Court Opinion

ID: 9414677
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 15:05:13.49303+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:55.159400
License: Public Domain

DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA
                             FOURTH DISTRICT

             MAGDADENE DIEUVIL and GUILFORT DIEUVIL,
                           Appellants,

                                    v.

     FALCON TRACE HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION, INC., et al.,
                       Appellees.

                             No. 4D22-2069

                             [August 2, 2023]

   Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit,
Indian River County; Janet C. Croom, Judge; L.T. Case No.
312019CA000858.

   Magdadene Dieuvil and Guilfort Dieuvil, Vero Beach, pro se.

   D. Johnathan Rhodeback of Dill, Evans & Rhodeback, Sebastian
(withdrew after filing briefs), and John Carrigan of Ross Earle Bonan Ensor
& Carrigan, P.A., Stuart, for appellee Falcon Trace Homeowners
Association, Inc.

GERBER, J.

    The homeowner and his spouse (“the defendants”) appeal from the
circuit court’s final summary judgment foreclosing a homeowners’
association’s amended claim of lien for unpaid assessments, late fees, and
interest. The defendants argue, among other things, that the circuit court
prematurely entered the final summary judgment without having disposed
of the defendants’ legally interrelated amended counterclaims, which had
been pending before the circuit court entered the final summary judgment.
We agree with that argument and therefore reverse the final summary
judgment.

   “Florida adheres to the principal that piecemeal appeals should not be
permitted where claims are legally interrelated and in substance involve
the same transaction.” Ironshore Specialty Ins. Co. v. Conrad & Scherer,
LLP, 338 So. 3d 297, 300 (Fla. 4th DCA 2022) (citations and internal
quotation marks omitted).
    Here, the association’s foreclosure action and counts II, IV, and V of the
defendants’ amended counterclaims were legally interrelated and involved
the same transaction as to payments which the association claimed were
overdue and in default. As a result, the circuit court prematurely entered
its final summary judgment.

   Vital v. Summertree Village at California Club Condominium Association,
Inc., 343 So. 3d 1260 (Fla. 3d DCA 2022), is instructive. There, a circuit
court entered a partial final foreclosure judgment for condominium
maintenance fees and special assessments, without resolving the owners’
pending affirmative defenses of unclean hands and setoff. Id. at 1262. The
partial final judgment affixed damages, awarded attorney’s fees, and set a
foreclosure date. Id. The owners appealed, and the association partially
confessed error, leading the Third District to conclude the appeal was
premature because the judgment was not final. Id. Our sister court
reasoned:

      In this case … we do have appellate jurisdiction to review the
      challenged orders because they purport to adjudicate, with
      finality, [the association’s] foreclosure claim. [The orders] are
      in the form of a final judgment, affix damages, are fully
      executable, and establish a foreclosure sale date. Indeed, if
      [the appellant] had not appealed the orders, the foreclosure
      sale presumably would have ensued.              Hence, as [the
      association] commendably and correctly concedes, we have
      appellate jurisdiction to review these orders, and we are
      compelled to reverse them. See Del Castillo v. Ralor Pharmacy,
      Inc., 512 So. 2d 315, 319 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987) (“[I]t is ...
      improper to render an order in the form of an ordinary final
      money judgment, while contradictorily and simultaneously
      leaving an issue for future adjudication.”); see also Surijon v.
      Zarria, 278 So. 3d 328, 329 (Fla. 3d DCA 2019); Baumann v.
      Intracoastal Pac. Ltd. P’ship, 619 So. 2d 403, 404 (Fla. 3d DCA
      1993); Pointer Oil Co. v. Butler Aviation of Miami, Inc., 293 So.
      2d 389, 390-91 (Fla. 3d DCA 1974).

Id. at 1263 (footnote omitted). Based on that reasoning, the Third District
reversed the final judgment on appeal. Id.

   Consistent with Vital, we reverse the final summary judgment in this
case, and remand for the circuit court to resolve the defendants’ legally
interrelated amended counterclaims before considering whether to enter a
final summary judgment against the defendants on the association’s
foreclosure action.

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  Reversed and remanded with instructions.

GROSS and LEVINE, JJ., concur.

                          *      *           *

  Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

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