Robbie v. Robbie

• Citation: 726 So.2d 817
• Decision Date: 03 February 1999
• Docket Number: No. 97-3430, No. 97-3582
• Parties: Joseph Michael ROBBIE, Appellant, v. Dwyn Daniels ROBBIE, Appellee.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Florida (US)

726 So.2d 817

Joseph Michael ROBBIE, Appellant, v. Dwyn Daniels ROBBIE, Appellee.

Nos. 97--3582

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.

February 3, 1999.

Alice E. Warwick of Alice E. Warwick, P.A., Coral Gables, and Linda Ann Wells, Miami, for appellant.

A. Matthew Miller of Miller, Schwartz & Miller, P.A., Hollywood, for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

This appeal arises from dissolution proceedings between the parties, which have already generated numerous appeals in this court. After this court's partial reversal of the underlying divorce judgment, see Robbie v. Robbie, 654 So.2d 616 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995)

("Robbie I"), the case was remanded to the trial court for valuation and equitable distribution of the appreciation of one of the husband's non-marital assets, the Miami Sports Corporation. On remand to the trial court, the wife made certain discovery requests, and the trial court directed the husband to furnish the requested information. The trial court further awarded the wife temporary alimony for the first time on remand and ordered the husband to pay the same. The issues presented in this appeal concern the husband's subsequent decision to disobey the trial court's discovery orders and orders concerning the temporary alimony award, which resulted in the trial court's order holding the husband in contempt for his noncompliance.¹ Finding no error requiring reversal of the proceedings in the trial court, we affirm.

With regard to the husband's disobedience of the court's discovery orders, the husband contends that his conduct was justified because the court did not have jurisdiction to force compliance with the orders, which the husband urges were beyond the scope of this court's Robbie I remand instruction. We cannot agree with the husband that he was free to disregard the court's orders and not run the risk of contempt sanctions simply because he viewed the discovery requests as beyond the scope of the remand instruction in Robbie I. So long as the court's orders were entered with subject matter jurisdiction, the husband would still be required to obey those orders, even if erroneous. See Kaylor v. Kaylor, 466 So.2d 1253, 1254 (Fla. 2d DCA 1985)

; In re S.L.T., 180 So.2d 374, 377 (Fla. 2d DCA 1965).

While the husband argues that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to enter orders compelling discovery, he fails to recognize that even if the trial court and the wife's attorney misconstrued the extent of our instructions, our remand instructions would not foreclose all discovery, such as discovery necessary to establish the value of the Miami Sports Corporation. Therefore, the trial court had jurisdiction to order the discovery, even if the discovery requests were overbroad as the husband contends. The reason that a party may properly be held in contempt for failure to abide by an erroneous order is that the need for obedience to a court order outweighs the individual's temporary detriment. See Rubin v. State, 490 So.2d 1001, 1003 (Fla. 3d DCA 1986)

. The trial court did not abuse its discretion by sanctioning the husband for his contemptuous conduct in refusing to obey the orders of the trial court requiring answers to interrogatories and requests to produce.

The husband also challenges, on jurisdictional grounds, the order of contempt with respect to the non-payment of temporary alimony awarded after remand of the case from this court. He contends that the trial court did not have jurisdiction on remand to order it. We conclude that, although the trial court may have entered an erroneous ruling awarding temporary alimony, as with the discovery order, it had jurisdiction, and the husband was not free to ignore the court's order.

In the instant case, the final judgment awarded the wife lump sum alimony payable in annual installments and "bridge-the-gap" alimony for a little over a year. Significantly for purposes of this appeal, the trial court specifically rejected the wife's claim for permanent periodic alimony. In Robbie I, the parties vigorously litigated on appeal the wife's entitlement to permanent periodic alimony and the amount of the "bridge-the-gap" alimony. This court affirmed all matters regarding the wife's support and reversed only the determination that the enhancement in the husband's interest in Miami Sports Corporation during the marriage was not a marital asset.

Our approval of the final judgment's provisions with respect to alimony, including the denial of permanent alimony, constituted the law of the case. See Mitzenmacher v. Mitzenmacher, 656 So.2d 178, 179-80 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995)

. On remand the trial court was bound by the affirmed determination that the wife had not proved that she was entitled to support alimony beyond the limited bridge-the-gap alimony awarded.² Thus, the wife's motion for temporary support, which merely alleged that she was in need of support and the husband had the ability to pay, would have required the trial court to make factual findings contrary to the determinations in the final judgment.

