Bell v. Bell

This was a divorce case involving several issues regarding the parties’ marital and non-marital assets. Our client appealed and the opposing party cross appealed. Our client’s main issues were the trial court’s failure to (1) award her half of the husband’s accounts receivable from loans he made to his businesses; and (2) make factual findings before denying her request for bridge-the-gap alimony.

The Fourth District Court of Appeal agreed that the trial court erred in failing to award our client half of the husband’s accounts receivable. It reversed and remanded with instructions that the trial court make specific written findings regarding the assets. Likewise, Fourth District Court of Appeal agreed that the trial court reversibly erred in failing to make the appropriate findings regarding our client’s request for bridge-the-gap-alimony, and it also reversed on that point. Our client was awarded entitlement to attorney’s fees as the prevailing party. Shortly thereafter, the opposing party filed a motion for rehearing and/or clarification to which our client responded. In agreement with our response, the Fourth District Court of Appeal denied the opposing party’s request for rehearing and/or clarification.

Carlin v. Javorek

The issue was whether the Supreme Court should exercise its discretionary jurisdiction to review of the Fourth District Court of Appeal’s reversal of a trial court’s order denying an award of attorney’s fees to our client.

The Fourth District Court of Appeal recently reversed a trial court decision holding that our client was not entitled to attorney’s fees despite finding that the opposing party was in breach of the parties’ settlement agreement. The trial court found that the opposing party breached the settlement agreement by failing to produce the required medical forms and failing to execute a medical release. However, the trial court held that the breach was not material and denied both parties’ requests for attorney’s fees. The Fourth District Court of Appeal reviewed the issue de novo and held that the trial court did not err in denying the opposing party’s request for attorney’s fees, but erred in finding that the opposing party’s breach was immaterial and in denying our client’s request for reasonable attorney’s fees pursuant to the parties’ settlement agreement. The Fourth District Court of Appeal found that the opposing party materially breached the settlement agreement and that the settlement agreement’s clear and unambiguous terms mandated an award of attorney’s fees to our client as the prevailing party. The opposing party petitioned the Supreme Court for discretionary review claiming that the Fourth District Court of Appeal’s decision expressly and directly conflicted with other district court and Supreme Court decisions. Our law firm continued representation of our client in the Supreme Court. Jurisdictional briefs were filed by both parties.

In agreement with the arguments in our jurisdictional brief, the Supreme Court declined to exercise its discretionary jurisdiction, denied opposing party’s petition for review, and awarded additional attorney’s fees to our client.

The issue was whether the trial court abused its discretion in ordering our client and our client’s attorney to pay 57.105 attorney’s fees in a defamation action.

Our client sued the opposing party for defamation after being forced out of business by the opposing party’s outrageous allegation that our client, a jeweler, replaced diamonds from the opposing party’s ring with cubic zirconias. Even though our client vehemently denied the accusation, the opposing party filed a police report accusing our client of replacing the diamonds with artificial stones. Several days later, however, the opposing party contacted the police to notify them that the diamonds in the ring were not swapped but were the original diamonds. Nevertheless, the opposing party moved for summary judgment and 57.105 attorney’s fees, against our client and our client’s attorney, stating that the accusation was believed to be true and our client failed to show malice. The trial court granted the summary judgment and the 57.105 fees reasoning that the opposing party was entitled to a qualified privilege for reporting a crime to the police.

The Fourth District Court of Appeal reversed the trial court’s 57.105 award and hinted that summary judgment was inappropriate. Specifically, the court noted that when a trial court grants an award of 57.105 attorney’s fees, “the reviewing court must determine whether the trial court abused its discretion in finding no justifiable issues of law or fact.”  In other words, the court held that “[a] case is frivolous” justifying the award of fees, “when it can be said to be ‘completely without merit in law’ or ‘contradicted by overwhelming evidence.’” As applied to our client, the court found that express malice may be inferred from the opposing party’s unreasonable conduct in accusing our client of stealing the diamonds and then, without ever investigating the matter, filing a police report. The court noted that, at the time the opposing party filed the report accusing our client of theft, the opposing party made no attempt to find out if the accusation was true. The court concluded that there was a reasonable inference that the opposing party intended to harm our client by getting the police involved, “perhaps because of their heated exchange the day before.”

Editor’s Note: At the time of writing this blog entry, a mandate from the court had not been issued.