Jones v. Williams Steel Industries, Inc.
| Decision Date | 20 December 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 83-1677,83-1677 |
| Citation | 460 So.2d 1004,10 Fla. L. Weekly 23 |
| Parties | 10 Fla. L. Weekly 23 Nick Arthur JONES, Appellant, v. WILLIAMS STEEL INDUSTRIES, INC., Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
George E. Hovis, Clermont, for appellant.
Richard H. Langley, Clermont, for appellee.
This case involves a subrogation action by one co-judgment debtor, who paid a joint judgment in full, against the other co-judgment debtor.
Bob Wade Ford, Inc., entered into a construction agreement with appellee, Williams Steel (formerly Konsler Steel) whereby appellee agreed to provide plans and specifications and labor and materials to erect a steel building and to relocate another one. Bob Wade Ford took plans and specifications prepared by appellee to appellant Jones, a registered architect, and paid appellant to review, approve and to sign and affix his architectural seal to the plans and specifications. During construction certain defects and errors were discovered in the plans and specifications. Bob Wade Ford did not pay a balance due appellee on the construction contract and when appellee filed an action to foreclose a mechanic's lien, Bob Wade Ford joined appellant Jones as a party and counterclaimed and obtained a judgment for $12,314.28 against appellee and appellant for damages resulting from the defective plans and specifications. Appellee paid and satisfied the Bob Wade Ford judgment in 1977.
In 1982 appellee filed a complaint against appellant for contribution. After that complaint was dismissed on the basis of the statute of limitations (apparently section 768.31(4)(c), Fla.Stat.) appellee filed an amended three count complaint alleging theories of subrogation, equitable assignment and contribution. The trial court entered judgment finding that appellee was entitled to "contribution" from appellant for one-half of the amount appellee paid to satisfy the Bob Wade Ford judgment plus interest and costs.
On this appeal appellant claims that the Bob Wade Ford judgment was recovered either on the theory of negligence, in which case the one year statute of limitations as to contribution among joint tortfeasors (§ 768.31(4)(c), Fla.Stat.) barred appellee's recovery, or on the theory of breach of contract, in which case a four year statute of limitations (§ 95.11(3), Fla.Stat.) barred appellee's recovery.
North v. Albee, 155 Fla. 515, 20 So.2d 682, 157 A.L.R. 490 (1945), relied on by the trial judge, holds that where a judgment is against several co-debtors who are each jointly and severally and primarily liable thereon, the payment of the judgment by one co-debtor constitutes an equitable assignment of the judgment to the paying debtor; the paying debtor's cause of action against the other debtors for their proportionate share is, in effect, an enforcement of the assigned judgment and the applicable statute of limitations is not that applicable to the cause of action against the joint debtors that resulted in the judgment but the statute of limitations applicable to the enforcement of the judgment, which is twenty years under section 95.11(1), Florida Statutes. 1
Appellant argues that North is not applicable because North relates to subrogation and the trial judge in this case entered judgment expressly on the theory of contribution, and recovery on that theory is barred by the one year statute of limitations in section 768.31(4)(c), Florida Statutes. 2 Contribution and subrogation are distinctively different and if the reference in the judgment was to the cause of action known as contribution that reference was erroneous because the judgment was correctly entered on the theory of subrogation. 3 A trial judge may be correct even though his reasoning is wrong and when so, he should be affirmed. Subrogation is the restitutionary equitable action "implied in law" in favor of one whose money is used to discharge the obligation of another under circumstances where, in good conscience, the plaintiff ought to be subrogated to the rights of the obligee against the obligor.
Appellant further argues that trial court erred in ruling that the Bob Wade Ford judgment was res judicata as to the issue of apportionment between appellant and appellee. Appellant is probably correct 4 because there was no issue framed by cross-claim between appellee, who was the plaintiff in the mechanic's lien action, and the appellant, Jones, who was named as a codefendant by the defendant Bob Wade Ford in a "third party counterclaim". In the mechanic's lien foreclosure the defendant Bob Wade Ford joined appellant Jones as a defendant but not because appellant Jones was or might have been liable to Bob Wade Ford for all or part of the claim of Williams Steel against Bob Wade Ford. Therefore under proper third party practice (Florida Rules of Civil Procedure 1.180(a)), 5 appellant does not appear to have been properly joined as a third party defendant in the mechanic's lien foreclosure case in which Bob Wade Ford on counterclaim recovered the joint judgment against appellant and appellee. 6 However that action became the law of that case and it is not now possible to ascertain on what theory appellant and appellee were held jointly and severally liable on the counterclaim of Bob Wade Ford in the mechanic's lien case and, therefore, appellant has not demonstrated, and there is no basis for our finding, that the trial judge in this case (who, incidentally, was the same trial judge in the mechanic's lien action) erred in finding that the liability of appellant and appellee, as joint debtors, was equal.
AFFIRMED.
I would affirm the essentials of the judgment on appeal but would require an evidentiary hearing to...
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