Court Opinion

ID: 9939537
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-10 17:03:21.386912+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:41:23.785237
License: Public Domain

FIFTH DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
                STATE OF FLORIDA
                  _____________________________

                       Case No. 5D23-2441
                   LT Case No. 2019-CA-000200
                  _____________________________

DANITY LITTLE, as Trustee of the
Danity M. Little Declaration of
Trust dated June 1, 2005 and
DANITY LITTLE,

    Appellants,

    v.

MARK TURNBOW and CONNIE
GRZEMBSKI,

    Appellees.
                  _____________________________

On Appeal from the Circuit Court for Flagler County.
Christopher France, Judge.

Douglas N. Burnett and Shaun C. Saliba, of St. Johns Law
Group, St. Augustine, for Appellants.

Ronald A. Hertel, of Hertel Legal PLLC, Ormond Beach, for
Appellees.

                        February 9, 2024

LAMBERT, J.

    Appellants, who were the plaintiffs below, appeal the trial
court’s order denying their Florida Rule of Civil Procedure
1.540(b)(1) verified motion to vacate the order previously entered
dismissing the case. For the following reasons, we reverse this
order and direct that the final order of dismissal be vacated.

     The underlying case was dismissed by unelaborated order as
a result of Appellants’ counsel not attending a scheduled case
management conference. The next day, Appellants’ counsel filed
the aforementioned motion under rule 1.540(b)(1) to vacate the
dismissal order. This rule, which has historically been liberally
construed in favor of deciding cases on the merits, J.J.K. Int’l, Inc.
v. Shivbaran, 985 So. 2d 66, 68–69 (Fla. 4th DCA 2008), 1 provides,
in pertinent part, that a court may relieve a party from a final
judgment, decree, or order based upon mistake, inadvertence,
surprise, or excusable neglect.

     Counsel’s motion explained, in some detail, that his failure to
attend the case management conference was due to a clerical error
on his calendar committed by his assistant. The assistant
mistakenly believed that the case management conference had
been cancelled once Appellants filed a response within the time
parameters of the trial court’s notice of lack of prosecution issued
under Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.420(e). As a result, the
case management conference was not on counsel’s calendar; and
he did not attend the conference. Counsel averred in his motion
that, to his knowledge, he had never missed a scheduled court
hearing during his years of practicing law.

    Notably, Appellees did not file a response to or submit
evidence or affidavits in opposition to Appellants’ motion, nor did
they contest the factual allegations of clerical error set forth in
Appellants’ motion and affidavit. After a brief hearing, the trial
court entered the order now under review, denying the motion
without making any findings.

    1 See also Fla. Aviation Acad., Dewkat Aviation, Inc. v. Charter

Air Ctr., Inc., 449 So. 2d 350, 353 (Fla. 1st DCA 1984) (“Rule
1.540(b) is a rule providing for equitable relief which should be
liberally construed.”).

                                  2
     Our standard of review of a trial court’s ruling on a rule
1.540(b) motion is abuse of discretion. Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC
v. Brogdon, 185 So. 3d 627, 629 (Fla. 5th DCA 2016) (citing Wells
Fargo Bank, N.A., v. Michaels, 166 So. 3d 226, 227 (Fla. 5th DCA
2015)).

     This court, as well as our sister courts, have consistently
recognized that an attorney’s inadvertent and unintentional
failure to appear at a hearing due to a calendaring or clerical error
is one of the common and well-established types of excusable
neglect or mistake that warrants relief under rule 1.540(b). See id.
at 629–30 (finding that the trial court abused its discretion by not
vacating its order dismissing the case when the appellants’
attorney failed to appear at a case management conference due to
an inadvertent mishandling by the law firm’s clerk in not placing
in counsel’s mailbox a copy of the order setting the conference);
Pipeline Constructors, Inc. v. Transition House, Inc., 257 So. 3d
606, 608–09 (Fla. 1st DCA 2018) (reversing order denying the
appellant’s rule 1.540(b) motion to vacate dismissal order entered
as a result of the attorney’s non-attendance at a case management
conference where the uncontroverted affidavits established that
counsel’s failure to attend was due to mistake, inadvertence, or
excusable neglect involving an email junk folder); Shivbaran, 985
So. 2d at 68–69 (concluding that trial court abused its discretion in
denying the appellants’ rule 1.540(b)(1) motion to set aside a final
order dismissing the complaint when the attorney’s failure to
appear at a specially set hearing was due to an innocent secretarial
error of marking the hearing as “CANCELLED” on the attorney’s
calendar); State of Fla. Dep’t of Envtl. Reg. v. Chemairspray Inc.,
520 So. 2d 96, 96, 98 (Fla. 4th DCA 1988) (“We conclude that the
lower court abused its discretion in failing to set aside its dismissal
of DER’s complaint, where its findings of dilatory tactics are not
supported in the available record and the sworn affidavits
submitted by DER [explaining counsel’s unavoidable failure to
attend the case management conference] were unopposed.”).

     To be clear, consequences can result from an attorney’s failure
to attend a court-ordered case management conference. Under
Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.200(c), a trial court may, among
other things, dismiss an action when a party fails to attend the
case management conference. However, because dismissal is

                                  3
recognized as “the harshest of all sanctions,” a trial court, in
dismissing the action, “must explicitly find that the party’s actions
were willful, flagrant, deliberate, or otherwise aggravated.” U.S.
Bank Nat’l Ass’n v. Martinez, 188 So. 3d 107, 108 (Fla. 2010)
(quoting Perkins v. Jacksonville Hous. Auth., 175 So. 3d 948, 948
(Fla. 1st DCA 2015)).

     The final order of dismissal in the instant case contained no
such findings. In fact, the unchallenged and uncontroverted
evidence before the trial court at the hearing held on the rule
1.540(b) motion to vacate this dismissal order showed that
counsel’s failure to attend the case management conference was
neither willful, flagrant, deliberate, nor otherwise aggravated;
rather, it was due to a clerical or calendaring error or mistake,
similar to those described in the case law previously cited, where
the trial courts’ denials of rule 1.540(b) motions were reversed.
Under these circumstances, we conclude that the trial court
abused its discretion in denying Appellants’ rule 1.540(b) motion
to vacate the dismissal order.

    Accordingly, the order denying Appellants’ motion to vacate is
reversed; and we remand with instructions to the trial court to also
vacate its final order of dismissal.

    REVERSED and REMANDED, with instructions.

EDWARDS, C.J., and MACIVER, J., concur.
                _____________________________

    Not final until disposition of any timely and
    authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or
    9.331.
               _____________________________

                                 4