Court Opinion

ID: 9941321
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-16 15:17:07.808554+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:46:31.805946
License: Public Domain

[Cite as Platinum Real Estate Holdings, Inc. v. Slabakis, 2024-Ohio-537.]

                            IN THE COURT OF APPEALS
                   FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT OF OHIO
                             HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO

 PLATINUM REAL ESTATE                               :          APPEAL NO. C-230237
 HOLDINGS, INC.,                                               TRIAL NO. A-1703642
                                                    :
          Plaintiff-Appellee,
                                                    :
    vs.                                                             O P I N I O N.
                                                    :
 ANGELO SLABAKIS,

          Defendant-Appellant.                      :

Civil Appeal From: Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas

Judgment Appealed From Is: Reversed and Cause Remanded

Date of Judgment Entry on Appeal: February 14, 2024

Robbins, Kelly, Patterson & Tucker, LPA, Michael A. Galasso and Charles E. Rust, for
Plaintiff-Appellee,

Statman, Harris, Alan J. Statman and William B. Fecher, for Defendant-Appellant.
                    OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS

WINKLER, Judge.

       {¶1}   Defendant-appellant Angelo Slabakis appeals the judgment of the trial

court vacating an entry of satisfaction of judgment in this cognovit action. For the

reasons set forth below, we reverse the judgment of the trial court.

                                        Background

       {¶2}   Plaintiff-appellee Platinum Real Estate Holdings, Inc., (“Platinum”)

filed a cognovit complaint against Slabakis in 2017, arising from the foreclosure sale

of real property known as the Terrace Plaza Hotel. The trial court entered a cognovit

judgment against Slabakis in favor of Platinum for over $1.3 million, as well as interest

and attorney’s fees. Slabakis challenged the cognovit judgment in 2018 by filing an

appeal to this court. During the pendency of Slabakis’s 2018 appeal, Platinum filed

with the trial court a “motion to enter satisfaction of judgment.” Platinum moved the

trial court to enter a satisfaction “on the grounds that the judgment and costs have

been satisfied.” Slabakis did not oppose the motion, and the trial court filed an entry

of satisfaction of judgment. Slabakis then voluntarily dismissed his appeal of the

underlying cognovit judgment.

       {¶3}   Years later, in January 2023, Platinum filed a motion to vacate the entry

of satisfaction. Platinum argued that the trial court has the inherent power to vacate

a satisfaction of judgment without relying on the dictates of Civ.R. 60(B). In its

motion, Platinum asserted that a third party had purchased the Terrace Plaza Hotel in

2018, during the pendency of the underlying cognovit litigation, and as a result of that

purchase, Platinum and Slabakis had entered into a settlement agreement, or “mutual

release,” which then led Platinum to file the motion for an entry of satisfaction in

August 2018. Platinum further contended that, in November 2018, Slabakis had filed

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                    OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS

a lawsuit in New York state court against Roys Poyiadjis and Cincinnati Terrace Plaza,

LLC, in which Slabakis claimed that he was owed a “syndication fee” for the July 2018

sale of the Terrace Plaza Hotel. Platinum argued that Slabakis’s initiation of the New

York litigation violated the mutual release because Platinum is affiliated with Poyiadjis

and Cincinnati Terrace Plaza, LLC, and a vacation of the satisfaction of judgment was

necessary to allow Platinum’s affiliates to assert the defenses of setoff and recoupment

in the New York litigation.

       {¶4}   Slabakis responded to Platinum’s motion to vacate and argued that, in

order to vacate the entry of satisfaction, Platinum must satisfy Civ.R. 60(B). Slabakis

argued that Platinum could not satisfy Civ.R. 60(B) because Slabakis initiated the New

York litigation in November 2018, and yet Platinum waited over four years to file a

motion to vacate the satisfaction of judgment.         Slabakis also argued that the

defendants in the New York litigation were not parties to the mutual release, and the

claims in the New York litigation are not encompassed by the mutual release. Slabakis

also argued that the New York litigation would resolve the question of whether the

mutual release applied to those defendants.

       {¶5}   The trial court granted Platinum’s motion to vacate, relying on Civ.R.

60(B)(4). The trial court reasoned that Slabakis’s New York lawsuit was an attempt to

“relitigate the case in a different forum.” Slabakis appeals the trial court’s judgment

granting Platinum’s motion to vacate the satisfaction of judgment.

                                     Slabakis Appeals

       {¶6}   In a sole assignment of error, Slabakis argues that the trial court erred

in granting Platinum’s motion to vacate the entry of satisfaction of judgment.

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                     OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS

       {¶7}    In determining whether to grant Platinum’s motion to vacate, the trial

court acknowledged that the parties disagreed as to whether Platinum’s motion had to

satisfy the elements of Civ.R. 60(B). Platinum argued to the trial court that a motion

to vacate an entry of satisfaction of judgment did not need to meet the requirements

of Civ.R. 60(B), but Slabakis contended otherwise. The trial court ultimately agreed

with Slabakis that Civ.R. 60(B) applied, but the trial court nevertheless found that

Platinum satisfied the required elements of Civ.R. 60(B)(4).

