DEANZA CORPORATION, APPELLANT,
v.
ROBERT VONOFLORIO AND TERESA VONOFLORIO, HIS WIFE, METZGER HOMES, INC., A FLORIDA CORPORATION, HIGHLAND MOBILE HOME SALES, NOBILITY HOMES, INC., A FLORIDA CORPORATION, JOHN LIEBL AND FRANK ARGENZIO, APPELLEES

Fla. 4th DCA | 1981-02-04
No. 80-993
DOWNEY and MOORE, JJ„ concur.
393 So. 2d 1146 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fourth District (1981) Negative Treatment
Cited by 4 cases

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Synopsis

Deanza Corporation appealed from a temporary injunction granted by the trial court restraining it from interfering with the Vonoflorios' leasehold interest. The Fourth District reversed, holding that Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.610(a) requires that a written complaint be filed before any injunction can be granted, and that a motion alone is insufficient to satisfy this requirement.


Holding

No. Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.610(a) unequivocally requires that a complaint be filed before any injunction can be granted. A motion does not satisfy the procedural and substantive purposes served by a complaint, which requires service, an answer, and establishment of issues before the trial court. Therefore, the trial court erred in granting the injunction based solely on a motion without a written complaint.


Headnotes

[1] An injunction cannot be granted until a complaint therefor is filed.

[2] A motion for a temporary injunction does not satisfy the requirement of filing a complaint.

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Key Quotes

“No injunction shall be granted until a complaint therefor is filed.”

Statement of the unequivocal requirement in Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.610(a), the foundational holding of the case.

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Facts & Procedural History

The Vonoflorios, lessees under a lease with Deanza Colonies of Margate, sought a temporary injunction restraining Deanza Corporation from moving surve…

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Opinion of the Court
BERANEK, Judge.

BERANEK, Judge.

This is a non-final appeal from an order granting plaintiffs, Robert and Teresa Vo-noflorio, a temporary injunction, restraining defendant, Deanza Corporation, from (a) moving or otherwise tampering with surveyor’s stakes on Lot 1, Block 27 of Deanza Colonies of Margate, and (b) tampering in any way with the Vonoflorios’ leasehold interest under the lease between the Vonoflorios and Deanza Colonies of Margate, pending further order of the court and subject to plaintiffs’ posting a $1700 bond. Deanza Corporation argues the lower court erroneously granted the injunction because no complaint therefor was filed. The Vonoflorios counter that a complaint per se was unnecessary, that their motion for temporary injunction fulfilled the requirement. We reverse.

Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.610(a) unequivocally provides that “[n]o injunction shall be granted until a complaint therefor is filed.” The Rule makes no mention of a motion until subsection (e) which authorizes issuance of injunctions to stay other proceedings on motion. A motion clearly does not satisfy the purposes of a complaint which requires service, an answer, and establishes the issues before the trial court. Since the Vonoflorios filed no written complaint requesting a temporary injunction, the trial court erred in issuing the injunction pursuant to a motion. See Seminole Park and Fairgrounds, Inc. v. Tropic Bank of Seminole, 380 So. 2d 1335 (Fla. 5th DCA 1980).

Furthermore, as this case aptly illustrates, permitting issuance of a temporary injunction via motion creates the potential for an inconsistent result. Here the Vonof-lorios’ complaint requested, among other things, compensatory damages for Deanza Corporation’s breach of the lease. At the same time, their motion for temporary injunction sought relief on grounds that they would be deprived of their leasehold interest resulting in an unascertainable financial loss. It is obviously inconsistent for the Vonoflorios to plead breach of contract requesting damages in the complaint and to seek injunctive relief by motion because damages are unascertainable for the same wrongdoing. Although such inconsistent claims may be proper in the pleading stages they are mutually exclusive from the standpoint of a final disposition of the case. The filing of a complaint and establishment of the injunction issues should not have been disregarded herein.

Accordingly, the order granting the temporary injunction is reversed.

REVERSED AND REMANDED.

DOWNEY and MOORE, JJ„ concur.


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Citator

Cited By

  • Cordis Corp. v. Prooslin, 482 So. 2d 486 (Fla. 3d DCA 1986)
    …al resolution on the merits,3 Prooslin should be restrained only from directly soliciting Cordis’s customers. No abuse of discretion has been shown. The order under review is accordingly AFFIRMED. . Prooslin relies upon Deanza Corp. v. Vonoflorio, 393 So. 2d 1146 (Fla. 4th DCA 1981), and argues that Cordis was not entitled to temporary injunctive relief because Cordis did not file a pleading requesting such relief. The former subsection (a) of Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.610 provided that “[n]o injunct…
  • Lingelbach's Bavarian Rests., Inc. v. del Bello, 467 So. 2d 476 (Fla. 2d DCA 1985)
    …At the close of the evidence taken by the trial court upon Del Bello’s motion for preliminary injunction, Lingelbach’s contended “there is no pleading in this particular case requesting injunctive relief” and that Deanza Corporation v. Vonoflorio, 393 So. 2d 1146 (Fla. 4th DCA 1981), precluded the granting of an injunctive remedy merely upon a motion seeking that relief. We are called upon to construe Rule 1.610(a) and we do so in the absence of reported [*478] authority from a Florida court offering determi…

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