Court Opinion

ID: 9909488
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-13 16:04:23.017951+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:49:28.153461
License: Public Domain

Third District Court of Appeal
                              State of Florida

                     Opinion filed December 13, 2023.
                           ________________

                       Nos. 3D22-453 & 3D22-1468
                  Lower Tribunal Nos. 14-30864 & 22-6957
                            ________________

                      Adeena Weiss, etc., et al.,
                               Appellants,

                                    vs.

                           BI 27, LLC, et al.,
                                Appellees.

     Appeals from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Migna
Sanchez-Llorens and Alan Fine, Judges.

     Torricella Law, PLLC, and Maurice J. Baumgarten, for appellants.

     Carlton Fields, P.A., and Christopher W. Smart (Tampa), and Dean A.
Morande (West Pam Beach), for appellees.

Before EMAS, MILLER, and BOKOR, JJ.

                         On Motion for Rehearing

     MILLER, J.
      We grant the motion for rehearing, deny the motion for certification,

withdraw our prior opinion dated October 11, 2023, and substitute the

following opinion in its stead.

      In these consolidated appeals, appellants, Adeena Weiss-Ortiz,

individually and derivatively on behalf of Towers of Blue Lagoon, Inc., Towers

of Blue Lagoon 1, Inc., Towers of Blue Lagoon 2, Inc. (collectively, the

“Tower Entities”), and Intercontinental Investment Bankers, challenge final

orders adversely adjudicating their quiet title claims against two mortgagees,

appellees BI 27, LLC and TIG Rompsen US Master Mortgage LP.1 The trial

court found that section 48.23(1)(b), Florida Statutes (2020), shielded the

mortgagees from suit.       Finding that material factual issues precluded

application of the statute, we reverse.

                                  BACKGROUND

      This is a heavily litigated intra-family dispute that traces its origin to the

death of Weiss-Ortiz’s father, Jack Weiss, a prominent attorney. The parties

are not strangers to the court. See Ortiz v. Weiss, 227 So. 3d 689 (Fla. 3d

DCA 2017); Ortiz v. Weiss, 282 So. 3d 949 (Fla. 3d DCA 2019); Weiss v.

Weiss, 317 So. 3d 167 (Fla. 3d DCA 2021).

1
  A third case, 3D22-2136, remains pending in this court.             It has been
consolidated with this appeal for record purposes only.

                                         2
      Weiss-Ortiz filed suit in the instant case against her mother, Caroline

Weiss, along with the Estate of Jack Weiss, Towers of Blue Lagoon, Inc.,

Towers of Blue Lagoon (1), Inc., and Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. (TR), seeking

to quiet title to three parcels of real property located near the Miami

International Airport (the “Tower Properties”).    She alleged that Weiss

fraudulently divested her of the property through the creation of sham

corporations. Shortly thereafter, she recorded a notice of lis pendens with

the clerk of courts.

      Six iterations of the complaint followed. In the first two complaints,

Weiss-Ortiz alleged that she owned the Tower Properties because she and

her sister each owned fifty percent of the corporate shares in the Tower

Entities. She further alleged that her mother fraudulently quitclaimed the

Tower Properties, first to the Caroline Weiss Life Estate and then to the

newly created sham entities bearing substantially similar names to the Tower

Entities.

      Weiss moved to discharge the lis pendens, or alternatively, to require

the posting of an adequate bond. The trial court conducted an evidentiary

hearing and set a $2 million bond. Weiss-Ortiz failed to pay the bond, and

the trial court formally discharged the lis pendens. Fifteen days later, Weiss

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mortgaged the Tower Properties in exchange for a $5 million loan from Elite

Construction Management, LLC (“Elite”).

     Weiss-Ortiz then filed a second amended complaint, adding derivative

claims on behalf of the Tower Entities and Intercontinental Investment

Bankers, Inc. and joining 7 at Blue Lagoon (2), LLC and Elite as defendants.

This time, she appended to the complaint recorded deeds demonstrating the

Tower Entities’ ownership of the Tower Properties. She also attached a

myriad of other documents, including corporate meeting minutes, a

shareholders’ agreement, a resignation announcement, and a recorded

disclaimer of property interest purportedly executed by Weiss.

     On February 10, 2017, Elite assigned the mortgage to Riviera

Management Services, S.A., formerly known as Toruna Management, Inc.

On December 19, 2017, Riviera assigned the mortgage to BI 27, LLC. On

March 20, 2020, BI 27 assigned the mortgage to TIG Rompsen US Master

Mortgage. The same day, Weiss remortgaged the Tower Properties in

exchange for a $21.3 million dollar loan from TIG. The loan documents were

signed by Weiss in her capacity as “manager” of 7 at Blue Lagoon (1) and 7

at Blue Lagoon (2).

     Meanwhile, Weiss-Ortiz and the Tower Entities amended their

complaint to add a claim, first against Toruna Management, Inc. and then

                                     4
against BI 27. In the sixth amended complaint, they alleged that BI 27’s

mortgage was “not supported by consideration” and Elite approved the

original loan despite having actual knowledge that Weiss was neither the

owner of the property nor otherwise authorized to execute the mortgage.

      Weiss-Ortiz then sought to once again amend the complaint to add TIG

as a defendant. The trial court denied the request, so Weiss-Ortiz and the

Tower Entities filed a separate suit against TIG, along with another notice of

lis pendens.

      BI 27 moved for a partial final summary judgment on the sixth amended

complaint. It argued it was entitled to a final judgment pursuant to section

48.23(1)(b)2., Florida Statutes, because it acquired its lien after the trial court

discharged the original lis pendens.

