Case Name: Larry LONERGAN, a/k/a Lawrence D. Lonergan, Appellant, v. Ida O. LIPPMAN, Sara O. Morgan, and Anne O. Grunthal, Appellees
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1981-03-27
Citations: 406 So. 2d 1124
Docket Number: No. VV-249
Parties: Larry LONERGAN, a/k/a Lawrence D. Lonergan, Appellant, v. Ida O. LIPPMAN, Sara O. Morgan, and Anne O. Grunthal, Appellees.
Judges: WENTWORTH, J., concurs.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 406
Pages: 1124–1127

Head Matter:
Larry LONERGAN, a/k/a Lawrence D. Lonergan, Appellant, v. Ida O. LIPPMAN, Sara O. Morgan, and Anne O. Grunthal, Appellees.
No. VV-249.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.
March 27, 1981.
Rehearing Denied Jan. 5, 1982.
Arnold H. Slott of Black & Slott, P. A., Jacksonville, for appellant.
C. Ray Greene, Jr. of Greene & Greene, Jacksonville, for appellees.

Opinion:
MILLS, Chief Judge.
This is the third appearance in this court of ongoing litigation between the parties. The controversy between the parties began when appellees brought suit to foreclose a mortgage on the Sandpiper Hotel which housed the premises upon which Lonergan held a lease. On 27 May 1977 the trial court granted summary final judgment in favor of appellees and ruled that the mortgage was superior to Lonergan's lease and ordered the sale of the hotel. Appellees purchased the property.
Lonergan appealed the ruling to this court, but did not post a supersedeas bond. In September of 1977, the appellees refused to accept the rent due under the lease and, characterizing the tenancy as a tenancy at will, demanded $2,000 per month plus sales tax. Lonergan refused to pay the increased rent and paid the amount of $320 plus sales tax into escrow during the pendency of the case. In October, appellees filed suit for double rent for a tenant holding over. The building which contained, among other things, Lonergan's place of business was in disrepair and the City of Jacksonville Beach notified appellees or appellees' predecessor in title to fix up the building or to have it razed. On 25 June 1978, while the appeal was still pending, the Sandpiper Hotel was razed by the City of Jacksonville Beach. On 12 December 1978, this court reversed the final summary judgment of foreclosure. Lonergan v. Lippman, 365 So.2d 420 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978).
Subsequently, after further proceedings, the trial court entered a final judgment holding that Lonergan's lease was superior to the mortgage. That decision was affirmed by this court in Lippman v. Lonergan, 380 So.2d 461 (Fla. 1st DCA 1980). Lonergan was allowed to amend his answer to plead the lease and to file a counterclaim for damages for destruction of the leasehold estate in the action for double rent initiated by appellees. The trial court granted ap-pellees' motion for summary judgment as to this counterclaim, ruling:
It affirmatively appears from the record without dispute that defendant's leasehold interest was terminated by foreclosure proceedings prior to the demolition of the building in question. Therefore, defendant had no leasehold estate which was capable of being destroyed.
It is this judgment that is on appeal now. We reverse.
Appellees urge that the final judgment of the trial court was in full force and effect until stayed or reversed and since Lonergan did not file a supersedeas bond and the building was destroyed before this court reversed the final judgment, appellees acted within their rights and are not responsible for any damages to him. While it is true that at the time the building was razed the leasehold interest stood terminated by the trial court's ruling in the foreclosure action, it is also true that once the trial court's ruling was reversed on appeal, the ". . . cause after reversal stood as though no decree had been rendered." Marshall & Spencer Co. v. People's Bank of Jacksonville, 88 Fla. 190, 101 So. 358 (1924). Once the earlier judgment no longer existed, the leasehold interest was not terminated and Lonergan did have a leasehold estate which was capable of being destroyed.
It would be unconscionable to allow a prevailing party in the trial court to destroy or dispose of the underlying property in a dispute while the case was on appeal and then have no liability or responsibility to the other party when that final judgment was reversed and the loser was unable to restore the status quo.
An argument similar in result to that of appellees was involved in Lowman v. Young, 212 So.2d 88 (Fla. 1st DCA 1968). There the appellee had urged that since the summary judgment which was on appeal had not been superseded while the appeal was pending and the foreclosure decree had been executed and the property had been sold at the foreclosure sale, any questions raised in the appeal were then moot and the appellant was not entitled to restitution even if the trial court judgment was held to be erroneous. This argument was found to be without merit. A person is not required to take supersedeas or to secure a stay in order to appeal a judgment; and just as the issues raised in the appeal are not mooted by the trial court's enforcement of the final judgment, his rights are not abolished when the opposing party suffers the underlying property on which a property right is based to be destroyed.
Appellees' reliance on Mann v. Thompson, 118 So.2d 112 (Fla. 1st DCA 1960), is misplaced. In Mann, the trial court had invalidated a cattle pasturage lease and that ruling was appealed. After the appellate court reversed the trial court ruling, the use of the pasture was returned to Mann, but he sought restitution for the damages and losses incurred in moving and disposing of the cattle and for expenses in restocking the land with cattle. There the trial court denied the claim for such damages and this court affirmed because the claim was for damage that occurred as an incidental consequence of the enforcement of the trial court's judgment. Lonergan is not here seeking to recoup the expense of first vacating and then re-establishing his business; he is seeking damages for the destruction of the very property at issue in the suit, his leasehold estate.
REVERSED and REMANDED for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
WENTWORTH, J., concurs.
ROBERT P. SMITH, Jr., J., dissents.