Bill Williams Air Conditioning & Heating, Inc. v. Haymarket Co-op. Bank

• Decision Date: 23 December 1991
• Docket Number: No. 91-1488,91-1488
• Citation: 592 So.2d 302
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals
• Parties: BILL WILLIAMS AIR CONDITIONING & HEATING, INC., Appellant, v. HAYMARKET COOPERATIVE BANK, Appellee. 592 So.2d 302, 17 Fla. L. Week. D80

Page 302

592 So.2d 302

BILL WILLIAMS AIR CONDITIONING & HEATING, INC., Appellant, v. HAYMARKET COOPERATIVE BANK, Appellee.

No. 91-1488.

592 So.2d 302, 17 Fla. L. Week. D80

District Court of Appeal of Florida,

First District.

Dec. 23, 1991.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 28, 1992.

John Paul Howard, Jacksonville, for appellant.

H. Mark Purdy of Watson, Clark & Purdy, Ft. Lauderdale, for appellee.

WEBSTER, Judge.

This is the second time that this case has been before us. In the first appeal, appellant, Bill Williams Air Conditioning & Heating, Inc. ("Bill Williams"), successfully argued for reversal of a partial summary judgment entered against it and in favor of appellee, Haymarket Cooperative Bank ("Haymarket"). Bill Williams Air Conditioning & Heating, Inc. v. Haymarket Cooperative Bank, 566 So.2d 52 (Fla. 1st DCA 1990). By this appeal, Bill Williams seeks review principally of an order denying its motion seeking leave to file a third amended answer and a counterclaim. Concluding that the trial court abused its discretion when it refused to allow Bill Williams to file a third amended answer and a counterclaim, we again reverse.

To appreciate the bases for our conclusion, it is necessary to understand the relatively tortuous procedural history of this case. Haymarket commenced the action on July 21, 1988, when it filed a 5-count complaint, naming some twenty-one defendants, including Bill Williams. Only Count II of that complaint is relevant to this appeal. It sought to foreclose two mortgages on certain real property situate in Alachua County. Bill Williams (like most of the other defendants) was named because it had recorded a Claim of Lien against the property. The complaint alleged that any interest Bill Williams and the other defendants might have in the property was inferior to Haymarket's interest, by virtue of the mortgages.

Bill Williams filed an answer, consisting of nothing more than a general denial, on September 12, 1988. On January 23, 1989, Bill Williams filed an "amended" answer and a cross-claim. (The "amended" answer is identical to the initial answer. It is apparent that the pleading was filed solely for the purpose of asserting the cross-claim.) The cross-claim is in two counts. Count I names all of the remaining defendants as cross-defendants. It seeks a determination that Bill Williams has a valid mechanic's lien, and then an ordering of priorities with regard to the various liens. Count II names only the owner of the property and the general contractor, and seeks money damages for breach of contract.

On March 7, 1989, three of the defendants (all of whom were represented by the same attorney) filed very similar answers, affirmative defenses and counterclaims/cross-claims. Each answer asserted ten affirmative defenses, including the following: that the defendant, by virtue of a valid mechanic's lien, had an interest in the real property which was superior to Haymarket's; that the defendant, by virtue of an "equitable lien," had an interest in the real property which was superior to Haymarket's; that Haymarket's "misconduct, improprieties and negligence in monitoring, disbursing and administering the loan funds" estopped Haymarket from claiming priority in the foreclosure; that Haymarket was estopped from foreclosing its mortgages because it had "intentionally and knowingly authorized and permitted [the mortgagors] to embezzle and divert construction loan monies ..."; that, "as a joint venture partner of" the mortgagors, Haymarket breached the contract which the defendant had by failing to pay all sums due; that Haymarket had "converted to its own use" the defendant's "labor, services and materials" by failing to disburse payments according to the mechanic's lien law; and that Haymarket had been "unjustly enriched in the amount of ... the reasonable value of the labor, materials and services furnished by" the defendant. Each counterclaim/cross-claim consisted of at least fifteen counts, including the following: mechanic's lien foreclosure, equitable lien foreclosure, breach of contract, quantum meruit, negligent loan disbursement practices, declaratory judgment, and negligent misrepresentations.

