Case Name: Randall C. BYROM, Appellant, v. Walt GALLAGHER, etc., Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1990-10-11
Citations: 578 So. 2d 715
Docket Number: No. 90-77
Parties: Randall C. BYROM, Appellant, v. Walt GALLAGHER, etc., Appellee.
Judges: HARRIS, J., and McNEAL, R.T., Associate Judge, concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 578
Pages: 715–718

Head Matter:
Randall C. BYROM, Appellant, v. Walt GALLAGHER, etc., Appellee.
No. 90-77.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District.
Oct. 11, 1990.
On Motion for Rehearing and Certification May 9, 1991.
David Paul Horan of David Paul Horan & Associates, P.A., Key West, for appellant.
J. Edwin Mills and Margaret S. Marshall, Orlando, for appellee.

Opinion:
PETERSON, Judge.
Randall C. Byrom appeals a final judgment of forfeiture of a Piper Seneca aircraft in favor of the Sheriff of Orange County. We affirm.
The parties submitted the stipulated facts to the judge at the hearing on the rule to show cause. Joseph A. Capuzzo, a/k/a Joseph A. Camillo, a secretary-treasurer of Worldwide Air Service, Inc., executed and delivered on November 1, 1988, a bill of sale of the Seneca in favor of Byrom. On November 7, 1988, Capuzzo borrowed the Seneca from Byrom in Fort Lauderdale to fly his attorney and himself to a sentencing hearing in Orlando. When Capuzzo learned that his hearing would not be continued at his request, he fled the courthouse and flew the Seneca to Pompano Beach. The Orange County court sentenced Capuzzo in absentia for the crimes for which he was to appear and ordered that the clerk issue a capias for failure to appear. Later that day, the Seneca was seized in Pompano Beach, the sheriff alleging that the aircraft was used in or connected with the act of failure to appear.
The bill of sale was sent to the Federal Aviation Administration in Oklahoma City for registration sometime after November 1, 1988, but the actual date it was sent is not in the record. On November 7, 1988, the date of seizure, the FAA records did not reflect the transfer, and the bill of sale was not clocked in by the FAA until November 15, 1988. The sheriff did give notice to the FAA on November 7, 1988, that the Seneca had been seized, but the FAA issued a certificate of aircraft registration to Byrom on December 1, 1988. The record does not reflect whether the sheriff's notice of seizure had an effect upon the FAA's acknowledgment or receipt of Byrom's transfer or the issuance of the certificate to him.
Although notified of the hearing, neither Capuzzo nor Worldwide Air Service, Inc., appeared at the forfeiture hearing to address the question of the use of the Seneca in the commission of a crime. We do not address that question since we agree with the trial court that Byrom had no standing to contest the forfeiture. Section 329.01, Florida Statutes (1987), provides:
No instrument which affects the title to or interest in any civil aircraft of the United States . is valid in respect to such aircraft or portion thereof against any person, other than the person by whom the instrument is made or given, his heirs or devisees, and any person having actual notice thereof, until such instrument is recorded in the office of the Federal Aviation Administrator of the United States....
The statute concludes:
Any instrument required to be recorded by the provisions of this section takes effect from the date of its recordation and not from the date of its execution.
On November 7, the records of the FAA reflected Worldwide as the owner of the Seneca. The bill of sale indicating transfer to Byrom was not even "clocked in" at the FAA until 2:37 p.m. on November 15. The date of the forfeiture was November 7. Section 932.704, Florida Statutes (1987), provides that title is perfected in the sheriff as of the date of seizure since the final judgment relates back to that date. Lamar v. Wheels Unlimited, Inc., 513 So.2d 135 (Fla.1987); see also Lauderdale Investments, Inc. v. Miller, 456 So.2d 539 (Fla. 5th DCA 1984). Byrom's failure to record his bill of sale prior to November 7, 1988, defeats his right to contest the validity of the forfeiture since section 329.01, Florida Statutes, prescribes that Byrom's bill of sale was effective from the date of its recordation, not from the date of its execution or the unknown date of mailing.
The final judgment of forfeiture is affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
HARRIS, J., and McNEAL, R.T., Associate Judge, concur.