Court Opinion

ID: 9457122
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:13:12.757005+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:13.682825
License: Public Domain

TUTTLE, Circuit Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
With deference I concur in the sending of this case back to the trial court, but must disagree as to the rejection of the trial court’s determination that Kit-tredge was a trespasser and that the government had the sole possessory right at the time of the government’s repossession of the building from Kit-tredge. I would remand the ease to the trial court for its failure to grant substantial damages to the United States by way of mesne profits. Mesne profits should be measured under the Florida law as stated in Kester v. Bostwick, 153 Fla. 437, 15 So.2d 201, 206, where the court said: “The statute gives no yardstick by which to measure mesne profits in a case like this so we apply the general rule heretofore stated. That is to say, the value of the use and occupation during the period of wrongful possession which may be determined by the value of the net rents and profits. Net rents and profits has reference to a fair rental value less the cost of rental and collection, but does not contemplate interest on the investment.”1
Feeling, as I do, that the government had a right of action for trespass, I must also disagree with the opinion of the court that the judgment of the trial court dismissing Kittredge’s counterclaim was error.
I would reverse the judgment and remand the case to the trial court for the ascertainment of net mesne profits.

. In civil actions brought under Title 28, Section 1345, U.S.C.A., federal courts do not apply state law, as they do in diversity cases. However, not being advised of any. federal law in contradiction of the Florida rule, I would look to the Florida cases as offering as good a guide as any as to the common law on trespass and mesne profits, particularly since both parties would largely rely on Florida cases in their briefs.