Title: John Ryan, Iv., Et Al. V. Leonor Lobo De Gonzalez, Et Al.
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: SC03-933
State: Florida
Issuer: Florida Supreme Court
Date: November 10, 2005

Supreme Court of Florida 
 
 
____________ 
 
No. SC03-933 
____________ 
 
JOHN RYAN, IV, et al.,  
Petitioners, 
 
vs. 
 
LEONOR LOBO DE GONZALEZ, et al.,  
Respondents. 
 
[November 10, 2005] 
CORRECTED OPINION 
 
PER CURIAM. 
 
We initially accepted jurisdiction of this case based on express and direct 
conflict between the decision below, Ryan v. Lobo de Gonzalez, 841 So. 2d 510 
(Fla. 4th DCA 2003), and our decision in Florida Department of Health & 
Rehabilitative Services v. S.A.P., 835 So. 2d 1091 (Fla. 2002).  A majority no 
longer exists, however, to retain jurisdiction and decide the case on the merits.  We 
therefore exercise our discretion and discharge jurisdiction.  See art. V, § 3(b)(3), 
Fla. Const. 
 
It is so ordered. 
 
 
 
- 2 -
 
WELLS, LEWIS, and BELL, JJ., concur. 
ANSTEAD and QUINCE, JJ., dissent. 
CANTERO, J., dissents with an opinion. 
PARIENTE, C.J., recused. 
 
 
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION, AND 
IF FILED, DETERMINED. 
 
 
CANTERO, J., dissenting. 
 
I dissent from discharging jurisdiction in this case because I conclude that 
the district court’s decision conflicts with a decision of this Court, and we should 
clarify the law.  The principal issue is whether the doctrine of equitable estoppel 
applies where the plaintiff did not know about the cause of action until the statute 
of limitations expired.  The district court held that in such circumstances the 
doctrine of equitable estoppel does not apply.  See Ryan v. Lobo de Gonzalez, 841 
So. 2d 510 (Fla. 4th DCA 2003).  As I explain below, the district court’s decision 
technically conflicts with language in our decision in Florida Department of Health 
& Rehabilitative Services v. S.A.P., 835 So. 2d 1091 (Fla. 2002).  In S.A.P., we 
allowed the plaintiff, who had been sexually abused as a child, to assert a claim for 
equitable estoppel even though she did not learn of the cause of action until after 
the limitations period expired.  We therefore have jurisdiction.  See art. V, § 
3(b)(3), Fla. Const.  But I also agree with the district court that our decision in 
S.A.P. did not intend to announce a broad ruling modifying the traditional 
 
 
- 3 -
requirements for equitable estoppel.  Rather, like other cases we recently have 
decided, it created an exception to the previous knowledge requirement in 
childhood sexual abuse cases.  I would use this opportunity to approve the district 
court’s interpretation of S.A.P., and in particular Judge Gross’s thoughtful 
concurring opinion explaining the history of the doctrine of equitable estoppel.  
Finally—and the reason why accepting jurisdiction is important—I would quash 
the district court’s decision to the extent it holds that the statute of limitations bars 
all of the plaintiffs’ causes of action.  I conclude that although the statute of 
limitations does bar some claims, it does not bar those for constructive trust, 
declaratory judgment, and permanent injunction.  The Court’s decision to 
discharge jurisdiction leaves the plaintiffs completely without a remedy. 
I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND 
This case arises from a complex set of facts, most of which remain disputed 
at this point, involving claims among relatives to shares of the Chiriqui Sugar Mills 
Corporation, a Panama corporation with holdings in Cuba.  The facts are set forth 
in greater detail in the district court’s opinion.  See Ryan, 841 So. 2d at 510.  I 
briefly summarize them.  The claims are between one daughter of Julio Lobo 
Olabarria, deceased, who at one time owned Chiriqui, and the children of another 
daughter.  The daughters are Leonor Lobo de Gonzalez and Maria Luisa Lobo 
Ryan.  Leonor claims she owns the shares, while Maria Luisa’s four surviving 
 
