JOHN R. WEEKS AND STEVEN WEEKS, APPELLANTS,
v.
RICHARD KLIMAS AND SHARI KLIMAS, APPELLEES
AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.
Appellants were entitled to a judgment for their taxable costs because they were the parties recovering judgment, despite the jury awarding zero damages to the plaintiffs.
Plaintiffs sued for personal injuries from an auto accident and recovered nothing. The trial court retained jurisdiction to determine taxable costs. T…
The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.
CAMPBELL, Acting Chief Judge.
This appeal concerns a dispute as to which party should pay the costs incurred in a personal injury action growing out of an automobile accident. The final judgment provided that appellees, Richard Kli-mas and Shari Klimas, plaintiffs below, would recover nothing as a result of the failure of appellee Richard Klimas to establish that he had sustained a permanent injury within a reasonable degree of medical probability. That judgment was per curiam affirmed by this court in a separate appeal. The final judgment provided in toto as follows:
Pursuant to the Verdict the jury rendered September 14, 1988, it is
ORDERED and ADJUDGED that the Plaintiffs, Richard Klimas and SHARI KLIMAS, his wife, recover zero from the Defendants, JOHN R. WEEKS and STEVEN WEEKS. It is further
ORDERED and ADJUDGED that this Court shall retain jurisdiction to determine taxable costs.
DONE and ORDERED in Chambers at Tampa, Hillsborough County, Florida. We conclude that under the terms of that judgment, appellants were entitled to a judgment for their taxable costs pursuant to section 57.041(1), Florida Statutes (1987), because they were the parties recovering judgment.
The trial court in the order on appeal denied appellants their costs on the authority of this court’s decision in Aspen v. Bayless, 552 So. 2d 298 (Fla. 2d DCA 1989). Our supreme court has since reversed that decision in Aspen v. Bayless, 564 So. 2d 1081 (Fla.1990).
We, therefore, reverse the costs judgment which is the subject of this appeal and direct an entry of judgment for appellants for this taxable cost.
Reversed and remanded with directions.
FRANK and PATTERSON, JJ., concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
Tacher v. Mathews, 845 So. 2d 332 (Fla. 3d DCA 2003)…and the plaintiffs’ motion was denied. We affirmed finding that “the defendants in the instant case are ‘entitled to a judgment for their taxable costs’ since ‘they were the parties recovering judgment.’ ” 605 So. 2d 580-81 (citing Weeks v. Klimas, 566 So. 2d 344, 345 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990)). However, prior to Militana, in Upson v. Hazelrig, supra; Blue v. Williams, supra; and Raffel v. Magarian, supra; we ruled entirely differently. In Upson, which also resulted from an automobile accident, the jury found tha…
-
B.J. Militana and Marie Militana v. Ladd, 605 So. 2d 580 (Fla. 3d DCA 1992)…ion. The plaintiffs appeal. The plaintiffs contend that the trial court erred in granting the defendants’ motion to tax costs where they were the parties recovering judgment since the defendants admitted liability. We disagree. In Weeks v. Klimas, 566 So. 2d 344 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990), the final judgment provided that the plaintiff would recover nothing as a result of the plaintiff failing to establish that he had sustained a permanent injury within a reasonable degree of medical probability. The Weeks court he…
-
Schneider v. DiPAOLA, 715 So. 2d 284 (Fla. 2d DCA 1998)…des: “The party recovering judgment shall recover all his or her legal costs and charges, which shall be included in the judgment[.]” Since the appellee received nothing, the appellants were the parties recovering judgment. See also Weeks v. Klimas, 566 So. 2d 344 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990); Militana v. Ladd, 605 So. 2d 580 (Fla. 3d DCA 1992). The trial court erred in awarding costs to the appellee because it was the appellants who were the prevailing parties. Accordingly, the costs award to the appellee is reversed.…
Authorities Cited
- Aspen v. Bayless, 564 So. 2d 1081 (Fla. 1990)
- Aspen v. Bayless, 552 So. 2d 298 (Fla. 2d DCA 1989)