De Campos v. Ferrara
| Decision Date | 24 July 2012 |
| Docket Number | No. 3D10–3009.,3D10–3009. |
| Citation | 90 So.3d 865 |
| Parties | Edson Carlos DE CAMPOS, Appellant, v. Yolanda Carmen FERRARA, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Nancy A. Hass, Hallandale Beach, for appellant.
Lyubov Zeldis, Ft. Lauderdale, for appellee.
Before SHEPHERD, CORTIÑAS, and LAGOA, JJ.
Edson Carlos De Campos (“Former Husband”), appeals the denial of his Petition to Determine Entitlement to and Award Attorney's Fees and Costs and the denial of his rehearing motion. For the following reasons, we reverse.
On February 22, 1991, a Final Judgment dissolving the parties' marriage was entered by the trial court, which incorporated the parties' Property Settlement Agreement. The trial court also retained jurisdiction to enforce the Final Judgment and the Property Settlement Agreement. Pursuant to the terms of the parties' Property Settlement Agreement, the parties were each to receive one-half of the proceeds from the sale of the parties' company, Plant Care.
On August 29, 2008, in violation of the trial court's Final Judgment and the parties' Property Settlement Agreement, Yolanda Carmen Ferrara (“Former Wife”) sold the parties' business, Plant Care, without revealing the sale of the business to the Former Husband. The Former Wife also misappropriated all of the proceeds from the sale of Plant Care. In addition, once the sale of the business was ultimately revealed to the Former Husband, the Former Wife fraudulently misrepresented the amount of the proceeds that resulted from the sale in an effort to reduce any potential liability to the Former Husband.
On November 5, 2008, the Former Husband filed a Verified Emergency Supplemental Petition for an Ex–Parte Temporary Injunction Preserving the Status Quo and Freezing Sales Proceeds, for an Order Compelling Payment, Contempt, and Other Relief with the trial court. The trial court determined that the Former Husband's Petition should be treated as a petition for enforcement and granted a temporary injunction. The Former Wife subsequently filed an Emergency Petition to Dissolve the Injunction and argued that she had already previously satisfied the requirements of the Property Settlement Agreement. Specifically, the Former Wife contended that in February 1993 she incorporated a business called Plant Care, Inc. and transferred the assets and liabilities of Plant Care to Plant Care, Inc. The Former Wife argued that this constituted a “sale” of the business within the meaning of the Property Settlement Agreement and, in accordance therewith, she paid Former Husband $48,000, which constituted approximately half of the sales of Plant Care at the time of the transfer from Plant Care to Plant Care, Inc. The Former Husband contended that the $48,000 payment did not relate to Plant Care, Inc.
The trial court granted the Former Wife's Petition to Dissolve the Temporary Injunction and ordered that the sum of $152,500, which represented fifty percent of the proceeds from the 2008 sale of the assets of Plant Care, Inc., be held in escrow until the trial court held an evidentiary hearing on the Former Husband's Petition for Temporary Injunction Preserving the Status Quo and Freezing Sales Proceeds for and an Order Compelling Payment, Contempt and Other Relief. A final evidentiary hearing was subsequently held on November 17, 2009. The trial court ruled in favor of the Former Husband, concluding that the $48,000 paid by the Former Wife to the Former Husband in 1993 was for the Former Husband's contributions to the construction of the home that the parties resided in during their marriage, and that it did not represent payment for any interest in, or value of, Plant Care. The trial court further ruled that the Former Husband was presently entitled to one-half of the net proceeds received by the Former Wife at the closing of the sale of Plant Care, Inc. on August 28, 2008. The trial court deferred ruling on the issue of whether the Former Husband was entitled to an award of attorneys' fees in the matter and the amount, if any, of such fees.
On December 17, 2009, the Former Husband filed his Petition to Determine Entitlement to and Award Attorney's Fees and Costs and a hearing was held before the trial court on March 18, 2010. On May 3, 2010, the trial court entered an Order denying the Former Husband's request for an award of attorney's fees and costs from the Former Wife. The trial court determined that the Former Husband's action was essentially an equitable declaratory proceeding to construe and enforce the parties' Property Settlement Agreement. Applying Flanders v. Flanders, 516 So.2d 1090 (Fla. 5th DCA 1987), the trial court concluded that: (1) the property settlement agreement, not section 61.16, Florida Statutes (2010)1, governed the issue of entitlement to attorney's fees, and (2) because the property settlement agreement at issue did not provide for an award of attorney's fees, the Former Husband was not entitled to fees.
On May 13, 2010, the Former Husband filed a Motion for Rehearing and a hearing was held. On October 20, 2010, the trial court entered an Order denying the Former Husband's Motion for Rehearing. While the trial court expressed its belief in both Orders that equity entitled the Former Husband to an award of attorney's fees from the Former Wife, it concluded that it was bound by the authority of Flanders to deny the Former Husband's Petition for attorney's fees. This appeal ensued.
The Former Husband contends that the trial court erroneously relied upon Flanders in denying his request for an award of attorney's fees and costs from the Former Wife, as the pleading filed with the trial court was not an equitable declaratory proceeding to construe the parties' Property Settlement Agreement but a pleading to enforce it. Although the trial court correctly sought to look to the “real legal substance” of the proceedings before it in order to determine the Former Husband's entitlement to an award of attorney's fees, we cannot agree with the trial court's conclusion that the proceedings were essentially declaratory in nature. At their essence, the proceedings before the trial court were for enforcement of a final judgment previously entered by the court. Therefore, the issue of the Former Husband's entitlement to attorney's fees is properly governed by section 61.16(1), Florida Statutes.
In Flanders, a sale of jointly owned marital property was made pursuant to the parties' property settlement agreement. Flanders, 516 So.2d at 1091. When the parties could not agree as to the distribution of the sale of proceeds, the ex-wife filed a Petition for Accounting and for Equitable Distribution of Property Proceeds, and the ex-husband filed a Motion for Enforcement of the Final Judgment. Id. The trial court construed the stipulated property settlement, ordered a division of the sale proceeds according to his interpretation of the parties' agreement, and ordered the ex-husband to pay an award of attorney's fees to the ex-wife. Id. The ex-husband appealed the award of attorney's fees and the court reversed, holding that
[I]n real legal substance, this [was] merely an equitable declaratory proceeding to construe the parties' property agreement and to enforce it. Neither party is entitled to an award of attorney's fees because the property settlement agreement contains no provision for attorney's fees in litigation involving the agreement, and section 61.16, Florida Statutes, should not be applied.
A petition for a declaratory judgment asks the court to define the legal relationship between the parties and their rights with respect to the matter before the court, without ordering that anything be done or awarding damages. State, Dep't of Envtl. Prot. v. Garcia, ––– So.3d ––––, ––––, 2011 WL 3300540 (Fla. 3d DCA 2011); see also Kelner v. Woody, 399 So.2d 35 (Fla. 3d DCA 1981).
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