On June 26, 1989, Haymarket filed a motion requesting a partial summary judgment that its mortgage liens were superior to the liens of those defendants, including Bill Williams, who had asserted no affirmative defenses or counterclaims (i.e., all but four of the defendants). Hearing on Haymarket's motion was set for July 18, 1989 (or twenty-two days after the motion had been filed).

On July 17, 1989 (the day before the hearing on Haymarket's motion for partial summary judgment), Bill Williams filed a motion to amend its answer, to which was attached the proposed amendment. The motion asserts that the proposed amendment was intended merely to "clarify" that Bill Williams was "relying on the same facts specifically pleaded by the" four defendants who had filed affirmative defenses and counterclaims. The proposed amendment asserts eight affirmative defenses, each of which is substantively identical in its allegations to the allegations of affirmative defenses previously raised by other defendants (although not all of the affirmative defenses raised by those other defendants are contained in Bill Williams' proposed amendment).

At the hearing on July 18, 1989, the trial court granted Bill Williams' motion for leave to amend; however, it then proceeded to include Bill Williams in the partial summary judgment. Bill Williams appealed to this Court, which concluded that Haymarket had done nothing to meet its "burden of establishing that [Bill Williams'] affirmative defenses were devoid of material issue of fact or legally insufficient" and, therefore, "reversed ... and ... remanded for further proceedings...." 566 So.2d at 54.

On June 15, 1990, while the first appeal was pending, the trial court entered a final judgment of foreclosure in favor of Haymarket. The final judgment recited that the counterclaims filed by the defendants against whom summary judgment had not previously been entered had "been settled, resolved and dismissed." The property was purchased by Haymarket at the public sale, and a Certificate of Title was issued on August 10, 1990, two weeks before this Court's opinion on the first appeal was issued, and about a month before this Court's Mandate issued. Thus, the result of this Court's decision on the first appeal was to reinstate Bill Williams as a defendant to a foreclosure claim after a final judgment had been entered, the property had been sold and a Certificate of Title had been issued.

On October 26, 1990, Haymarket filed a "renewed" motion for summary judgment; and on November 30, 1990, Haymarket filed an affidavit in support of its "renewed" motion. On December 14, 1990, Haymarket served by mail a notice setting a hearing on the "renewed" motion for January 25, 1991.

On January 2, 1991, Bill Williams filed a motion seeking leave to file a third amended answer and a counterclaim, to which was attached the proposed amendment. Of the seven affirmative defenses asserted, six are substantively identical to affirmative defenses raised in the previous amended answer; the only "new" affirmative defense sought to be asserted was that Bill Williams had a valid mechanic's lien on the real property, by virtue of which its interest in the property was superior to Haymarket's. (An identical defense had been raised by the "settling" defendants.) In addition, two affirmative defenses asserted in the previous amended answer were not included in the latest proposed amendment. The only arguably "new" matter, in terms of substance, contained in the latest proposed amendment was a 7-count counterclaim. (Bill Williams had not previously filed, or attempted to file, a counterclaim.) However, each count is substantively identical (down to the wording) to a corresponding count previously asserted by each of the four "settling" defendants. In fact the only substantive difference between the counterclaim Bill Williams sought leave to file and the counterclaims previously filed by the "settling" defendants was that Bill Williams had elected not to include eight counts included in the "settling" defendants' counterclaims, each of which alleged an intentional tort (e.g., fraud, embezzlement, civil theft, racketeering).

In its motion seeking leave to amend further, Bill Williams asserted that false answers to interrogatories which it had received in 1988 from Haymarket had caused Bill Williams not to file a counterclaim sooner. Bill Williams further asserted that, after summary judgment had been entered against it and while the appeal was pending before this Court, the defendants who remained in the case (i.e., those who had filed affirmative defenses and counterclaims) had engaged in extensive discovery, which revealed that Haymarket's 1988 answers to interrogatories had been false, and that Bill Williams had a viable counterclaim. The motion also pointed out that the proposed amendment did not raise any new issues and, therefore, would not result in delay (presumably because its affirmative...