Gulf Appliance Distributors v. Long
| Decision Date | 27 July 1951 |
| Citation | 53 So.2d 706 |
| Parties | GULF APPLIANCE DISTRIBUTORS, Inc. v. LONG et al. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Thomas Alexander (of Macfarlane, Ferguson, Allison & Kelly), Tampa, for appellant.
E. B. Rood (of Mabry, Reaves, Carlton, Anderson, Fields & Ward), Tampa, for Floyd B. Long, doing business as Long Construction Co., and others.
Laurence D. Childs, St. Petersburg, for remaining appellees.
We here review an order of the lower court refusing to reinstate a suit which had been previously dismissed upon motion of the defendant-appellee, Floyd B. Long. The facts are, briefly, as follows: The plaintiff-appellant filed its second amended bill of complaint on July 30, 1949, and the appellee filed a motion to dismiss same on August 19, 1949. On February 1, 1950, and pursuant to stipulation of counsel, the lower court entered an order allowing the withdrawal of counsel for the appellee and the substitution of other counsel, already in the cause as counsel for another defendant, to represent the appellee. Upon motion by appellee, an order of dismissal of the suit was entered on October 31, 1950, for plaintiff-appellant's failure to take affirmative action in the cause since the filing of appellee's motion to dismiss on August 19, 1949. This order was entered without notice to appellant and was not discovered by it until January 1951, when its counsel attempted to set down for hearing the appellee's motion to dismiss the bill. The appellant thereupon filed a petition for an order reinstating the cause, on the ground that the order substituting counsel for the appellee was 'an order in said cause affecting the parties thereto'; that such order had been entered less than a year prior to the date of the order of dismissal; and that the bill was, therefore, 'illegally' dismissed.
The lower court denied the appellant's petition for reinstatement, and the question here is whether the petition showed 'good cause' for reinstatement.
Section 45.19, Florida Statutes 1949, F.S.A., provides that '(1) All actions at law or suits in equity * * * in which there shall not affirmatively appear from some action taken by the filing of pleadings, order of court, or otherwise, that the same is being prosecuted, for a period of one year, shall be deemed abated for want of prosecution and the same shall be dismissed by the court having jurisdiction of the cause, upon motion of any person interested, whether a party to the action or suit or not, without revivor or notice; provided that actions or suits dismissed under the...
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Wilson v. Salamon
...the rule. This confusion in turn can be traced at least in part to language contained in our 1951 opinion in Gulf Appliance Distributors, Inc. v. Long, 53 So.2d 706 (Fla.1951), in which we interpreted the meaning of the statutory predecessor to rule 1.420(e). Id. at 707. In Gulf Appliance, ......
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Anthony v. Schmitt
...to keep the suit on the docket of the court." Eastern Elevator, Inc. v. Page, 263 So.2d 218, 220 (Fla.1972); Gulf Appliance Distribs. v. Long, 53 So.2d 706, 707 (Fla.1951). The failure of the plaintiff's attorney to attend the status conference, while perhaps justifying sanctions against Mr......
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...... rule was based on an existing statute which had been interpreted in Gulf Appliance Distributors, Inc. v. Long, 53 So.2d 706 (Fla.1951), to require ......
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Chemrock Corp. v. Tampa Electric Co.
...earliest version of the rule was based on an existing statute which had been interpreted in Gulf Appliance Distributors, Inc. v. Long, 53 So. 2d 706 (Fla. 1951), to require that in order to preclude dismissal, the record activity must be an active measure calculated to hasten the suit to ju......
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The Florida Supreme Court dulls the edge of Rule 1.420(e).
...to) the rule and appear to have had little effect upon subsequent cases. (4) For example, Gulf Appliance Distributors, Inc. v. Long, 53 So. 2d 706 (Fla.1951), looms large over all decisions dealing with motions to dismiss for failure to prosecute. Under this case, Florida courts would exami......