Court Opinion

ID: 9948066
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-06 15:03:50.11214+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:29:02.114874
License: Public Domain

FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
                STATE OF FLORIDA
                 _____________________________

                        No. 1D2021-3805
                 _____________________________

PROGRESSIVE SELECT
INSURANCE COMPANY,

    Appellant,

    v.

LESLIE BUNSEE,

    Appellee.
                 _____________________________

On appeal from the Circuit Court for Escambia County.
Gary L. Bergosh, Judge.

                        March 6, 2024

PER CURIAM.

    AFFIRMED.

M.K. THOMAS and NORDBY, JJ., concurs; TANENBAUM, J., dissents
with opinion.

                 _____________________________

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

     This appeal should be dismissed because we lack authority to
directly review a post-decretal procedural order like the one before
us.

      After winning a defense verdict and securing a judgment
against the appellees, Progressive Select Insurance Company
claimed an entitlement to fees based on the plaintiffs’ rejection of
its offer of judgment. See § 768.79, Fla. Stat. Progressive submitted
a motion asserting the separate claim. See Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.525;
Stockman v. Downs, 573 So. 2d 835, 838 (Fla. 1991) (explaining
that a “party seeking attorney’s fees pursuant to statute or
contract must plead entitlement to such fees” and that proof of
those fees “may be presented after final judgment, upon motion
within a reasonable time”). The motion, in essence, “raise[d] a
collateral and independent claim which the trial court ha[d]
continuing jurisdiction to entertain.” Finkelstein v. N. Broward
Hosp. Dist., 484 So. 2d 1241, 1243 (Fla. 1986) (internal quotation
and citation omitted); cf. Stockman, 573 So. 2d at 837 (explaining
that “it is not improper to adjudicate entitlement to attorney’s fees
after resolution of the other claims” because a fee motion “requires
consideration of factors distinct from the issues decided on the
merits of the cause of action”); Cheek v. McGowan Elec. Supply Co.,
511 So. 2d 977, 979 (Fla. 1987) (characterizing “the recovery of
attorney’s fees [a]s ancillary to the claim for damages” and cannot
be determined until after a disposition of the underlying claim).

      Sometime after, Progressive must have realized that it served
its fee motion beyond the thirty-day limit set by rule for doing so.
See Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.525 (requiring that a party serve its motion
“no later than 30 days after filing of the judgment . . . which
judgment . . . concludes the action as to that party”). Progressive
stated as much in its separate, subsequent motion requesting an
enlargement of the thirty-day time period. Cf. Fla. R. Civ. P.
1.090(b)(1)(B) (providing procedural mechanism by which a party
may request allowance of untimely act by motion filed after
expiration of time period, “when failure to [timely] act was the
result of excusable neglect”). The trial court denied the motion
after a hearing. Presumably because Progressive had

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acknowledged in its motion for enlargement that its fee claim
otherwise was time-barred, the trial court never rendered an order
on the underlying claim. The only order on appeal is the denial of
the motion for enlargement of time.

     It is true, in a literal sense, that the order marked the end of
(additional) “judicial labor” in the case—the court having
previously ended its labor with the rendition of a judgment. Cf.
S.L.T. Warehouse Co. v. Webb, 304 So. 2d 97, 99 (Fla. 1974)
(“Generally, the test employed by the appellate court to determine
finality of an order, judgment or decree is whether the order in
question constitutes an end to the judicial labor in the cause, and
nothing further remains to be done by the court to effectuate a
termination of the cause as between the parties directly affected.”).
The finality here, however, was only with respect to the motion for
enlargement of time, which concerned a purely administrative
matter. The order did not mark the end of “judicial labor” as to a
substantive claim—say, the fee motion—because there was no
judicial labor to be had: Progressive acknowledged that its claim
already was barred and would remain barred unless the trial court
re-opened the time window. See Deshotels v. Stewart, 346 So. 3d
717, 718 (Fla. 1st DCA 2022) (Tanenbaum, J., dissenting)
(explaining why judicial labor could not be said to have come to an
end if “there has been no judicial labor at all to adjudicate the
rights of the parties . . . [b]ecause [if] there has not been a start to
the judicial labor in the case, there could be no end”).

     Per the Florida Constitution, we have the authority “to hear
appeals, that may be taken as a matter of right, from final
judgments or orders of trial courts.” Art. V, § 4(b)(1), Fla. Const.
This authority stems from a recognition that only the judicial
power can alter or reverse an exercise of judicial power. Cf.
Trustees of Internal Imp. Fund v. Bailey, 10 Fla. 238, 253 (1863)
(recognizing that rehearing of a court’s judgment is exclusively an
exercise of judicial power); Bush v. Schiavo, 885 So. 2d 321, 331
(Fla. 2004) (noting that even though “a final judgment may be
subject to recall under a rule of procedure,” that fact “does not
negate its finality” and “[u]nless and until the judgment is vacated
by judicial order, it is the last word of the judicial department with
regard to a particular case or controversy” (internal quotation and
citation omitted)); see also Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc., 514

                                   3
U.S. 211, 227 (1995) (“Having achieved finality, however, a judicial
decision becomes the last word of the judicial department with
regard to a particular case or controversy, and Congress may not
declare by retroactive legislation that the law applicable to that
very case was something other than what the courts said it was.”).
Finality in the constitutional sense, then, does not relate to
whether a trial court’s judicial labor is at an end as to just any
request. Otherwise, every order on a motion filed after judgment
would be appealable as a final order because, at that moment at
least, judicial labor will have ceased.

