Court Opinion

ID: 9948139
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-06 16:06:05.383153+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:29:11.462367
License: Public Domain

Third District Court of Appeal
                               State of Florida

                         Opinion filed March 6, 2024.
       Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

                            ________________

                             No. 3D22-1980
                       Lower Tribunal No. 11-31255
                          ________________

                           Einath Bach Levy,
                                  Appellant,

                                     vs.

                        Samuel Salomon Levy,
                                  Appellee.

     An Appeal from a non-final order from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade
County, Ivonne Cuesta, Judge.

      Nancy A. Hass, P.A., and Nancy A. Hass (Fort Lauderdale), for
appellant.

     Abramowitz and Associates and Evan L. Abramowitz, for appellee.

Before SCALES, LINDSEY, and MILLER, JJ.

     SCALES, J.
      In this ongoing post-dissolution proceeding, appellant Einath Bach

Levy (Former Wife) appeals an October 20, 2022 order denying her Motion

for Attorney’s Fees, Suit Monies, and Costs (the “Motion”) seeking an order

requiring appellee Samuel Salomon Levy (Former Husband) to pay both past

and future fees, suit monies and costs. We remand to the trial court for

additional findings that (i) quantify the amount to be deducted from Former

Wife’s request for $104,295.77 in attorney’s fees and costs, attributable to

her alleged litigation misconduct, and (ii) ascertain whether gifts Former Wife

has received regularly from her brother and boyfriend will or are likely to

continue in the foreseeable future.

      I. Relevant Background

      On September 10, 2021, Former Wife filed the Motion, which alleged

that, given her meager financial resources, she would not be able to

“maintain and defend” the parties’ litigation and thereby would suffer

prejudice unless the trial court ordered Former Husband to continue to

underwrite her reasonable attorney’s fees and costs. 1 To determine Former

1
  While the Motion did not state amounts sought, Former Wife’s current
counsel advised the trial court at the September 13, 2022 hearing that
Former Wife had incurred attorney’s fees in the amount of $107,120.77, of
which $73,500 had been paid. Therefore, Former Wife sought $33,620.77
on the outstanding balance, along with $54,425 in projected attorney’s fees,
and $16,250 in suit monies and costs, for a total of $104,295.77.

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Wife’s need for interim fees and costs and Former Husband’s ability to pay

them, consistent with section 61.16 of the Florida Statutes, the trial court

conducted an evidentiary hearing on September 13, 2022. The following

evidence2 was adduced at this hearing:

      The parties were divorced in 2011. They have two minor children. Their

disputes, particularly about the children, have persisted with substantial

expenses accruing to both parties in attorney’s fees, guardian ad litem fees,

and litigation costs. It appears that Former Husband’s petition to modify

timesharing and decision-making authority over the children’s lives remains

pending; thus, the litigation will continue.

      The evidence below showed a large disparity in the parties’ income.

While the trial court made extensive findings regarding Former Husband’s

expenses – particularly his payments of attorney’s fees, guardian ad litem

fees, tuition and other costs – the trial court did not resolve conflicting

evidence of Former Husband’s income. He is chief executive officer of a

software company. His financial affidavit reflected a monthly gross income

of $10,960. He testified that he used both his personal bank account and

corporate bank account to pay his expenses. He also testified that in recent

2
  The parties stipulated that all testimony and documents that came into
evidence at a June 1, 2022 hearing between the parties would again come
into evidence for consideration of the Motion.

                                        3
years his company has suffered setbacks that have reduced its revenues

significantly. The trial court, however, received testimony from Former Wife’s

expert forensic accountant that put Former Husband’s current finances –

both in terms of current income and liquid assets – in a considerably more

favorable light, indicating that he had sufficient assets to pay the interim fees

and costs sought by Former Wife.

      The trial court’s findings of Former Wife’s income and finances were

more precise. Since the divorce, Former Wife has either been unemployed

or self-employed with a minimal income from a clothing design business. At

trial, she testified to a net monthly income of $2,532.10, although this amount

included child support of $1,250 which the trial court abated in July 2022, to

allow Former Husband to apply it toward the parties’ son’s therapeutic

boarding school tuition. The trial court also found that, during the previous

eleven years, Former Wife lived in a condominium unit in Bay Harbor Islands

owned by her brother. Although this unit would rent for between $2,500 and

$3,000 per month, Former Wife paid only the monthly maintenance fee.

