
The husband testified, without contradiction, that the result of the mediated agreement was that the wife received $128,000 in marital assets while the husband received $10,000. In her answer brief filed in this case, the wife does not dispute the unequal distribution of marital assets as alleged by the husband. This grossly unequal distribution speaks volumes about the effect of the extortionate note sent by the wife. The fact that the husband continued to hold out on signing the agreement until the wife, at the last minute, agreed to deliver the key to the storage unit in which his personal property (supposedly including the incriminating photographs) was stored in exchange for $2,500 does not justify the conclusion that extortion did not influence the agreement. Rather it seems that the delay was necessary in order for the husband to achieve the quid pro quo for the agreement — the redelivery of the evidence of his alleged crime to him. Nor does the fact that the husband delayed this action until reconciliation failed indicate that extortion played no role in the agreement. Had the parties reconciled, the effect of the extorted agreement would have been mooted.
Perhaps the finding that the agreement did not result from extortion was influenced by a previous "finding" in the divorce action that "the terms and conditions of said agreement appear to be just and reasonable." But the record does not support that finding because the agreement contained no asset valuation. The wife conceded at the hearing to set aside the agreement that she had perjured herself in submitting, prior to the dissolution final hearing, a financial affidavit that showed zero assets. If the husband's uncontested testimony concerning the grossly dispro portionate distribution of marital assets is true, the agreement was neither just nor reasonable and does not justify ignoring the clearly extortionate actions of the wife.
The court in Baker v. Baker, 394 So.2d 465 (Fla. 4th DCA 1981), had no problem reversing the trial court on facts less egregious than those involved herein. In doing so, the Baker court, while accepting the trial court's findings of fact which adopted an advisory jury's decision in favor of the husband, rejected the trial court's decision upholding the property settlement agreement by holding that the "representations by the husband were so misleading as to constitute fraud and deception sufficient to vitiate the property settlement agreement."
In this case, the wife's "wake-up call," which demanded the husband either give in to her demands or go to jail, was clearly extortionate and her presentation of the extorted agreement to the court was a fraud on the court making the trial court an instrument of her extortion. Mrs. Cooper should not profit from her actions. Nor should this Court, or any court, ignore them.
REVERSED and REMANDED with instructions to proceed in accordance with this opinion.
PETERSON, J., concurs
GRIFFIN, J., dissents, with opinion.
. We second the position of Judge Sorondo stated in his concurring opinion in Metropolitan Dade County v. Martinsen, 736 So.2d 794, 796 (Fla. 3d DCA 1999), that when a court discovers that a litigant has, in the course of litigation, committed an offense that strikes at the very integrity of our system of justice, it should report such conduct to the appropriate authorities for appropriate action. Although Judge Sorondo was directing his comments at perjury committed during the course of litigation, submitting an agreement obtained by extortion to the court for approval is equally contemptuous of the judicial process and undercuts the very foundation of our judicial system.
. City of Daytona Beach v. Bush, 742 So.2d 335 (Fla. 5th DCA 1999).
. The agreement in evidence reveals that the wife received the parties' IRA account (amount unspecified), the parties' checking and savings account (amount unspecified), the parties' 1996 income tax refund (amount unspecified), her vehicle (value unspecified), and one-half the value of the marital home. In addition to her "share" of marital distribution, she also received $18,000 in rehabilitative alimony payable at $3,000 per month for six months and $75,000 in non-modifiable rehabilitative alimony payable at $2,500 per month for 30 months thereafter. In addition, the husband was required to pay the wife $2,500 in order to gain access to the storage unit presumably containing the evidence supporting her extortion. The husband was also required to pay all of the family credit card obligations except those incurred by the wife after separation. The husband was given one-half of the proceeds from the sale of the marital home once it sold.
. The crime threatened to be reported by the wife was Cooper's photographing a nude, underage girl. Cooper, who had experienced first hand the law's disapproval of this practice on an earlier occasion, was aware that in going through his property, the wife's children had found a photograph taken by him of a young woman who indeed looked underage. It was not until shortly before this action for relief from judgment was filed that Cooper tracked down the woman and verified she was "of age" at the time the photograph was taken.
.The wife's perjurious financial statement would normally be the yardstick in measuring the reasonableness of any settlement agreement. Perhaps it was of no concern in this case because the wife testified that although the court may not have known the truth, her husband knew or should have known of her lie. More probably it is because the court has become numbed by the appalling lack of candor present in a number of domestic cases. It is therefore refreshing to see the strong stand taken by the Third District in relation to perjury committed in the context of an accident case. In Metropolitan Dade County v. Martinsen, 736 So.2d 794 (Fla. 3d DCA 1999), the court applied the "well-settled law 'that a party who has been guilty of fraud or misconduct in the prosecution or defense of a civil proceeding should not be permitted to continue to employ the very institution it has subverted to achieve her ends.' " Is not a domestic case a civil proceeding?
. In Baker, the husband had merely misstated the amount of his income. The court, holding the parties to "a high degree of good faith and candor in all matters bearing upon the contract," held the agreement so tainted with fraud and deception that it was an abuse of discretion to deny the wife relief.