     Finality instead must refer to the conclusive exercise of
judicial power on a claim, and not every order of a trial court is the
exercise of judicial power. Judicial power is the determination of
“the law applicable and the rights and obligations of the parties in
relation to past transactions.” Sirmans v. Owen, 100 So. 734, 735
(Fla. 1924); see also State Rd. Dept. v. Crill, 128 So. 412, 414 (Fla.
1930) (noting “that a judgment or decree is not final or appealable
unless it determines the merits of the controversy or the rights of
the parties and leaves nothing for future determination” (emphasis
supplied)); see also Malone v. Malone, 48 Fla. L. Weekly D1587
(Fla. 1st DCA Aug. 9, 2023) (Tanenbaum, J., concurring) (citing
decisions supporting the proposition that a “judgment essentially
is a court decree that conclusively adjudicates a factual or legal
dispute between parties that touches on their respective rights and
remedies vis-à-vis each other,” thereby “materially alter[ing] the
legal relationship between the parties forever”). 1

    1 Cf. State ex rel. Williams v. Whitman, 156 So. 705, 707 (Fla.

1934) (characterizing “the function and prerogative [of an
administrative tribunal] of deciding finally the law and the facts of
an actual controversy bearing upon a vested legal right sought to
be divested or impaired” as “pure judicial power”); W. Flagler
Amusement Co. v. State Racing Comm’n, 165 So. 64, 65 (Fla. 1935)
(“A judicial or quasi judicial act determines the rules of law
applicable, and the rights affected by them, in relation to past
transactions.”); Fla. Motor Lines v. R.R. Comm’rs, 129 So. 876, 882
(Fla. 1930) (characterizing “quasi-judicial” action as one “taken on
prescribed adversary hearing and involves the exercise of

                                  4
     Had the trial court rendered an order on Progressive’s claim
for fees on the merits—either determining there was no
entitlement, or if there was, determining the amount of fees owed
by the plaintiffs—it would have been a post-decretal exercise of
judicial power and appealable as a final order. See Clearwater Fed.
Sav. & Loan Ass’n v. Sampson, 336 So. 2d 78, 79 (Fla. 1976)
(characterizing a true “interlocutory order” as one leading up to a
final judgment, and distinguishing that type of order from a “final
post decretal order,” which is one coming after a final judgment
that nevertheless “is dispositive of any question” and “completes
the judicial labor on that portion of the” post-judgment cause). The
order on review here, by contrast, merely sought relief from the
operation of a court rule—Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.525—
and did not determine the claim for fees on the merits. In other
words, it was an order precedent to the exercise of judicial power:
Absent an order excusing the untimeliness, the trial court simply
remained without the authority to determine the admittedly time-
barred fee claim.

     The order on the motion for enlargement of time, then, was
itself merely procedural and non-final (read: interlocutory)—and
did not conclusively adjudicate the disputed rights between
parties—so it is not appealable as a “final order” under article V,
section 4 of the Florida Constitution. Cf. Jessup v. Werner, 354 So.
3d 605, 609–10 (Fla. 1st DCA 2022) (explaining that the court did
not have authority to review the trial court’s determination of
entitlement to fees as part of an otherwise reviewable final order
because the determination did not conclusively adjudicate the
respective rights of the parties as to that issue). At the same time,
this court cannot consider a non-adjudicatory order on direct
appeal unless the supreme court authorizes such review by rule.
See Art. V, § 4(b)(1), Fla. Const. (granting a district court of appeal
the power to “review interlocutory orders . . . to the extent provided
by rules adopted by the supreme court”).

    There is no rule authorizing this court’s review of a motion
denying a request for trial court consideration of an otherwise

independent judgment in determining controversies that directly
affect adversary legal rights or privileges claimed by individuals”).

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time-barred claim for fees. See Fla. R. App. P. 9.130. 2 Because we
lack constitutional authority to entertain this direct appeal, I
would dismiss the appeal rather than dispose of it on the merits.

                  _____________________________

William D. Anderson, Daniell, Upton, Anderson, Law & Busby,
P.C., Daphne, Alabama, for Appellant.

Adrian R. Bridges, Michles & Booth, P.A., Pensacola, for Appellees.

    2 The only relief Progressive conceivably could have sought

from us here is a writ of mandamus, if the trial court utterly had
failed to consider and rule on the motion for enlargement of time—
to exercise its discretion, one way or the other. Cf. Moore v. Fla.
Parole & Prob. Comm’n, 289 So. 2d 719, 720 (Fla. 1974) (noting
that an allowable mandamus writ “would not command the
respondent’s discretion, but rather would compel the respondent
to exercise its discretion”). Progressive, though, challenges only
how the trial court exercised its discretion (i.e., whether it abused
the discretion), not its failure to exercise discretion.

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