       {¶8}    We question whether the trial court correctly analyzed Platinum’s

motion to vacate as a motion under Civ.R. 60(B)(4). See Carlson v. City of Cincinnati,

1st Dist. Hamilton No. C-210238, 2022-Ohio-1513, ¶ 24 (“On its face, the provisions

of Civ.R. 60(B) apply only to relief from ‘a final judgment, order, or proceeding.’ In

other words, the rule is directed to judicial acts, not acts by parties.”); Colvin v. Abbey’s

Restaurant, Inc., 131 Ohio App.3d 439, 443, 722 N.E.2d 630 (9th Dist.1999) (“[T]he

satisfaction of judgment in the instant case is analogous to a settlement agreement

that has been signed by the parties and filed with the court. Even when such a

settlement agreement is followed by an order of the court dismissing the case, it is

generally not reviewable by way of a Civ.R. 60(B) motion.”). Nevertheless, assuming

Civ.R. 60(B)(4) applies, we determine that the trial court erred in granting Platinum’s

motion to vacate the entry of satisfaction.

       {¶9}    Civ.R. 60(B) provides in pertinent part: “[T]he court may relieve a party

* * * from a final judgment, order or proceeding for the following reasons: * * * (4) the

judgment has been satisfied, released or discharged, or a prior judgment upon which

it is based has been reversed or otherwise vacated, or it is no longer equitable that the

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                    OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS

judgment should have prospective application[.]”         Motions made under Civ.R.

60(B)(4) “shall be made within a reasonable time.”

       {¶10} Platinum argued before the trial court that if Civ.R. 60(B) applied, then

Platinum would seek relief under Civ.R. 60(B)(4), because it was no longer equitable

for the entry of satisfaction of judgment to have prospective application where

Slabakis had repudiated the mutual release by filing the New York lawsuit.

       {¶11} The “no longer equitable” clause of Civ.R. 60(B)(4) was meant to

provide relief to a party who has been subjected to some unforeseeable circumstance

outside of the party’s control, and to whom the changed conditions make continued

enforcement of the judgment or order inequitable. Armstrong v. U.S. Bank Natl.

Assn., 1st Dist. Hamilton No. C-220384, 2023-Ohio-1203, ¶ 17.

       {¶12} In Slabakis’s third issue for review, he argues that the trial court erred

in concluding that the entry satisfying the judgment had to be vacated in order to allow

Platinum’s alleged affiliates to raise the defenses of setoff and recoupment in the New

York litigation. Slabakis argues that the New York courts will determine whether the

mutual release applies to the New York litigation. Platinum concedes that the scope

of the mutual release is an issue in the New York litigation. Therefore, we determine

that Platinum has failed to show, at this point, that the enforcement of the entry of

satisfaction of judgment in the underlying case is inequitable. It is possible that the

New York courts will determine that the mutual release does not apply to the New York

litigation, and, in fact, as of the time of Platinum’s motion to vacate, the New York

appellate court had determined that an issue of fact existed regarding the application

of the mutual release. According to the exhibits attached to Platinum’s motion to

vacate, Slabakis has contended in the New York case that the mutual release was

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                     OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS

related only to the cognovit judgment in the underlying case, and not the “syndication

fee” claim asserted by Slabakis in the New York case. If the mutual release does not

apply to Slabakis’s New York complaint, then Platinum’s affiliates presumably will not

be able to rely on the entry of satisfaction entered in the underlying case for the

defenses of setoff and recoupment.

        {¶13} We further hold that the trial court erred in determining that Platinum

filed its motion to vacate the entry of satisfaction of judgment within a reasonable time

as required by Civ.R. 60(B)(4). Platinum based its motion to vacate the entry of

satisfaction on Slabakis’s New York lawsuit, which Platinum alleges vitiates the entry

of satisfaction; however, Platinum waited for over four years after Slabakis initiated

the New York lawsuit to file its motion. Platinum argues that the delay was reasonable

because Platinum did not need to assert its affirmative defenses of setoff and

recoupment until after the New York case proceeded past the motion-to-dismiss stage,

which was not until the New York appellate court issued its decision in September

2021.   Even so, nothing in the record supports the notion that Platinum acted

reasonably by waiting another 15 months after the New York appellate court reversal

to file its motion to vacate the entry of satisfaction.

        {¶14} Therefore, we conclude that the trial court erred in granting Platinum’s

motion to vacate the entry of satisfaction of judgment under Civ.R. 60(B)(4), and we

sustain Slabakis’s assignment of error.

                                       Conclusion

        {¶15} We reverse the trial court’s judgment granting Platinum’s motion to

vacate the satisfaction of judgment, and we remand the matter to the trial court for

further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

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                    OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS

                                                Judgment reversed and cause remanded.

BERGERON, P.J., and KINSLEY, J., concur.

Please note:

       The court has recorded its own entry on the date of the release of this opinion.

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