 
- 4 -
children―John Ryan IV, Victoria Ryan, Carolina Ryan Camperio and Alin Ryan 
Smith―claim they do.  
Julio Lobo formed Chiriqui in 1957.  He later used the shares as collateral 
for a loan.  Lobo’s properties were among many that Cuba’s dictator Fidel Castro 
confiscated and nationalized.  Lobo thereafter defaulted on the loan, but in 1963 he 
renegotiated it.  The new loan provided that a company called Moorings 
Development Company would assume some of Chiriqui’s debt.  Although Lobo 
controlled Moorings, it was owned in equal shares by his two daughters.  Lobo 
defaulted on the renegotiated loan in 1965, and Moorings seized and assumed 
control of Chiriqui.  See id.  However, this seizure and assumption of control was 
never formally or officially recorded in Panama, nor were the Chiriqui shares listed 
in the Moorings financial statements or tax returns. 
In 1967, Moorings began to operate independently of Lobo, and in 1971, 
Lobo discussed with his attorneys the possibility of reacquiring the Chiriqui shares 
and control of Moorings; however, neither control nor the shares were returned to 
him.  In 1974, he indicated in a letter to his attorneys that he no longer wished to 
pursue his rights in the Moorings or the Chiriqui shares, citing fears that the IRS 
would seize any property obtained through enforcement of his rights.  In addition, 
he expressed a desire to make amends with his daughters. 
 
 
- 5 -
In 1980, Maria Luisa redeemed her 50% interest in Moorings.  The parties 
dispute whether Chiriqui was an asset of Moorings at that time, and whether the 
Chiriqui shares were a part of the redemption so as to foreclose Maria Luisa from 
later claiming ownership of the shares.  Lobo died in 1983 without having pursued 
any potential interest in Moorings or in the Chiriqui shares.  See id.  In 1984, 
Leonor sold her interest in Moorings.  Before the sale, however, she removed the 
Chiriqui shares from Moorings’s safety deposit box.  
In 1991, John Ryan, one of Maria Luisa’s sons, investigated Lobo’s assets 
and became aware of the Chiriqui shares.  At that time, Leonor made statements 
indicating that she and Maria Luisa owned the shares equally.  In 1996, however, 
Leonor filed a document with the Panama Corporation Registry claiming to be 
Chiriqui’s sole owner, and later transferred her interest in Chiriqui to a Florida 
corporation. 
Maria Luisa’s children allege that not until April 1996 did they become 
aware that Leonor claimed sole ownership of the shares.  Maria Luisa died in 
February 1998, and that December Maria Luisa’s children and her estate filed suit 
against Leonor and her husband Jorge alleging entitlement to Maria Luisa’s half 
interest in the Chiriqui shares.  See id.  They allege that when Maria Luisa 
redeemed her Moorings interest she had not forfeited her interest in the shares 
because she was not aware the shares were a Moorings asset.  The children’s 
 
 
- 6 -
second amended complaint asserted claims to the shares by the children, as Maria 
Luisa’s assignees, and by Julio Lobo’s estate. 
The trial court granted a final summary judgment in favor of Leonor and her 
husband, concluding that the statute of limitations barred the children’s claims, and 
that equitable estoppel was not available as a means to avoid the defense of the 
statute of limitations.  
The Fourth District Court of Appeal affirmed.  841 So. 2d at 520.  The 
district court held that, because Maria Luisa was not aware of her right to a cause 
of action to recover the shares before the limitations period expired, Leonor could 
not have enticed her into delaying the filing of an action, and therefore she could 
not invoke the doctrine of equitable estoppel.  See id.   
II. DISCUSSION OF LAW 
The children seek review based on express and direct conflict with S.A.P., 
835 So. 2d at 1091.  In the alternative, they argue that the statute of limitations 
does not bar their claims because the claims did not accrue until 1996, when 
Leonor first asserted full ownership of the Chiriqui shares.  I address these 
arguments in turn.  Below I analyze three issues: (A) whether jurisdiction exists 
based on express and direct conflict; (B) whether the doctrine of equitable estoppel 
applies under the facts of this case; and (C) whether, even if the doctrine does not 
apply, the statute of limitations bars all of the plaintiffs’ claims. 
 
