Pruitt v. Brock

• Citation: 437 So.2d 768
• Decision Date: 13 September 1983
• Docket Number: No. AR-250,AR-250
• Parties: Woodrow PRUITT, Appellant, v. Paul BROCK and Sidney Brock, Appellees.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Florida (US)

Page 768

437 So.2d 768

Woodrow PRUITT, Appellant, v. Paul BROCK and Sidney Brock, Appellees.

No. AR-250.

District Court of Appeal of Florida First District.

Sept. 13, 1983.

Armando Garcia, Tallahassee, for appellant.

John E. Roberts, Marianna, for appellees.

ERVIN, Chief Judge.

In this appeal from an order dismissing a "Motion for Relief From Order, or to Set Aside Order", Appellant, Woodrow Pruitt (Pruitt), argues the lower court erred in ruling that his motion was not timely filed. It is Pruitt's position that the serving of a motion for rehearing, within the time limitations of Florida Rule Civil Procedure 1.530(b), tolls the time in which a judgment is entered and taken for the purposes of the one-year time period provided in Florida Rule Civil Procedure 1.540(b), until such time as the motion for rehearing is disposed of by the trial court. Therefore, he continues, he is permitted by the rule one year from the entry of the order denying the motion for rehearing--not one year from the recording of the judgment--in which to seek relief from the judgment on the ground of newly discovered evidence. We agree and reverse.

The subject matter of this appeal originated in 1978 when Paul and Sidney Brock (Brock) filed complaints seeking to recover from Pruitt certain real property located in Jackson County, Florida. On September 4, 1981, the lower court in a non-jury action signed a final order finding in the Brocks' favor and giving Pruitt a reasonable time in which to obtain new access to his home. On the same date, the order was filed with the clerk of court, and on September 8 was recorded in the public records of Jackson County. Pruitt then served his motion for rehearing on September 16, 1981. On October 6, 1981, the court signed and filed an order denying Pruitt's motion for rehearing, which was subsequently recorded on October 13, 1981.

Pruitt later obtained new evidence which allegedly suggests that the testimony given by surveyors at the final hearing was incorrect as it related to the location of two landmarks, identified in the original government survey field notes. Such testimony, it is alleged, amounted to a fraud upon the court. ¹ On the basis of this newly discovered evidence, Pruitt, on September 16, 1982 served, and on September 20, 1981, filed his motion for relief from, or to set aside, the final order. The Brocks moved to dismiss, contending the motion was untimely in that it was served and filed more than one year after the judgment was entered on the ground that the entry date for the purposes of the rule was the date of the recording of the judgment, or September 8, 1981, not the date of the filing of the order denying the motion for rehearing--October 6, 1981. The trial court agreed and, on January 21, 1983, dismissed Pruitt's motion for relief from judgment.

Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.540(b) provides:

(b) Mistakes; Inadvertence; Excusable Neglect; Newly Discovered Evidence; Fraud, etc. On motion and upon such terms as are just, the court may relieve a party or his legal representative from a final judgment, decree, order or proceeding for the following reasons: (1) mistake, inadvertence, surprise or excusable neglect; (2) newly discovered evidence which by due diligence could not have been discovered in time to move for a new trial or rehearing; (3) fraud (whether heretofore denominated intrinsic or extrinsic), misrepresentation or other misconduct of an adverse party; (4) the judgment or decree is void; (5) the judgment or decree has been satisfied, released or discharged or a prior judgment or decree upon which it is based has been reversed or otherwise vacated or it is no longer equitable that the judgment or decree should have prospective application. The motion shall be made within a reasonable time, and for reasons (1), (2), and (3) not more than one year after the judgment, decree, order or proceeding was entered or taken. A motion under this subdivision does not affect the finality of a judgment or decree or suspend its operation. This rule does not limit the power of a court to entertain an independent action to relieve a party from a judgment, decree, order or proceeding or to set aside a judgment or decree for fraud upon the court.

(e.s.). Entitlement to relief under the rule on the ground of newly discovered evidence is thus dependent upon the party's making a motion no later than one year after the order was "entered or taken".

