Court Opinion

ID: 9906239
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-01 15:03:46.975985+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:24:11.602171
License: Public Domain

FIFTH DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
                STATE OF FLORIDA
                  _____________________________

                       Case No. 5D22-0273
                   LT Case No. 2018-CA-000777
                  _____________________________

DAVID EDWARD MELOCHOIRE
and MARCELLA MELOCHOIRE,

    Appellants,

    v.

TODD P. BOETZEL, as PERSONAL
REPRESENTATIVE of the ESTATES
of JUDITH ANN BOETZEL and
DALE VERNIE BOETZEL,

    Appellees.
                  _____________________________

On appeal from the Circuit Court for Citrus County.
Carol A. Falvey, Judge.

Ezequiel Lugo, of Banker Lopez Gassler, P.A., Tampa, for
Appellant.

John N. Bogdanoff, the Carlyle Appellate Law Firm, Orlando, for
Appellee.

                        December 1, 2023

PER CURIAM.

    AFFIRMED.
JAY and KILBANE, JJ., concur.
MAKAR, J., concurs, with opinion.

                 _____________________________

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

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                                               Case No. 5D22-0273
                                       LT Case No. 2018-CA-000777

MAKAR, J., concurring.

     Dale and Judith Boetzel died when David Edward Melchoire
negligently drove his pickup truck into them at approximately
forty miles over the speed limit. The jury ultimately awarded the
Boetzels’ estate, i.e., the Boetzels’ two sons, a little over $1 million
collectively for their losses due to their parents’ deaths.

    An issue on appeal is whether the improper comments by the
Boetzels’ attorney, beginning at jury selection and continuing
through closing argument, were sufficiently prejudicial to require
a new trial. No question exists that the attorney’s repeated
comments were obviously improper; they are a compendium of
what law students are taught not to say. The defendant-appellant
says that a new trial is warranted, and it is hard to disagree.

     But the question of prejudice is a tricky one, i.e., who
benefitted/lost by the attorney’s behavior. On the one hand,
perhaps a jury on retrial would reach a lesser or zero verdict
without the improper comments. On the other hand, a $1 million
dollar verdict to compensate for the loss of two parents, even at
advanced ages, seems low by contemporary standards; a retrial
could easily multiply the verdict amount because liability seems
all but certain. Indeed, it may be that the plaintiff’s attorney’s
improper actions were off-putting to the jurors, thereby harming
the clients’ interests and resulting in a damages award less than
what the attorney insisted upon. Stated differently, but for the
attorney’s misconduct the jury may have been more favorably
inclined to his clients and awarded greater damages. On balance,
affirmance—in which I concur—is a just result.

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