 
- 7 -
A. CONFLICT WITH S.A.P. 
Despite the district court’s valiant efforts to distinguish our decision in 
S.A.P., 835 So. 2d at 1091, I conclude that its decision expressly and directly 
conflicts with that case.  In S.A.P., we allowed the plaintiff, who had been sexually 
abused as a child, to assert a claim for equitable estoppel even though she did not 
learn of the cause of action until after the limitations period expired.  The district 
court in this case held that the doctrine of equitable estoppel does not apply where 
the plaintiff did not know of the cause of action before the limitations period 
expired.  That holding conflicts with S.A.P.  As the concurring opinion below 
recognized, “one reading of S.A.P. suggests a much broader application of the 
doctrine of equitable estoppel to give life to causes of action which would 
otherwise be swatted away by the statute of limitations.”  841 So. 2d at 523 (Gross, 
J., concurring specially).  We should accept jurisdiction for two reasons: to clarify 
that S.A.P. does not apply in these circumstances, but is limited to cases involving 
childhood sexual abuse; and to hold that, notwithstanding the inapplicability of the 
doctrine of equitable estoppel, the statute of limitations had not expired on three of 
the plaintiffs’ claims when they filed the complaint. 
B. S.A.P. Does not Apply in These Circumstances 
I would clarify that the doctrine of equitable estoppel does not apply in these 
circumstances.  Although the plaintiffs rely on S.A.P., that case involved the 
 
 
- 8 -
unique considerations of childhood sexual abuse.  As Judge Gross noted below, it 
is not “an extension of the law [of equitable estoppel], but a case that is limited to 
the unique cause of action there at issue.”  Ryan, 841 So. 2d at 525 (Gross, J., 
concurring specially).  This case presents no such special circumstances or 
concerns. 
The doctrine of equitable estoppel applies “in all cases where one, by word, 
act or conduct, willfully caused another to believe in the existence of a certain state 
of things, and thereby induces him to act on this belief injuriously to himself, or to 
alter his own previous condition to his injury.”  Major League Baseball v. Morsani, 
790 So. 2d 1071, 1076 (Fla. 2001) (quoting State ex rel. Watson v. Gray, 48 So. 2d 
84, 87-88 (Fla. 1950)).  We have consistently applied the doctrine to avoid a statute 
of limitations defense where the parties recognized the basis for the suit but the 
defendant caused the plaintiff to forebear from acting during the limitations period.  
In Morsani, for example, the plaintiffs acknowledged that the statute of limitations 
had expired before they filed suit, but argued that the defendants should be 
estopped from asserting such a defense because they induced the plaintiffs to 
forebear filing suit.  Id. at 1073.  We held that section 95.051, Florida Statutes 
(1993), which delineates the circumstances that can “toll” the statute of limitations, 
did not abrogate the doctrine of equitable estoppel, and that such a defense was 
available.  Id. at 1080.  We quoted the longstanding definition of equitable 
 
 
- 9 -
estoppel, id. at 1076, and cited several Florida and federal cases that “have 
approved equitable estoppel as a bar to the statute of limitations.”  Id. at 1078-80 & 
nn. 21-22.  Every one of the cases cited (discussed below) involved plaintiffs who 
knew of the cause of action but had been induced to forebear from filing suit.  We 
also quoted with approval the following language from a federal case: 
Equitable estoppel . . . comes into play only after the statute of 
limitations has run and addresses itself to the circumstances in which 
a party will be estopped from asserting the statute of limitations as a 
defense to an admittedly untimely action because his conduct has 
induced another into forebearing suit within the applicable limitations 
period. 
 