The issue presented then is whether Pruitt's motion for relief was required to be made within one year of the date in which the order granting relief in favor of the Brocks was recorded and, if not, whether the service of a timely motion for rehearing of the original order operates to toll the time in which to file the 1.540(b) motion. The Florida Supreme Court has recently defined the term "entry of judgment", for purposes of Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.530(b) (motions for rehearing), to mean "the recording of the judgment--the spreading of the judgment upon the court's official records." Casto v. Casto 404 So.2d 1046, 1048 (Fla.1981) (e.s.). Assuming, arguendo, that the Casto definition of "entry of judgment" is to be extended to the term "entered or taken" as provided in rule 1.540(b), as opposed to the definition of rendition, which contemplates that rendition does not occur until timely served motions for rehearing are disposed of, Florida Rule Appellate Procedure 9.020(g), it would appear that the trial court's judgment would not have been "entered" until September 8, 1981, when it was recorded. Extending that argument one step further would result in the conclusion that, without the occurrence of some intervening factor operating to toll the running of the one-year period, the time within which Pruitt would be permitted to make a motion pursuant to Rule 1.540(b) would expire as of September 9, 1982, or some eight days prior to the time Pruitt's motion for relief from judgment was actually served.

We find it unnecessary, however, to enter the controversy created by Casto ² by attempting to determine whether a motion, required to be "made" within one year of the date on which an order is "entered or taken", must be signed, served, or filed within one year of the date on which an order itself is signed, served, filed or recorded. We decide only that a motion for rehearing, timely served after the recording of the judgment, tolls the operation of a final order or judgment to the extent that the one-year period provided in Rule 1.540(b) does not commence to run until such time as the motion for rehearing is disposed of by the filing of a written order with the clerk of the trial court. Because Pruitt's relief motion was both served and filed within one year after the filing of the order denying the motion for rehearing, we conclude, for the reasons stated infra, that it was timely made.

Although we find this case to be one of first impression in Florida, we are persuaded, by analogous case law and general principles of jurisprudence, that our conclusion is correct. The basic rule that a motion for rehearing will operate to toll the time period within which a notice of appeal must be filed is of course not a novel theory. There is no question that such a motion affects the finality of a judgment and suspends its operation until the motion is disposed of. See State ex rel. Owens v. Pearson, 156 So.2d 4, 7 (Fla.1963). The Florida Supreme Court, in discussing the effect of a timely motion for rehearing has observed:

This Court has never departed from the principle that where a petition for rehearing has been properly made within the time fixed by appropriate statute or rule, the trial court has complete control of its decree with the power to alter or change it until said motion has been disposed of. It therefore follows that the judicial labor has not been terminated and could not be terminated until the trial court had disposed of such petition. Until that time the decree or judgment was not final and the time for taking the appeal did not commence to run until the date of the entry of such order.

Pearson, 156 So.2d at 7 (e.s.). The tolling effect of the service of a timely motion for rehearing for appellate purposes has, of course, been formally recognized by the revision of the Florida Rules of Appellate Procedure in 1977. These rules now provide that

"[r]endition (of an order)" ... [means] "the filing of a signed, written order with the clerk of the lower tribunal." Fla.R.App.P. 9.020(g). The filing of a timely motion for rehearing, however, suspends the rendition of the order. That is, in the event of such a motion, "the order shall not be deemed rendered until disposition thereof." Id.

Casto, 404 So.2d at 1047 (emphasis in original). If a timely motion for rehearing is to affect the finality and the operation of a final judgment, order or decree for appellate purposes, we can find no logical reason for not consistently applying that principle to toll the one-year time limitation provided in rule 1.540(b), until such time as the motion's disposition. A timely motion for rehearing, in our view, has the same purpose for either appellate, or relief from judgment purposes: It delays the termination of judicial labor at the trial level.

In so saying, we find particularly persuasive the interrelationship between the various mechanisms provided by the rules of civil and appellate procedure for the reviewing, testing and correcting of judgments, orders, and decrees. As noted by the Florida Supreme Court, these rules represent an attempted accommodation of the primary competing goals of American jurisprudence: "[F]irst, that justice be as exact and as free from error as human fallibility of judgment permits; and, second, that litigation be finally terminated as quickly as due process and necessary reflection allows." Kippy Corporation v. Colburn, 177 So.2d 193, 196 (Fla.1965). The first mechanism is, of course, the ...