      Weiss-Ortiz and the Tower Entities opposed the summary judgment on

a multitude of grounds, among them that the application of the statute was

not yet ripe for resolution because the later-recorded deeds were procured

by fraud and therefore void. The trial court granted the motion, and, in the

companion case, TIG successfully moved for dismissal and discharge of the

lis pendens on res judicata grounds. This appeal followed.

                           STANDARD OF REVIEW

                                        5
      Our standard of review is de novo because this is an appeal from an

order granting summary judgment that implicates an issue of statutory

construction. See 814 Prop. Holdings, LLC v. New Birth Baptist Church

Cathedral of Faith Int’l, Inc., 344 So. 3d 535, 538 (Fla. 3d DCA 2022).

                                  ANALYSIS

      The parties invoke two well-entrenched sources of law in this appeal.

The first, the lis pendens statute, codified in section 48.23, Florida Statutes,

“defines the notice of lis pendens, addresses the applicability of the notice

and the extent to which the notice bars claims and other interests, prescribes

the life of the notice, and provides for renewals and the discharge of the

notice when appropriate.” The Florida Bar, James H. McCarty, Jr., Florida

Real Property Litigation ch. 11 Notice of Lis Pendens § 1 Introduction (10th

ed. 2021). The second is the unyielding legal principle that fraud in the

execution renders an instrument affecting the title to real property void.

      A notice of lis pendens serves the dual purpose of protecting “future

purchasers or encumbrancers of the property from becoming ‘embroiled’ in

the dispute, and . . . the plaintiff from ‘intervening liens that could impair any

property rights claimed.’” Fischer v. Fischer, 873 So. 2d 534, 536 (Fla. 4th

DCA 2004) (quoting Chiusolo v. Kennedy, 614 So. 2d 491, 492 (Fla. 1993)).

Although the doctrine of lis pendens traces its origins to civil common law,

                                        6
De Pass v. Chitty, 105 So. 148, 149 (Fla. 1925), in Florida, a lis pendens “is

wholly statutory and includes matters well beyond simply maintaining the

status quo.” Adhin v. First Horizon Home Loans, 44 So. 3d 1245, 1252 (Fla.

5th DCA 2010). Section 48.23(1)(b), Florida Statutes (2019), the lis pendens

statute, provides, in pertinent part:

      1. An action that is filed for specific performance or that is not
         based on a duly recorded instrument has no effect, except as
         between the parties to the proceeding, on the title to, or on
         any lien upon, the real or personal property unless a notice of
         lis pendens has been recorded and has not expired or been
         withdrawn or discharged.

      2. Any person acquiring for value an interest in, or lien upon, the
         real or personal property during the pendency of an action
         described in subparagraph 1., other than a party to the
         proceeding or the legal successor by operation of law . . . shall
         take such interest or lien exempt from all claims against the
         property that were filed in such action by the party who failed
         to record a notice of lis pendens or whose notice expired or
         was withdrawn or discharged, and from any judgment entered
         in the proceeding . . . as if such person had no actual or
         constructive notice of the proceeding or of the claims made
         therein or the documents forming the causes of action against
         the property in the proceeding.

      This court has determined that these provisions do not apply to actions

founded upon a duly recorded written instrument. See U.S. Bank Nat’l Ass’n

v. Bevans, 138 So. 3d 1185, 1188 (Fla. 3d DCA 2014). In such cases, the

proponent of the claim maintains a lis pendens as a matter of right. See

                                        7
Petkovich v. Sandy Point Condo. Apartments Ass’n, Inc., 325 So. 3d 201,

204 (Fla. 3d DCA 2021).

      Citing our decision in 100 Lincoln Rd SB, LLC v. Daxan 26 (FL), LLC,

180 So. 3d 134 (Fla. 3d DCA 2015), Weiss-Ortiz and the Tower Entities

contend the second amended complaint and its progeny were all “based

upon, arising from, growing out of, or resting upon” the recorded documents.

Avalon Assocs. of Del. Ltd. v. Avalon Park Assocs., Inc., 760 So. 2d 1132,

1135 (Fla. 5th DCA 2000). Thus, they argue, they maintained a lis pendens

as a matter of right. The law in this arena is far from a model of clarity. And

we find it unnecessary to decide this issue because other factors are

dispositive.

      Casting aside the fact that section 48.23(1)(b), Florida Statutes, strictly

insulates non-parties, and both BI 27 and TIG acquired interests from Elite,

a party-defendant to the lawsuit, this dispute involves a claim to, as

distinguished from a claim against, the Tower Properties. Weiss-Ortiz and

the Tower Entities did not seek a declaration as to the priority of the

competing liens of rival creditors. Instead, they asserted that the series of

deeds conveying ownership, first to Weiss and then the newly created

entities, were fraudulently executed and Elite was essentially a bad faith

mortgagee. This claim was factually supported by a voluminous submission

                                       8
filed in opposition to summary judgment. Of course, BI 27 sharply disputed

the allegations.

      Under Florida law, a deed procured by fraud in the execution is void.

See McCoy v. Love, 382 So. 2d 647, 649 (Fla. 1979). Equally axiomatic is

that a forged mortgage is a legal nullity. See Jamnadas v. Singh, 731 So.

2d 69, 70 (Fla. 5th DCA 1999). Consequently, “[a] forged deed provides no

protection to those claiming under it.” Sabawi v. Carpentier, 778 So. 2d

1091, 1092–93 (Fla. 5th DCA 2001) (citing McCoy, 382 So. 2d at 648)); see

also CitiMortgage, Inc. v. Porter, 261 So. 3d 739, 743 (Fla. 3d DCA 2018).

      Against these principles, we conclude the dueling summary judgment

allegations created material and triable factual issues.   Accordingly, we

reverse and remand the orders under review for further proceedings not

inconsistent herewith.

      Reversed and remanded.

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