Bomba v. W.L. Belvidere, Inc., 579 F.2d 1067, 1070 (7th Cir. 1978) (emphasis 
added), quoted in Morsani, 790 So. 2d at 1079.  We therefore intended in Morsani 
that a plaintiff asserting the doctrine would have prior knowledge of the cause of 
action. 
Other cases from this Court discussing the doctrine also involved plaintiffs 
with prior knowledge of their claims.  See Barnett Bank of Palm Beach County v. 
Estate of Read, 493 So. 2d 447, 449 (Fla. 1986) (where the decedent’s estate 
induced the bank not to file a formal claim but later invoked the statute of 
limitations when the bank brought proceedings to collect, noting that “[v]alid 
grounds, such as estoppel or fraud, may exist that would and should excuse 
untimely claims”); Rabinowitz v. Town of Bay Harbor Islands, 178 So. 2d 9, 11-12 
(Fla. 1965) (holding that a municipality was estopped from asserting a statutory 
 
 
- 10 -
notice requirement on tort claims where municipal agents misled the injured parties 
into not filing).  In fact, until S.A.P., every case from this Court considering 
equitable estoppel as an avoidance of the statute of limitations involved plaintiffs 
that recognized the basis for the suit during the limitations period. 
The law in the district courts of appeal, on which we relied in both Morsani 
and S.A.P., has been identical.  Every case that has applied the doctrine to avoid a 
statute of limitations defense involved plaintiffs who knew of their cause of action 
and were induced to forebear from filing suit.  See Baptist Hosp. of Miami, Inc. v. 
Carter, 658 So. 2d 560, 562-63 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995) (finding a triable issue as to 
the estate’s estoppel to claim the limitations defense where the decedent’s survivor 
actively misled a hospital into believing that the decedent left no estate from which 
to collect outstanding bills), abrogated by May v. Illinois Nat’l Ins. Co., 771 So. 2d 
1143 (Fla. 2000); Alachua County v. Cheshire, 603 So. 2d 1334, 1337 (Fla. 1st 
DCA 1992) (applying equitable estoppel where the federal government, by 
continual assurances of payment, induced the plaintiff not to sue on a lien against 
government-seized property within the limitations period); Jaszay v. H.B. Corp., 
598 So. 2d 112, 113 (Fla. 4th DCA 1992) (estopping a defendant from asserting a 
statute of limitations defense because it had stipulated to a sixty-day extension of 
the presuit screening period); Glantzis v. State Auto. Mut. Ins. Co., 573 So. 2d 
1049, 1051 (Fla. 4th DCA 1991) (“Having lulled appellants into this false sense of 
 
 
- 11 -
security, no fairminded person could condone abandoning the arbitration and 
invoking the statute of limitations.  That would seem to be ‘gotcha’ practice at its 
best.”); Olenek v. Bennett, 537 So. 2d 160, 161 (Fla. 5th DCA 1989) (applying the 
doctrine against an estate where the attorney for the estate “accepted service of the 
complaint, after the substitution of the estate for the now-deceased defendant, and 
agreed to file an answer”); Martin v. Monroe County, 518 So. 2d 934, 935 (Fla. 3d 
DCA 1987) (holding that when the Department of Insurance acknowledged that it 
had received “an accident report of a claim [within the statute of limitations] . . . , it 
[was] thereafter estopped after the expiration of the statute of limitations to deny 
receipt of the claim”); City of Brooksville v. Hernando County, 424 So. 2d 846, 
848 (Fla. 5th DCA 1982) (holding that continuing settlement negotiations, “if 
infected with an element of deception, may create an estoppel”); Cape Cave Corp. 
v. Lowe, 411 So. 2d 887, 888-89 (Fla. 2d DCA 1982) (holding that the property 
appraiser was estopped from asserting the statute of limitations where the failure to 
bring the action within the limitations period was the direct result of the property 
appraiser’s failure “to timely perform a related duty owed to [plaintiff]”); Salcedo 
v. Ass’n Cubana, Inc., 368 So. 2d 1337, 1339 (Fla. 3d DCA 1979) (where the 
defendant attempted to assert the statute of limitations after taking inconsistent 
legal positions in two separate proceedings arising from the same claim, holding 
 
