Court Opinion

ID: 9382970
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-29 14:14:27.044882+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:42.700397
License: Public Domain

Third District Court of Appeal
                               State of Florida

                        Opinion filed March 29, 2023.
       Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

                            ________________

                             No. 3D22-1495
                       Lower Tribunal No. 18-31604
                          ________________

        SC Mota Associates Limited Partnership, et al.,
                                 Appellants,

                                     vs.

                      Mota Pizza Rustica Corp.,
                                  Appellee.

     An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Maria de
Jesus Santovenia, Judge.

     Slusher & Rosenblum, P.A., and Jeremy E. Slusher, and Jonathan S.
Glickman (West Palm Beach), for appellants.

     Ayala Law, P.A., and Eduardo A. Maura, for appellee.

Before EMAS, SCALES, and LINDSEY, JJ.

     LINDSEY, J.
         Appellants SC Mota Associates Limited Partnership and Sterling Retail

Services, Inc., appeal from two orders denying two motions for sanctions.

For the reasons set forth below, we affirm one of the orders but reverse the

other order and remand for the trial court to consider the merits of the

sanctions motion.

    I.     BACKGROUND

         This case began as a simple eviction action. Appellee Mota Pizza

Rustica Corp. (the “Tenant”) leased commercial space in the Mall of

Americas from SC Mota (the “Landlord”). After the Landlord filed an eviction

action for failure to pay rent, the Tenant filed a separate putative class action

against the Landlord and Sterling Retail Services (the “Property Manager”).1

The Tenant primarily alleged that the Landlord mismanaged the Mall and

that the Property Manager was liable under an alter ego theory.

         Relevant here are two motions for sanctions pursuant to § 57.105 that

the Landlord and Property Manager filed in the Tenant’s class action. First,

at the inception of the Tenant’s action, the Property Manager moved for

sanctions arguing that the Tenant’s alter ego claim was not supported by the

material facts (the “Alter Ego Sanctions Motion”). Following discovery, the

1
  The Landlord’s eviction action and the Tenant’s class action were
consolidated below.

                                        2
Landlord and Property Manager filed the second motion for sanctions at

issue in this appeal, which asserted that evidence uncovered during

discovery conclusively showed that the Tenant did not have standing to bring

the class action (the “Standing Sanctions Motion”).

       Before ruling on the sanctions motions, the trial court held a hearing

on the Tenant’s motion for class certification and subsequently denied class

certification. 2   The Tenant appealed.    In the interlocutory appeal, the

Landlord and Property Manager sought appellate attorney’s fees pursuant

to the parties’ lease agreement and as a sanction pursuant to Florida Rule

of Appellate Procedure 9.410. This Court per curiam affirmed the trial court’s

denial of class certification. Mota Pizza Rustica Corp. v. Sterling Retail

Servs., Inc., 317 So. 3d 106 (Fla. 3d DCA 2021).            This Court also

conditionally granted the Landlord and Property Manager’s motion for

appellate attorney’s fees pursuant to the parties’ lease agreement, and

denied, without elaboration, the Landlord and Property Manager’s motion for

appellate attorney’s fees as a sanction.

       On remand, the Tenant voluntarily dismissed the class action. The

pending sanctions motions were referred to a magistrate.         Despite this

2
 The court did not address the merits of the sanctions motions in its class
certification order.

                                      3
Court’s unelaborated denial of sanctions, counsel for the Tenant told the

magistrate that this Court “specifically addressed each one of the same

arguments counsel is making here.”

      The    magistrate    issued    a       detailed,   eight-page   report   and

recommendation on the Alter Ego Sanctions Motion.               In its report and

recommendation, the magistrate concluded that the alter ego count “was not

so completely devoid of merit on the facts and law . . . .”

      The magistrate issued a separate report and recommendation denying

the Standing Sanctions Motion, which relied on this Court’s unelaborated

denial of sanctions in the interlocutory class action certification appeal:

                   While the . . . Motion presents a close case in
            favor of §57.105 sanctions, the Tenant voluntarily
            dismissed the action . . . one day following the Third
            District’s Order. The [magistrate] finds that the
            appellate court’s . . . Order that ruled on the same
            record and the same arguments is dispositive of this
            issue and, therefore, denies the . . . Motion.