Further, the trial court found that Former Wife’s long-term boyfriend paid

numerous of her personal and business-development expenses and,

significantly, had paid on Former Wife’s behalf “hundreds of thousands of

dollars” in attorney’s fees and costs related to the post-dissolution litigation.

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        The trial court found that Former Wife had never reimbursed her

brother or boyfriend for their largesse. There was no testimony presented at

trial whether the brother and boyfriend would continue to support Former

Wife.

        Finally, the trial court found that Former Wife bore the main

responsibility for what it characterized as the “bitter, incessant, and unending

litigation” between the parties. It found that Former Wife “has violated shared

parental responsibility, interfered with timesharing, refused to communicate

with the Father, and failed to provide a structure and routine for the children.”

In view of this “misconduct,” the trial court denied the Motion.

        II. Analysis

        We have jurisdiction to review the non-final order in this ongoing case

pursuant to Florida Rule Appellate Procedure 9.130(a)(3)(C)(iii)a. We review

the trial court’s determinations under an abuse of discretion standard.

Rosaler v. Rosaler, 226 So. 3d 911, 913 (Fla. 4th DCA 2017).

        The trial court’s consideration of the relative financial resources of each

party is the starting point of an award of attorney’s fees, suit money, and

costs. See § 61.16(1), Fla. Stat. (2022). The trial court’s inquiry examines

the parties’ respective need and ability to pay, while also accounting, when

necessary, for a party’s improper conduct. See Rorrer v. Orban, 215 So. 3d

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148, 152 (Fla. 3d DCA 2017). The purpose of an interim fee award, such as

the one Former Wife has sought here, is “to ensure that both parties will have

similar ability to secure competent legal counsel.” Canakaris v. Canakaris,

382 So. 2d 1197, 1205 (Fla. 1980).

      While we have no quarrel with the broad conclusions within the trial

court’s detailed order on appeal, we are compelled to remand to the trial

court for additional findings of fact. For the trial court to factor both the in-

kind payments 3 represented by her brother’s rent relief and the gifts of her

boyfriend into Former Wife’s future income, the trial court must determine

that these payments are “regular and expected.” Ortega v. Wood, 316 So.

3d 408, 410 (Fla. 1st DCA 2021). The trial court may impute the value of both

the boyfriend’s and the brother’s gifts to Former Wife as income “if the gifts

are continuing and ongoing, not sporadic, and where the evidence shows

that the gifts will continue in the future.” Rogers v. Rogers, 824 So. 2d 902,

903 (Fla. 3d DCA 2002). While the evidence showed that these gifts have

been “regular and expected,” the absence of any testimony that they will or

3
  See § 61.30(2)(a)13., Fla. Stat. (2022) (“Income shall be determined on a
monthly basis for each parent as follows: . . . Gross income shall include . .
. [r]eimbursed expenses or in kind payments to the extent that they reduce
living expenses.”)

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are likely to continue into the foreseeable future necessitates a remand for

the development of additional evidence and findings.

      Further, the trial court’s findings that Former Wife has caused the

continuing post-dissolution litigation lack quantification. She has sought

$104,295.77 in fees and costs, a portion of which is prospective. The trial

court neither quantified the value of Former Wife’s litigation misconduct nor

calculated a deduction from the interim fees and costs request that is the

subject of this appeal. For this reason and at this juncture, the trial court’s

outright denial of the Motion is not supported by competent, substantial

evidence. Shaw v. Shaw, 334 So. 2d 13, 16 (Fla. 1976) (holding that a trial

court’s judgment in a non-jury trial must be supported by competent,

substantial evidence); Tutt v. Hudson, 299 So. 3d 568, 572 (Fla. 2d DCA

2020) (“Where a trial court intends the fee award to be a sanction for a party’s

actions, the fee order must contain sufficient findings to support the trial

court’s decision.”); Moya v. Moya, 118 So. 3d 916, 919 (Fla. 3d DCA 2013)

(holding, in part, that the award of attorney’s fees based on misconduct must

directly relate the additional attorney work to the misconduct).

      Reversed and remanded with instructions. 4

4
  In a companion case, Levy v. Levy, No, 3D22-1399, 2024 WL 358013, at
*5 (Fla. 3d DCA Jan. 31, 2024), another panel of this Court reversed and

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remanded the case for additional findings to support the trial court’s ruling
that Former Wife should bear half the cost of the guardian ad litem fees.
Presumably, if the trial court’s ruling in this companion case were to stand, it
will have a further impact on Former Wife’s finances and become an element
of the trial court’s consideration in the instant case.

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