 
- 12 -
that “courts will not allow the practice of the ‘Catch-22’ or ‘gotcha!’ school of 
litigation to succeed”). 
3. S.A.P. 
Against this background, we decided S.A.P.  As previously noted, S.A.P. 
involved childhood sexual abuse.  The complaint alleged that the Department of 
Health and Rehabilitative Services negligently supervised the plaintiff’s foster care 
and, as a result, the plaintiff suffered long term sexual abuse.  See 835 So. 2d at 
1100.  It further alleged that, to prevent both the plaintiff and the public from 
discovering the abuse, HRS actively hindered a police investigation, actively 
concealed the abuse, and falsified records.  Id. at 1099-1100.  According to the 
complaint, the plaintiff “had little or no actual memory of the incidents which 
serve as the basis for th[e] complaint.  She was only three and barely four years old 
at the time of the incidents.”  Id. at 1099. 
I do not believe that we intended in S.A.P. to extend the doctrine beyond its 
historical use.  Several facts in S.A.P. render that case unique.  The plaintiff was in 
foster care.  She was, at most, four years old when the abuse occurred.  The statute 
of limitations expired when she was eight.  No facts suggest that she had parents or 
other guardians who could file a cause of action in her behalf.  The only possible 
plaintiffs were the foster parents, who committed the abuse, and the state, which 
was in a fiduciary relationship to the plaintiff and was supposed to supervise the 
 
 
- 13 -
foster parents.  Instead, it actively concealed the abuse and in fact (according to the 
complaint) falsified records. 
We also answered the certified question in S.A.P. “narrowly.”  Id. at 1100.1  
We did not claim that we were modifying the doctrine of equitable estoppel.  We 
simply determined that, where a four-year-old child was sexually abused by foster 
parents; where the state actively concealed the abuse, obstructed a police 
investigation, and falsified records; and where the plaintiff filed suit within three 
years after the release of documents admitting the abuse, the doctrine of equitable 
estoppel prevented the state from asserting a statute of limitations defense.  We did 
not hold that, in all cases where a plaintiff asserts equitable estoppel to avoid the 
statute of limitations, prior knowledge of the cause of action is no longer required.  
Without an explicit recognition that we were modifying the doctrine, we can only 
interpret the case as creating the same exception to the doctrine for childhood 
sexual abuse cases that other jurisdictions have created.2 
                                          
 
 
1.  The district court certified the following question: “Can the doctrine of 
fraudulent concealment apply to toll the statute of limitations in a negligence 
action?”  835 So. 2d at 1093. 
2. See Fager v. Hundt, 610 N.E.2d 246, 251 (Ind. 1993) (creating an 
exception where the plaintiff suffered repressed memories as a result of childhood 
sexual abuse from a parent and holding that “the doctrine of fraudulent 
concealment should be available to estop a defendant from asserting the statute of 
limitations when he has, either by deception or by a violation of duty, concealed 
from the plaintiff material facts thereby preventing the plaintiff from discovering a 
potential cause of action”). 
 
