National Equipment Rental, Ltd. v. Coolidge Bank & Trust Co.

• Decision Date: 17 August 1977
• Docket Number: No. 76-1903,76-1903
• Citation: 348 So.2d 1236
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals
• Parties: NATIONAL EQUIPMENT RENTAL, LTD., Appellant, v. COOLIDGE BANK & TRUST CO., Appellee.

Page 1236

348 So.2d 1236

NATIONAL EQUIPMENT RENTAL, LTD., Appellant, v. COOLIDGE BANK & TRUST CO., Appellee.

No. 76-1903.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.

Aug. 17, 1977.

Guion T. DeLoach, Naples, for appellant.

John F. Stanley, of Vega, Brown & Nichols, P. A., Naples, for appellee.

GRIMES, Judge.

This appeal involves a question of when a foreign judgment becomes a lien upon Florida real property.

Both parties had obtained judgments against Richard Laneau in states other than Florida. Appellant's judgment was prior in time, and a certified copy of this judgment had been recorded in Collier County before the date of the entry of appellee's judgment. However, appellee immediately filed suit in Collier County seeking to establish its foreign judgment as a Florida judgment and to foreclose its judgment lien on real property owned by Laneau in that county. Appellant was not joined as a party to this suit. The court entered judgment in favor of appellee. Laneau's real property was then sold at public auction to satisfy the judgment, and appellee was a successful bidder at the sale.

The appellee then filed the instant suit seeking to quiet the title of its newly acquired property against any claims of appellant. The appellant filed an answer and counterclaim contending that its recorded judgment was a superior lien upon the property when Laneau owned it and that the lien remains effective despite the new ownership because appellant was not a party to the first suit. The court entered a summary judgment quieting title to the property in the appellee.

The appellant relies on Section 55.10, Florida Statutes (1975), which states:

"55.10 Judgments; lien of all, generally

Judgments and decrees become a lien on real estate in the county where rendered when the judgment or decree is recorded in the proper record of such county and in other counties when a certified copy thereof is recorded in the proper record of other counties."

Is this statute applicable to a foreign judgment which has not been judicially established as a judgment in the courts of Florida? We think not.

It is well settled that a creditor holding a foreign judgment cannot execute upon real property within the situs state until he has reduced the foreign judgment to a judgment of that state. Cole v. Cunningham, 133 U.S. 107, 10 S.Ct. 269, 33 L.Ed. 538 (1889); 46 Am.Jur.2d, Judgments, Sec. 905. An action predicated upon a foreign judgment is considered as a new and independent action. Milligan v. Wilson, 107 So.2d 73 (Fla.2d DCA 1958). While the validity of the judgment is generally determined by the law of the state of its rendition, the question of whether the court which rendered the judgment had jurisdiction over the subject matter and the person is open to challenge. Milligan v. Wilson, supra. A creditor's bill cannot be maintained on a foreign judgment until the creditor has reduced the foreign judgment to a judgment of the situs state. Hotchkiss v. Martin, 52 So.2d 113 (Fla.1951); Miller v. Security-Peoples Trust Co., 142 Fla. 434, 195 So. 191 (1940). In an early decision, our Supreme Court stated that until a foreign judgment was reduced to judgment in Florida, the judgment holder was merely a "creditor at large." Carter v. Bennett, 6 Fla. 214, 242 (1885).

We have found no authority which makes a distinction between the need to establish a foreign judgment as a judgment of the situs state in order to obtain execution and a similar requirement as a prerequisite for establishing a lien. Some courts have assumed that foreign judgments cannot be liens until they have been reduced to local judgments. Milwaukee County v. M. E. White Co., 296 U.S. 268, 56 S.Ct. 229...