JOHN F. DUNKER AND WATERFRONT ACRES, INC., AN ILLINOIS CORPORATION, APPELLANTS,
v.
NEIL E. CALKINS, APPELLEE
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.
The trial court erred in immediately striking the complaint as a sham without allowing the plaintiffs to obtain substitute counsel.
Plaintiffs filed a complaint alleging usury. Their counsel moved to withdraw, and the trial court granted the motion, allowing plaintiffs time to find…
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.
PER CURIAM.
John F. Dunker and Waterfront Acres, Inc. appeal a final order dismissing their complaint as a sham. We reverse.
Plaintiffs filed a complaint alleging usury in connection with payments made to defendant/appellee Neil B. Calkins under a promissory note secured by a mortgage. Plaintiffs’ counsel moved to withdraw. At a hearing, the trial court granted the motion and allowed the plaintiffs twenty days within which to obtain new counsel. The trial court then immediately took up the defendant’s pending motion to strike the complaint as a sham, and granted the motion. The case had only been pending five months, and there were no exigent circumstances which required the motion to strike as sham to be heard immediately.
Under prior decisions, the trial court should have deferred action on the motion to strike as sham until plaintiffs obtained substitute counsel. See Buscemi v. 6060 Realty Corp., 654 So. 2d 197, 198 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995); Castle Club Corp. v. Liberty International, Inc., 598 So. 2d 263, 264 (Fla. 3d DCA 1992); Hub Financial Corp. v. Olmetti, 465 So. 2d 618, 619 (Fla. 4th DCA 1985); Behar v. Southeast Banks Trust Co. N.A., 374 So. 2d 572, 575 (Fla. 3d DCA 1979), cert denied, 379 So. 2d 202 (Fla.1980). In view of this ruling, we need not reach the other points raised by appellants.
The order under review is reversed and the cause remanded for further proceedings consistent herewith.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
Affordable Contracting, Inc. v. Santarsiere, 693 So. 2d 1123 (Fla. 3d DCA 1997)…endants were unrepresented, the special master conducted a hearing and issued a report on a pending motion concerning defendants’ alleged discovery violations, and the trial court entered an order approving the report. Pursuant to Dunker v. Calkins, 691 So. 2d 1090 (Fla. 3d [*1124] DCA 1996), and cited cases, the special master and the trial court should have deferred action on the pending matter during the twenty-day interval. Accordingly, the order denying defendants’ motion to vacate must be reversed. Rev…
-
Lamaze v. Lorna M. Guthrie (Fla. 4th DCA 2025)
Authorities Cited
- Behar v. Se. Banks Tr. Co., 374 So. 2d 572 (Fla. 3d DCA 1979)
- Chapman v. Jorge Garcia, M.D., 465 So. 2d 618 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985)
- Castle Club Corp. v. Liberty Int'l, Inc., 598 So. 2d 263 (Fla. 3d DCA 1992)
- Buscemi v. 6060 Realty Corp., 654 So. 2d 197 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995)