HENRY J. MARURI, APPELLANT,
v.
MICHELLE ANN MARURI, APPELLEE
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The court held that the parties' actions constituted an abandonment of the settlement agreement, thus reversing the orders enforcing the settlement and attorney's lien.
After a settlement agreement was reached in a dissolution case, the appellant failed to pay the agreed amount. The appellee subsequently instructed he…
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PER CURIAM.
Appellant, Henry J. Maruri, appeals non-final orders requiring the payment of a settlement, and enforcing an attorney’s lien in favor of appellee, Michelle Ann Maruri. We reverse.
After appellee filed her petition for dissolution, the parties entered into a settlement agreement where appellee released all of her marital rights in exchange for $12,500. Appellant, however, failed to pay anything.
Prior to a hearing on appellee’s motion to require payment of the settlement, appellee wrote a letter to her attorney instructing him not to enforce the settlement and to dismiss the action. Nevertheless, appel-lee’s attorney obtained an order requiring the payment of the settlement. Thereafter, appellee sent a second letter discharging her attorney and advising him again that she wanted the case dismissed. In turn, appellee’s attorney obtained an additional order enforcing an attorney’s lien. Appellant asserts that the settlement agreement was abandoned by the parties. Appellee contends that there was never any mutual agreement between the parties to rescind their settlement agreement.
“The abandonment of a contract may be effected by the acts of one of the parties thereto where the acts of that party are inconsistent with the existence of the contract and are acquiesced in by the other party. This is tantamount to a recision of the contract by mutual assent.” Gustafson v. Jensen, 515 So. 2d 1298, (Fla. 3d DCA 1987) (quoting McMullen v. McMullen, 185 So. 2d 191 (Fla. 2nd DCA 1966)).
We find that both parties, by their acts, abandoned the agreement: appellant, by failing to pay, and appellee by asking her attorney to dismiss the case. Because this issue is dispositive, we do not reach appellant’s other issues.
Reversed.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
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Painter v. Painter, 823 So. 2d 268 (Fla. 2d DCA 2002)…mount promised to his wife on March 1, 1999. The April 1, 1999, letter from Mrs. Painter’s counsel clearly acquiesced in that act by declaring that the agreement was “void” and that the wife was under duress when she signed it. See Maruri v. Maruri, 582 So. 2d 116, 117 (Fla. 3d DCA 1991) (holding that parties abandoned marital settlement agreement when husband failed to pay and wife asked her attorney to dismiss the case). Even if Mr. Painter’s failure to pay is viewed as a breach of the contract rather than…
Authorities Cited
- McMULLEN v. McMULLEN, 185 So. 2d 191 (Fla. 2d DCA 1966)
- Anne-Lise Gustafson v. Dorrit Jensen, 515 So. 2d 1298 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987)