 
- 14 -
Finally, as Judge Gross noted below, see Ryan, 841 So. 2d at 524 (Gross, J., 
concurring specially), all of the cases cited in S.A.P. involve plaintiffs who were 
aware of a cause of action during the limitations period.  In S.A.P., we cited 
several district court cases applying the doctrine of equitable estoppel.  835 So. 2d 
at 1097 n.11.  These were the very same cases we cited in Morsani, see 790 So. 2d 
at 1078 n.21, also discussed above.  We also cited federal cases on the issue.  
S.A.P., 835 So. 2d at 1098 n.12.  Again, these were the same federal decisions 
cited in Morsani.  See 790 So. 2d at 1080 n.22.  For example, we cited Aldrich v. 
McCulloch Properties, Inc., 627 F.2d 1036 (10th Cir. 1980).  In that case, the court 
described equitable estoppel as arising “where the parties recognize the basis for 
suit, but the wrongdoer prevails upon the other to forego enforcing his right until 
the statutory time has lapsed.”  Id. at 1043 n.7.  Therefore, although given its 
unique facts, the result in S.A.P. deviated from the uniform law of equitable 
estoppel, the foundations of that opinion were deeply rooted in, and in fact 
appeared to respect, that uniform law.  In S.A.P. we simply created an exception to 
the doctrine for childhood sexual abuse, as we have done in other areas.  Compare 
Hearndon v. Graham, 767 So. 2d 1179, 1186 (Fla. 2000) (holding that the delayed 
discovery doctrine applies in situations involving “childhood sexual abuse 
accompanied by traumatic amnesia”), with Davis v. Monahan, 832 So. 2d 708, 712 
(Fla. 2002) (recognizing that Hearndon only created an exception to the statutory 
 
 
- 15 -
limitations on the delayed discovery doctrine, and citing “the unique and sinister 
nature of childhood sexual abuse” to hold that “Hearndon is limited to the specific 
facts in that case”).3  
C. The Statute of Limitations 
While I agree with the district court that S.A.P. does not apply in these 
circumstances, I also conclude that the statute of limitations has not expired on 
several of the children’s claims because those causes of action did not accrue until 
1996.  The statute of limitations does, however, bar all claims made by the estate 
of Julio Lobo. 
 
The statute of limitations had not expired on the children’s claim for 
constructive trust.  The imposition of a constructive trust requires: “(1) a promise, 
express or implied, (2) transfer of the property and reliance thereon, (3) a 
confidential relationship and (4) unjust enrichment.”  Provence v. Palm Beach 
Taverns, Inc., 676 So. 2d 1022, 1025 (Fla. 4th DCA 1996).  The limitations period 
is four years.  § 95.11(3)(j), Fla. Stat. (2004).  The children argue that no cause for 
a constructive trust arose until 1996, when Leonor filed a document with the 
Panama Registry claiming, apparently for the first time, 100% ownership of the 
                                          
 
3.  We decided S.A.P. only twenty days after Davis.  As Judge Gross aptly 
notes, “[i]t is unlikely that the supreme court narrowed the delayed discovery 
doctrine in Davis on November 7, 2002, only to have it subsumed by equitable 
estoppel on November 27, 2002 in S.A.P.”  Ryan, 841 So. 2d at 526 (Gross, J., 
concurring specially). 
 
 
- 16 -
Chiriqui shares.  According to its tax returns and financial statements, Moorings 
did not treat the Chiriqui stock as an asset at the time of Maria Luisa’s redemption 
of her 50% interest in Moorings or at any time thereafter.  In her deposition, 
Leonor admits she made public statements in early 1996 that she owned 50% of 
the Chiriqui shares and that her sister owned the other 50%.  She made this 
statement before the 1996 filing of the Chiriqui shares with the Panama Registry 
and after Maria Luisa’s redemption of her interest in Moorings.  These facts show 
that any breach of trust and unjust enrichment would have occurred in 1996 when 
Leonor first asserted 100% ownership of the Chiriqui stock. 
 
A constructive trust has been described as “one raised by equity in respect of 
property which has been acquired by fraud, or where, though acquired originally 
without fraud, it is against equity that it should be retained by him who holds it.”  
Turturro v. Schmier, 374 So. 2d 71, 73 (Fla. 1st DCA 1979) (quoting Quinn v. 
Phipps, 113 So. 419, 422 (Fla. 1927)).  If Leonor did indeed commit a fraud, she 
would have done so in 1996 when she filed the shares with the Panama Registry.  
Before then, all parties behaved as if Leonor and Maria Luisa owned the shares 
jointly.  Therefore, a cause of action for constructive trust would only have been 
available after the filing of the shares in 1996. 
 
