RINALDO CRUZ, APPELLANT,
v.
CARIBBEAN SPRING VILLAGE, ETC., APPELLEE
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Rinaldo Cruz appeals a trial court order vacating a final default judgment entered against Caribbean Spring Village. The court affirmed the vacation, finding the client was not personally involved in discovery violations committed by its attorney.
The trial court did not abuse its discretion in vacating the final default judgment because there was ample evidence that Caribbean was not personally involved in disobeying the court's discovery orders, and the client should not suffer loss of viable claims due solely to attorney malfeasance without evidence of client misconduct.
[1] A trial court does not abuse its discretion in vacating a default judgment when the client was not personally involved in the attorney's discovery violations.
[2] A client should not suffer the loss of viable claims due to their attorney's malfeasance where there is no evidence of the client's personal misconduct.
Previewing 2 of 5 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“The trial court was eminently correct in setting aside the default final judgment where there was ample evidence to find that Caribbean was not involved in any way in disobeying the court's discovery orders.”
Establishes the core holding that a client not personally involved in discovery violations should not lose viable claims
Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceCaribbean Spring Village filed suit against Cruz in 2003 seeking injunctive relief and damages. During discovery, Cruz served requests for production …
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RAMIREZ, J.
Rinaldo Cruz appeals an order vacating and setting aside a final default judgment. Because we find no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s ruling, we affirm.
Attorney Robert J. Tieso filed suit against Cruz in February of 2003, on behalf of appellee Caribbean Spring Village Condominium Association, Inc., seeking in-junctive relief and damages. During discovery, Cruz served Caribbean with requests for production and interrogatories, followed by a motion to compel, which the court granted. When Caribbean did not comply with the order, Cruz moved for sanctions. At the hearing, Tieso consented to an Agreed Order on Sanctions, which he then proceeded to ignore, leading to the entry of a Final Default Judgment.
Through new counsel, Caribbean filed a Sworn Motion to Vacate Final Default Judgment, arguing that Tieso failed to comply with discovery requests, communicate with them, or notify them of the entry of the final default judgment. Caribbean further argued that, since new counsel was retained, it has been unable to contact Tieso. In support of its motion to vacate, Caribbean later filed the affidavits of various of its officers and directors asserting that they assumed that Tieso was handling the suit appropriately, and that Tieso did not inform them or any other members of the board that Cruz’s counsel had requested any documents.
The trial court granted Caribbean’s motion to vacate and set aside the final default judgment without making any specific findings in its order.
The trial court was eminently correct in setting aside the default final judgment where there was ample evidence to find that Caribbean was not involved in any way in disobeying the court’s discovery orders. In Kozel v. Ostendorf, 629 So. 2d 817, 818 (Fla.1994), the Florida Supreme Court listed six criteria in deciding whether and to what extent to sanction the parties for discovery violations. The third one is “whether the client was personally involved in the act of disobedience.” See also King v. Macaleer, 774 So. 2d 68, 69 (Fla. 2d DCA 2000) (“Of particular importance to our decision [to reverse an order of dismissal as too harsh a sanction] is the lack of any record indication that Ms. King, the client, was personally involved in the act of disobedience or was even aware that her lawsuit was in danger of being dismissed.”); Walicki v. Waste Mgmt., Inc., 703 So. 2d 1095, 1096 (Fla. 2d DCA 1997) (“The record ... does not show that appellant personally contributed to the delayed filing or the protracted course of this litigation. Appellant should not be made to suffer the loss of viable claims due to her attorney’s malfeasance where there is no evidence in the record to indicate that she personally engaged in misconduct. Absent such evidence, it was an abuse of discretion to dismiss the complaint as a sanction based solely on [the attorney’s] noncompliance.”).
We distinguish Herrick v. Southeast Bank, N.A., 512 So. 2d 1029 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987), in which we affirmed the denial of a motion to set aside the default and default judgment, because the attorney there never filed any pleadings and failed to appear at a properly noticed motion for summary judgment. Additionally, there was no claim of abandonment by counsel in Herrick. See Yusem v. Butler, 683 So. 2d 1170 (Fla. 4th DCA 1996) (reversing the trial court’s order which denied a motion to vacate a default where the defendant’s attorney abandoned his clients without notice and vacated his Florida office). We therefore agree that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it vacated and set aside the final default judgment.
Affirmed.
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Motors v. Miami Medley Bus. & Indus., LLC., 116 So. 3d 503 (Fla. 3d DCA 2013)…d, the trial court grossly abused its discretion in denying the motion to set aside the default without considering whether the default was improvidently granted and without addressing the [*507] Kozel factors.6 In Cruz v. Caribbean Spring Village, 944 So. 2d 1161, 1162 (Fla. 3d DCA 2006), we affirmed an order granting a client’s motion to vacate and set aside a default judgment where, similarly, “there was ample evidence to find that [the client] was not involved in any way in disobeying” court orders. See a…
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Burgess v. Pfizer, Inc., 990 So. 2d 1140 (Fla. 3d DCA 2008)…v. Fla. Foreclosure Placement Ctr., LLC, 988 So. 2d 1157, 1162 n. 4 (Fla. 3d DCA 2008) (Wells, J.) (recognizing that as an action progresses, the privilege to amend progressively decreases). The majority relies on Cruz v. Caribbean Spring Village, 944 So. 2d 1161 (Fla. 3d DCA 2006), for the proposition that the client was not involved in any way in disobeying the court’s discovery orders. In that case, however, we affirmed an order vacating and setting aside a final default judgment. We thus found that the t…1 / 2
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Karina Barg v. Casablanca on the BAY, Inc. (Fla. 3d DCA 2022)…and had been prescribed heavy medication, including oxycodone. The trial court’s conclusion that this established excusable neglect was not an abuse of discretion, simply a credibility determination. See Cruz v. Caribbean Spring Vill., 944 So. 2d 1161, 1162 (Fla. 3d DCA 2006); cf. Benefit Admin. Sys., LLC v. W. Kendall Baptist Hosp., Inc., 274 So. 3d 480, 483 (Fla. 3d DCA 2019) (“The trial court weighed the evidence, made credibility determinations, and concluded that [movant] failed to show…
Authorities Cited
- Carolann D. Kozel v. Ostendorf, 629 So. 2d 817 (Fla. 1993)
- Herrick v. Se. Bank, N.A., 512 So. 2d 1029 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987)
- Walicki v. Waste Mgmt., Inc., 703 So. 2d 1095 (Fla. 2d DCA 1997)
- King v. MacAleer, 774 So. 2d 68 (Fla. 2d DCA 2000)
- Trident Shipworks, Inc. v. Magnum Marine Corp., 683 So. 2d 1170 (Fla. 3d DCA 1996)