Title: Fishbones-Sand Lake Road v. Allen, et. al.
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: SC02-426
State: Florida
Issuer: Florida Supreme Court
Date: January 23, 2003

Supreme 
Court 
of 
Florida
THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2003
CORRECTED ORDER
CASE NO.: SC02-426
Lower Tribunal No.:  5D01-1124
FISHBONES-SAND LAKE
vs.
ALLEN, DYER, DOPPELT,
ROAD, INC.
          MILBRATH & GILCHRIST, 
P.A.
___________________________________________________________________
Petitioner(s)
Respondent(s)
         Upon review of the responses to this Court's Order to Show Cause dated 
September 12, 2002, the Court has determined that it should decline to accept 
jurisdiction. It is ordered that the petition for review is denied.  See 
Moossun v. 
Orlando Regional Health Care, etc., 826 So. 2d 945 (Fla. 2002).
No motion for rehearing will be entertained by the Court.  See Fla. R. App. P. 
9.330(d).
ANSTEAD, C.J., WELLS and PARIENTE, JJ., and SHAW, Senior Justice, concur.
LEWIS, J., dissents with opinion.
A True Copy
Test:
 
  
tc
Served:
HON. FRANK J. HABERSHAW, CLERK
MICHAEL TIMOTHY TOMLIN
JOHN E. FISHER
LORA A. DUNLAP
HON. LYDIA  GARDNER, CLERK
JEFFREY SCOTT DAWSON
LLIP R. KRASS
HON. JOSEPH P. BAKER, JUDGE
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LEWIS, J., dissenting.
The majority’s decision to decline jurisdiction in the instant case extends the
rule established in Moossun v. Orlando Regional Health Care, 826 So. 2d 945 (Fla.
2002), which I maintain was in error, even further to a scenario that is clearly
distinguishable from that case.  We clearly have jurisdiction under the authority of
Jollie v. State, 405 So. 2d 418, 420 (Fla. 1981), and the proceedings in this case
were even stayed due to our consideration of Moossun.  The result of the Court’s
decision in this case is an ever-widening circle of Floridians being artificially
precluded from pursuing their legal rights due to an unjustifiably high bar for access
to the judiciary created by misguided rule interpretations.  Therefore, I must
respectfully dissent.
In Moossun, the majority applied the rule established in Toney v. Freeman,
600 So. 2d 1099 (Fla. 1992), that a status order is not sufficient “record activity” to
preclude dismissal of a case for lack of prosecution under rule 1.420(e) of the
Florida Rules of Civil Procedure, to instances in which case management
conferences – not just status reports – had been ordered.  See Moossun, 826 So.
2d at 946.  I dissented in Moossun because of the meaningful distinction that exists
between a mere status request and an order setting a case for conference. 
Moossun, 826 So. 2d at 952 (Lewis, J., dissenting).  As I explained in my
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dissenting opinion, a status request constitutes an attempt by the ordering court to
manage its docket, whereas a case management conference is calculated to
“‘hasten the suit to judgment’” as required by Toney as it provides a venue to take
any number of aggressive, substantive actions, from expediting discovery to
pursuing settlement options to the entry of judgment.  See id. at 952 (Lewis, J.,
dissenting) (quoting Toney, 600 So. 2d at 1100).
Even if I had agreed with the majority opinion in Moossun, I would not
extend that rule further, as the majority does in the present case, to instances where
a case management conference has not only been ordered, but allegedly actually
attended by counsel.  The extension of Moossun in this regard is simply unjustified. 
Courts do not squander their own precious resources by convening case
management conferences for simply the purpose of passively checking the parties’
status.  Such conferences are designed and intended to make meaningful progress
toward completion of the case.  As any participating attorney should know, one
must be prepared to zealously advocate a client’s position in that arena, or risk
receiving unfavorable determinations on substantive issues.  The analysis and
decisions of the district courts of appeal in Samuels v. Palm Beach Motor Cars
Ltd. by Simpson, Inc., 618 So. 2d 310 (Fla. 4th DCA), review denied, 629 So. 2d
134 (Fla. 1993), and Miami Beach Awning Co. v. Heart of the City, Inc., 565 So.
4
2d 739 (Fla. 3d DCA 1990), were eminently correct.
For these reasons, I cannot agree that the scheduling of a case management
conference and counsel’s actual participation in a case management conference
would not constitute sufficient record activity under rule 1.420(e) to preclude
dismissal of the case for failure to prosecute.  If this result must follow, the rule
should be changed.  I therefore dissent from the Court’s decision to decline
jurisdiction in the instant case, and, consequently, to subject cases presenting the
instant factual scenario to the rule established in Moossun.