Case Name: Norman FUNT, Esquire, Linda Koenigsberg, Esquire, and Luis Stabinski & Associates, P.A., f/k/a Stabinski & Funt, P.A., Petitioners, v. Honorable Joseph NADLER, as Judge of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court, in and for Dade County, Florida and Maria Valero, Respondents
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1988-09-20
Citations: 530 So. 2d 1107
Docket Number: No. 88-832
Parties: Norman FUNT, Esquire, Linda Koenigsberg, Esquire, and Luis Stabinski & Associates, P.A., f/k/a Stabinski & Funt, P.A., Petitioners, v. Honorable Joseph NADLER, as Judge of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court, in and for Dade County, Florida and Maria Valero, Respondents.
Judges: Before HUBBART and FERGUSON, JJ., and COWART, JOE A., Jr., Associate Judge.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 530
Pages: 1107–1108

Head Matter:
Norman FUNT, Esquire, Linda Koenigsberg, Esquire, and Luis Stabinski & Associates, P.A., f/k/a Stabinski & Funt, P.A., Petitioners, v. Honorable Joseph NADLER, as Judge of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court, in and for Dade County, Florida and Maria Valero, Respondents.
No. 88-832.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.
Sept. 20, 1988.
Stephens, Lynn, Klein & McNicholas and Debra J. Snow and Robert M. Klein, Miami, for petitioners.
Robert A. Ginsburg, Co. Atty., and Roy Wood, Asst. Co. Atty., for respondent, Joseph Nadler.
Daniels and Hicks and Joseph C. Brock, Miami, for respondent Maria Valero.
Before HUBBART and FERGUSON, JJ., and COWART, JOE A., Jr., Associate Judge.

Opinion:
PER CURIAM.
Where a trial judge makes the parties aware of circumstances that might raise a question as to his ability to be impartial and spontaneously commits to re-cuse himself on a motion of a party, a subsequent and timely motion for recusal must be granted. It is held in such cases that the invitation to make the motion speaks louder than a subsequent disclaimer of bias. Pistorino v. Ferguson, 386 So.2d 65 (Fla, 3d DCA 1980).
Further, the trial judge exceeded the proper scope of inquiry when he looked beyond the legal sufficiency of the verified motion for disqualification and challenged the truth of the bias allegation. That action alone would warrant disqualification. Bundy v. Rudd, 366 So.2d 440 (Fla.1978). Management Corp. of Am. v. Grossman, 396 So.2d 1169 (Fla. 3d DCA 1981).
Because we grant the petition for writ of prohibition, the post-motion order setting the cause for a jury trial must also be reversed. Stimpson Computing Scale Co. v. Knuck, 508 So.2d 482 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987). On remand the successor judge may revisit the jury trial question.