Despite the fact that the trial court's order on temporary alimony violated the doctrine of the law of the case, the court had jurisdiction over the proceeding. This is so because the law of the case doctrine is not a rule of jurisdiction; instead it is a "rule[] of convenience designed to prevent repetitious law suits over matters which have once been decided and which have remained substantially static." City of Miami v. Bell, 606 So.2d 1183, 1185 (Fla. 1st DCA 1992)(quoting Wagner v. Baron, 64 So.2d 267 (Fla.1953) (internal quotations omitted), quashed in part on other grounds, 634 So.2d 163 (Fla. 1994)). Because the trial court had jurisdiction over the remand proceedings, no matter how erroneous or unreasonable, the temporary alimony order of the trial court was required to be obeyed until reversed or vacated. See Kaylor, 466 So.2d at 1254

. Although the order awarding temporary alimony could have been appealed under Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.130(a)(3)(C)(iii), the husband failed to appeal it. He was thus required to obey the order. That does not preclude, however, the husband from appealing the temporary order after proceedings are complete on the final judgment.³

We disagree with the wife's assertion, which she forwarded in the trial court in support of her broad discovery requests and which she urges in this court as a ground for affirming the temporary alimony award, that our instruction in Robbie I that "the court may review the other awards made in fashioning an appropriate result" opened up all issues relating to the dissolution action. With that direction, we did not authorize a new determination of factual issues already settled in the case. Nor would the parties be able to inject new issues into the action on remand. Our direction was no more than our recognition, frequently made in dissolution proceedings, of the trial court's discretion on remand:

With respect to the authority of the trial court on remand, we adopt the following principle announced by our sister court in Eagan v. Eagan, 392 So.2d 988, 990 (Fla. 5th DCA 1981):

In Canakaris v. Canakaris, 382 So.2d 1197, 1202 (Fla.1980), our Supreme Court observed that in a dissolution cases [sic] apportioning assets and providing necessary support are difficult problems and that the various procedural remedies which the trial court can use to solve these problems are interrelated and, from the trial judge's viewpoint, are generally all part of one overall scheme. It follows, therefore, that when a trial judge is found to be in error as to some aspect of his disposition the cause should be remanded with sufficient authority that he may again exercise broad discretion to modify the related matters within his original plan for division and support as may be necessary in order to do equity and justice between the parties in view of the changes required by the appellate opinion.

Goss v. Goss, 400 So.2d 518, 519 (Fla. 4th DCA 1981)(emphasis supplied).

On remand, the trial court was to determine the value of the husband's interest in the Miami Sports Corporation and what share of that interest the wife may be entitled to under equitable distribution principles. However, because we affirmed all support awards in Robbie I, the trial court was not free to determine that the wife was now entitled to permanent or temporary alimony for support.⁴ This is so because those types of alimony were not part of the trial court's "original plan for division and support." Goss, 400 So.2d at 519.

Aside from his jurisdictional arguments for reversal, the husband also urges that the trial court's entry of sanctions against him was error because there was a motion for recusal pending before the judge. After the hearing on the contempt motion, but before the entry of the written order, the husband filed a motion to recuse. The trial court did not enter an order denying it until after the order of contempt was entered. When a judge is presented with a motion for disqualification, he or she should immediately rule on the sufficiency of the motion prior to passing on any other matters pertaining to the same litigants. See Fuster-Escalona v. Wisotsky, 715 So.2d 1053, 1054 (Fla. 4th DCA 1998)

(trial court erred in passing on motion to dismiss for failure to prosecute while motion for recusal was pending); Loevinger v. Northrup, 624 So.2d 374, 375-76 (Fla. 1st DCA 1993)(when faced with a recusal motion, judge should resolve recusal motion before making any other rulings in case). While the wife correctly notes the exception that a trial judge may memorialize a prior oral order subsequent to the filing of a motion for recusal, see Fischer v. Knuck, 497 So.2d 240, 243 (Fla.1986), we cannot agree with the wife that the trial court had already ruled on the motion for contempt prior to the filing of the husband's recusal motion. The transcript of the...