The statute of limitations also had not expired on the children’s claim for 
declaratory judgment.  Chapter 86, Florida Statutes (2004), grants courts the power 
 
 
- 17 -
to declare judgments as to “rights, status, and other equitable or legal relations.”  § 
86.011.  A declaratory judgment requires 
a bona fide, actual, present practical need for the declaration; that the 
declaration should deal with a present, ascertained or ascertainable 
state of facts or present controversy as to a state of facts; that some 
immunity, power, privilege or right of the complaining party is 
dependent upon the facts or the law applicable to the facts; that there 
is some person or persons who have, or reasonably may have an 
actual, present, adverse and antagonistic interest in the subject matter, 
either in fact or law; that the antagonistic and adverse interests are all 
before the court by proper process or class representation and that the 
relief sought is not merely the giving of legal advice by the courts or 
the answer to questions propounded from curiosity. 
 
Dep’t of Revenue v. Kuhnlein, 646 So. 2d 717, 721 (Fla. 1994) (quoting May v. 
Holley, 59 So. 2d 636, 639 (Fla. 1952)).  According to the complaint, Leonor and 
Maria Luisa did not dispute the ownership of the Chiriqui shares until 1996, when 
Leonor first asserted she owned it all.  That assertion is what created a “bona fide, 
actual, present practical need for the declaration.”  Id.  Therefore, the cause of 
action for declaratory judgment accrued in 1996. 
 
Finally, the statute of limitations also had not expired on the children’s claim 
for an injunction.  In seeking a permanent injunction, a party “must demonstrate a 
clear legal right, the inadequacy of a remedy at law, and that an irreparable injury 
will occur if such relief is not granted.”  E. Fed. Corp. v. State Office Supply Co., 
646 So. 2d 737, 741 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994) (citing Leon County Classroom Teachers 
Ass’n v. School Board of Leon County, 363 So. 2d 353, 355 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978)).  
 
 
- 18 -
Irreparable harm could not exist until there was an actual threat to Maria Luisa’s 
interest in the Chiriqui shares.  Before 1996, no such threat existed.  Therefore, 
Maria Luisa could not demonstrate a likelihood of irreparable harm.  The cause of 
action on this claim did not accrue until 1996. 
III. CONCLUSION 
 
I conclude that the district court’s decision conflicts with S.A.P. and that we 
should resolve the conflict.  We should reaffirm the doctrine of equitable estoppel 
and hold that, absent the special circumstances involving childhood sexual abuse, a 
plaintiff seeking to avoid a statute of limitations defense must have known about 
the existence of the cause of action before the limitations period expired and must 
have been induced to forebear from filing suit.  Therefore, the plaintiffs in this case 
cannot assert equitable estoppel to avoid the statute of limitations.  However, I 
would quash the district court’s decision to the extent that it held all of the 
children’s causes of action barred by the statute of limitations.  Their causes of 
action for constructive trust, declaratory judgment, and injunction remain viable.  I 
would therefore remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 
 
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent from this Court’s decision to 
discharge jurisdiction. 
 
 
 
 
- 19 -
Application for Review of the Decision of the District Court of Appeal - Direct 
Conflict of Decisions 
 
 
Fourth District - Case Nos. 4D00-4658 and 4D01-2389 
 
 
(Indian River County) 
 
Gerald F. Richman, Manuel A. Garcia-Linares, Mark A. Romance and Laline 
Concepcion-Veloso of Richman, Greer, Weil, Brumbaugh, Mirabito, and 
Christensen, P.A., Miami, Florida, 
 
 
for Petitioner 
 
Casey Walker of Murphy and Walker, P.A., Vero Beach, Florida, 
 
 
for Respondent