Court Opinion

ID: 9780957
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 14:08:24.028737+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:16.774295
License: Public Domain

Third District Court of Appeal
                               State of Florida

                        Opinion filed August 30, 2023.
       Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

                            ________________

                             No. 3D23-1321
                        Lower Tribunal No. 23-4272
                           ________________

                           Benjamin Shabtai,
                                 Petitioner,

                                     vs.

                       Stacey Cooper Shabtai,
                                Respondent.

     A Case of Original Jurisdiction – Prohibition.

        Gunster, Yoakley & Stewart, P.A., Thomas R. Julin and William King
Hill, for petitioner.

     Daniels, Rodriguez, Berkeley, Daniels & Cruz, P.A., and Lorne E.
Berkeley (Sunrise), for respondent.

Before EMAS, LINDSEY and GORDO, JJ.

     GORDO, J.
      Benjamin Shabtai (“Benjamin”) petitions this Court for a writ of

prohibition based on the trial court’s denial of his motion for disqualification.

We grant the petition.

                FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

      Benjamin and Stacey Cooper Shabtai (“Stacey”), a married couple in

the process of divorcing, are engaged in this separate civil action. The

parties are litigating over their respective management and ownership rights

in Serafina, their family restaurant.      Stacey filed a complaint against

Benjamin alleging breach of an operating agreement, breach of fiduciary

duty, conversion and dissociation, and requested the appointment of a

receiver.

      The litigation proceeded with the parties filing various motions. Among

them, Benjamin filed an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order.

The motion alleged that Stacey was interfering with the operation of Serafina

and surreptitiously placed audio-capable Google Nest cameras in the main

office without Benjamin’s consent. That same day, Stacey filed an omnibus

motion urging the trial court to appoint a receiver.

      The trial court set an evidentiary hearing on the emergency motion for

temporary injunction. At the outset of the hearing, the trial court announced

there would be insufficient time to consider evidence but that “[m]aybe we

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can take care of something today.” Prior to either side presenting any

arguments, the trial court stated the following:

            I’ve been doing this a long time, and I can say that
            you-all might be the exception to the rule. But I don’t
            think I’ve ever seen a legitimate set of books or
            righteous tax return in my life. I just think you need
            to look hard at everything that’s been done, Miami-
            Dade County businesses, everything – I’ve seen the
            litigation, family court, this court, ends up being some
            question about that.

      The trial court then sua sponte instructed the attorneys “to give to the

clients a budget of all of the activities that they think may be necessary” to

continue litigation.   Counsel for the parties proceeded to make their

respective arguments as to the Google Nest cameras and access to any

stored recorded audio and video footage. The trial court then stated it was

out of time and was “going to allow all the cameras that anyone wants to put

anywhere. And I’m going to allow everybody to take audio and video of

everybody doing everything anywhere.” Discussion as to Serafina’s WiFi

access and internal system ensued.

      The trial court stated the following:

            And you can see -- gentlemen, for the lawyers, you
            can already see that I’m about a hair’s breadth
            away from appointing somebody neutral,
            because there’s no way that I can – you’ve got
            access; I don’t have access.

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      The trial court communicated to the lawyers that they “need to have a

real heart to heart with the clients about anything they don’t want everyone

in the world to know about with respect to the way the business was being

operated.”    Benjamin personally engaged the trial court in dialogue and

stated that the main issue is who would continue to manage Serafina. The

trial court responded by stating:

             I hear it’s a management issue. If the manager
             should prevail, that’s your side. I also hear that the
             manager has a conflict of interest with respect to
             everything that’s been going on, and therefore the
             manager shouldn’t get control.

             So that’s the issue here. What are the conflicts?
             And I think they’re evident. But I’ll wait to hear the
             evidence, but it’s sort of obvious there’s [ ]
             conflicts all over the place. Everybody is conflicted
             at this point because you’re a family. And there’s
             emotional conflict, if nothing else. There’s probably -
             - and that emotional conflict is ending up in business
             conflict.

             So that’s where we’re at. And there is a strong
             likelihood that a receiver will end up having to
             take control because nobody trusts anybody,
             and quite frankly, I might end up not being able
             to trust anybody too. I don’t know. So it becomes
             – that’s where a lot of these cases end up. Everyone
             I’ve had ends up there. This may be the exception.

      The hearing concluded with a reset date for an evidentiary hearing.