In support of this conclusion, the magistrate cited case law invoking the law

of the case doctrine. See Fla. Diversified Films, Inc. v. Simon Roofing &

Sheet Metal Corp., 118 So. 3d 240, 242 (Fla. 3d DCA 2013) (“This doctrine

‘requires that questions of law actually decided on appeal must govern the

case in the same court and the trial court, through all subsequent stages of

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the proceedings.’” (quoting Fla. Dept. of Transp. v. Juliano, 801 So. 2d 101,

105 (Fla. 2001))).

          The Landlord and Property Manager filed exceptions to the reports and

recommendations. The trial court overruled the exceptions and ratified the

magistrate’s denial of sanctions. The Landlord and Property Manager timely

appealed. 3

    II.     ANALYSIS

          We review orders ratifying a magistrate’s report and recommendation

under the highly deferential abuse of discretion standard. 4 See Vargas v.

Deutsche Bank Nat. Tr. Co., 104 So. 3d 1156, 1165 (Fla. 3d DCA 2012).

“When a trial court is vested with broad discretion, an appellate court can

reverse only where the trial court’s decision is completely unreasonable.”

Fils-Aime v. Roberson, 273 So. 3d 1112, 1114 (Fla. 3d DCA 2019).

          Based on the record before us and the magistrate’s detailed report and

recommendation on the Alter Ego Sanctions Motion, we conclude that the

3
  The two orders ratifying the magistrate’s reports and recommendations
were rendered after a final judgment was entered below. We therefore have
jurisdiction. See Yampol v. Turnberry Isle S. Condo. Ass’n, Inc., 250 So. 3d
835, 837 (Fla. 3d DCA 2018) (“A post-judgment order denying a party’s claim
for entitlement to attorney’s fees . . . is an appealable final order.”).
4
  This is the same standard we employ to review orders denying attorney’s
fees as sanctions pursuant to § 57.105. See Fils-Aime v. Roberson, 273 So.
3d 1112, 1114 (Fla. 3d DCA 2019).

                                         5
trial court did not abuse its discretion in ratifying the magistrate’s denial of

that motion.     We therefore affirm the order ratifying the report and

recommendation on the Alter Ego Sanctions Motion without further

discussion.

      With respect to the denial of the Standing Sanctions Motion, the

Landlord and Property Manager argue that the magistrate erred in relying on

the law of the case doctrine when she denied sanctions based on this Court’s

unelaborated denial of sanctions in the interlocutory appeal of the class

certification order.   “Whether the law of the case doctrine applies is a

question of law, and therefore our standard of review is de novo.” Pompano

Masonry Corp. v. Anastasi, 125 So. 3d 210, 212 (Fla. 4th DCA 2013).

      The Florida Supreme Court has explained the scope of the law of the

case doctrine as follows: “the doctrine is ‘limited to rulings on questions of

law actually presented and considered on a former appeal.’” Fla. Dep’t of

Transp. v. Juliano, 801 So. 2d 101, 106 (Fla. 2001) (quoting U.S. Concrete

Pipe Co. v. Bould, 437 So. 2d 1061, 1063 (Fla. 1983)). “A corollary of the

law of the case doctrine is that a lower court is not precluded from passing

on issues that ‘have not necessarily been determined and become law of the

case.’” Id. (quoting Greene v. Massey, 384 So. 2d 24, 27 (Fla. 1980)); see

also Philip J. Padovano, 2 Fla. Prac., Appellate Practice § 20:12 (2023 ed.)

                                       6
(“The preclusive effect of the law of the case doctrine applies only to points

that were decided in a previous appellate proceeding.” (footnotes omitted)).

      Here, this Court’s unelaborated denial of sanctions in an interlocutory

appeal did not decide one way or the other the merits of the Standing

Sanctions Motion pending before the trial court. 5     Despite the Tenant’s

representations below to the contrary, this Court did not specifically address

any of the arguments raised by the Landlord or the Property Manager in the

per curiam affirmance or in the unelaborated order denying sanctions.

Consequently, the law of the case doctrine is inapplicable. We therefore

reverse the order denying the Standing Sanctions Motion and remand for the

trial court to rule on the merits of the Motion.

      Affirmed in part; reversed in part and remanded.

5
  This Court’s “grant or denial of attorney’s fees as a sanction under rule
9.410 is a discretionary decision.” Fla. Wellness & Rehab. Ctr., Inc. v. Mark
J. Feldman, P.A., 276 So. 3d 884, 891 (Fla. 3d DCA 2019). As such, this
Court could have exercised its discretion to deny the sanctions motion
without deciding whether the interlocutory appeal was frivolous.

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