Robins v. Colombo

• Decision Date: 08 August 2018
• Docket Number: No. 3D18-714,3D18-714
• Citation: 253 So.3d 94
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals
• Parties: Craig ROBINS, Petitioner, v. Ugo COLOMBO and CMC Group, Inc., Respondents.

253 So.3d 94

Craig ROBINS, Petitioner,

v.Ugo COLOMBO and CMC Group, Inc., Respondents.

No. 3D18-714

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.

Opinion filed August 8, 2018

Richard & Richard, P.A., and Dennis Richard, Laurel W. Marc-Charles, and Douglas J. Giuliano ; Ross & Girten, and Lauri Waldman Ross and Theresa L. Girten, Miami, for petitioner.

Coffey Burlington, P.L., and Jeffrey B. Crockett and Kendall B. Coffey, Miami, for respondents.

Before LAGOA, EMAS and FERNANDEZ, JJ.

EMAS, J.

PetitionerCraig Robins has filed a petition seeking certiorari relief from the trial court's order granting Respondents' motion to amend to assert a claim for punitive damages pursuant to section 768.72(1), Florida Statutes(2018).That subsection provides in pertinent part: "In any civil action, no claim for punitive damages shall be permitted unless there is a reasonable showing by evidence in the record or proffered by the claimant which would provide a reasonable basis for recovery of such damages."Petitioner raises a number of claims in his petition, but we conclude they are without merit or are beyond our limited scope of review.

As a general rule, a petitioner seeking certiorari relief must establish that the trial court's nonfinal order "departs from the essential requirements of law and thus causes material injury to the petitioner throughout the remainder of the proceedings, effectively leaving no adequate remedy on appeal."Allstate Ins. Co. v. Langston, 655 So.2d 91, 95(Fla.1995);Robles v. Baptist Health South Florida, Inc., 197 So.3d 1196, 1199(Fla. 3d DCA2016).In applying this standard of review to an order granting leave to amend a complaint to add a claim for punitive damages, we limit our review to whether the procedural requirements of section 768.72 have been followed.

Globe Newspaper Co. v. King, 658 So.2d 518(Fla.1995);SAP Am., Inc. v. Royal Flowers, Inc., 187 So.3d 946(Fla. 3d DCA2016).As we acknowledged in SAP, 187 So.3d at 946, "an appellate court lacks certiorari jurisdiction to review the sufficiency of the evidence considered by the trial court in granting leave to amend the complaint to add a claim for punitive damages."See alsoGlobe, 658 So.2d at 520(finding that certiorari may not be granted to review a trial judge's determination of the sufficiency of the ultimate facts pleading a claim for punitive damages).Moreover, this court is not permitted to reweigh a trial court's finding of a sufficient evidentiary basis for a punitive damages claim, and "such a finding could not be disturbed, or even evaluated on certiorari review."Espirito Santo Bank v. Rego, 990 So.2d 1088, 1091(Fla. 3d DCA2007).

Applying our narrow standard and scope of review, we find that Petitioner has not demonstrated that the trial court failed to comply with the procedural requirements of section 768.72.The record establishes that Respondents' motion to amend contained a proffer and referred to and relied upon testimony, answers to interrogatories, and exhibits attached to his motion.Further, the trial court order granting the motion to amend was, consistent with section 768.72(1), based upon "a reasonable showing by evidence in the record or proffered by the claimant."We conclude that Petitioner's remaining arguments on this point focus on the sufficiency of the evidence rather than compliance with the procedural requirements of section 768.72 which, as discussed earlier, is beyond this court's authority to review on certiorari.SeeTRG Desert Inn Venture, Ltd. v. Berezovsky, 194 So.3d 516, 520(Fla. 3d DCA2016)(holding that even if appellate court might find that no independent tort has been alleged, "restraints on our certiorari jurisdiction prevent us from quashing the trial court's order on [that] basis.")

Petitioner also claims that the trial court failed to afford him an adequate hearing before ruling on the motion to amend.The hearing was specially set for thirty minutes, and was noticed to address Respondents' motion to amend as well as Petitioner's motion for summary judgment.Although it is true that the hearing on the motion to amend lasted only a short time, the trial court did not preclude or prohibit Petitioner from making any argument it wished to make in opposition to the motion to amend.Nor did Petitioner lodge any objection to the court's procedure or assert at the hearing that it was in any way foreclosed from presenting argument in opposition to the motion to amend.Instead, it appears from a review of the hearing transcript that Petitioner decided to "keep his powder dry" to await argument on his summary judgment motion that immediately followed, believing that a favorable ruling on summary judgment would render moot Respondents' request to amend the complaint.We conclude that the trial court complied with Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.190(f)¹ by holding a hearing at which Petitioner was afforded a reasonable and meaningful opportunity to be heard on the merits of Respondents' motion to amend.

Finally, Petitioner asserts that certiorari relief is appropriate because Respondents failed to attach to their motion the proposed amended pleading, and instead proposed to amend the complaint by interlineation.Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.190(a) provides: "If a party files a motion to amend...