Benjamin subsequently filed a motion for disqualification of the trial court

judge arguing he had a reasonable fear that he would not receive a fair trial

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or hearing based on the trial court’s statements at the prior hearing. The trial

court denied Benjamin’s motion as legally insufficient. This appeal followed.

                          STANDARD OF REVIEW

      “The standard of review of a trial judge’s determination on a motion to

disqualify is de novo.” Parker v. State, 3 So. 3d 974, 982 (Fla. 2009).

                              LEGAL ANALYSIS

    “A writ of prohibition is an appropriate remedy for the erroneous denial

of a motion for disqualification.” Cisneros v. Guinand, 314 So. 3d 682, 683

(Fla. 3d DCA 2021). “A motion to recuse or disqualify a trial judge is legally

sufficient when the alleged facts would create in a reasonably prudent person

a well-founded fear of not receiving a fair and impartial trial.” S.S. v. Dep’t of

Child. & Fams., 298 So. 3d 1184, 1185 (Fla. 3d DCA 2020) (quoting

Colarusso v. Colarusso, 20 So. 3d 985, 986 (Fla. 3d DCA 2009)). “The

allegations of fact that are contained in the motion must be taken as true,

Masten v. State, 159 So. 3d 996, 997 (Fla. 3d DCA 2015), and ‘the question

of disqualification focuses not on what the judge intended, but rather how the

message is received and the basis of the feeling.’” Nguyen v. Nguyen, 229

So. 3d 407, 407 (Fla. 3d DCA 2017) (quoting Great Am. Ins. Co. of N.Y. v.

2000 Island Blvd. Condo. Ass’n, 153 So. 3d 384, 390 (Fla. 3d DCA 2014)).

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    Benjamin argues the trial court’s comments would create in any

reasonably prudent person a well-founded fear of not receiving a fair and

impartial hearing or trial. Specifically, he relies on the trial court’s statements

of distrust of Miami-Dade business owners including that he had never seen

legitimate business books “in [his] life,” that a receiver was likely to be

appointed because he has always appointed receivers in similar cases and

that Benjamin had “evident conflicts of interest,” even though no evidence

had been presented and the opposing party had not raised that specific

argument. We agree and find “the allegations, taken together, meet the

threshold test of legal sufficiency.” Zimmerman v. State, 114 So. 3d 1011,

1011 (Fla. 5th DCA 2012); Great Am. Ins. Co. of New York,153 So. 3d at

389 n.3 (noting that a legal sufficiency determination considers all comments

together and “analyz[es] the totality of the grounds asserted”).

    We recognize that trial courts may often try to assist parties in settling

difficult issues and in doing so, may give examples or anecdotes. Giving the

parties an example, however, that a well-seasoned trial judge has never

denied a motion to appoint a receiver is troublesome. Similarly, it is not

unreasonable to fear the trial court will not approach its fact-finding from a

neutral perspective where it specifically states that it has never “seen a

legitimate set of books or righteous tax return in [its] life.” We find “these

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statements, [ ] sound more like they are coming from a party who is arguing

the case rather than from a judge who has not taken a single piece of

evidence, [and] lend further credence to [the defendant’s] belief that th[e]

court has pre-judged the facts of th[e] case, is injecting [it]s personal opinions

[ ] into the case, and has a bias . . . .” Great Am. Ins. Co. of New York, 153

So. 3d at 389.

    The trial court here attempted to mitigate its predisposed blanket

statements by following them with neutral statements. We find it necessary

to emphasize, however, that some things once heard cannot be unheard and

once said cannot always be minimized. “While appellate judges reviewing a

transcript may understand that trial judges have a crowded docket and

frequently make statements to encourage the parties to settle, it is not our

perspective that controls, but rather whether the facts alleged would place a

reasonably prudent litigant in fear of not receiving a fair and impartial trial.”

Valdes-Fauli v. Valdes-Fauli, 903 So. 2d 214, 216–17 (Fla. 3d DCA 2005)

(citing Livingston v. State, 441 So. 2d 1083, 1087 (Fla. 1983)). We therefore

conclude this petition should be granted as the trial court’s statements would

place a reasonably prudent person in fear of not receiving a fair and impartial

trial. See Williams v. Balch, 897 So. 2d 498, 498 (Fla. 4th DCA 2005)

(“Disqualification is required when litigants demonstrate a reasonable, well-

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grounded fear that they will not receive a fair and impartial trial or that the

judge has pre-judged the case.”).

    Petition granted.

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