Sweetwater Country Club Homeowners' Ass'n, Inc. v. Huskey Co., 92-387

• Decision Date: 19 February 1993
• Docket Number: No. 92-387,92-387
• Citation: 613 So.2d 936
• Parties: 18 Fla. L. Week. D524 SWEETWATER COUNTRY CLUB HOMEOWNERS' ASSOCIATION, INC., Appellant, v. The HUSKEY COMPANY, et al., Appellees.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 936

613 So.2d 936

18 Fla. L. Week. D524

SWEETWATER COUNTRY CLUB HOMEOWNERS' ASSOCIATION, INC. Appellant, v. The HUSKEY COMPANY, et al., Appellees.

No. 92-387.

District Court of Appeal of Florida Fifth District.

Feb. 19, 1993.

David H. Simmons of Drage Debeaubien Knight & Simmons, Orlando, for appellant.

H.C. Goplerud of Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn, Tampa, and Donald J. Curotto of Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn, Orlando, for appellee, The Huskey Co.

Kenneth M. Clayton and Peter R. McGrath of Clayton & McCulloh, Orlando, for appellee, Sweetwater Oaks Homeowners' Ass'n, Inc.

PETERSON, Judge.

Sweetwater Country Club Homeowners' Association, Inc. (Country Club), appeals the denial of its motion to intervene ¹ in a dispute involving the ownership of recreation areas which historically had been used by Country Club's members and the members of two other communities. We hold that the denial was error.

Huskey Corporation (Huskey) developed the Sweetwater Oaks development in Seminole and Orange Counties which consists of three contiguous but separate communities. Each community has a separate homeowners association named after it: Appellant (Country Club), Sweetwater Oaks Homeowners' Association, Inc. (Oaks), and Sweetwater Club Homeowners' Association, Inc. (Club). While the communities each have recreation areas within their boundaries owned by their respective associations, the members of the three associations, Country Club contends, have been enjoying the recreational use of three valuable parcels of property owned solely by Huskey: (1) a beach on Lake Brantley; (2) In March 1990, Oaks sued Huskey and its principal, E. Everette Huskey, alleging that on April 1, 1989, Huskey relinquished developer control of the board of directors of its association to its members but failed to fulfill its obligation to transfer the recreation areas. Huskey contended that both ownership and continued use of the areas should be shared by all three associations.

a tennis complex; and (3) facilities on the Wekiva River (recreation areas). The record does not show how or whether Huskey formalized by documentation the manner in which these three associations or their members would be permitted to use the recreation areas and share in the expense of upkeep, or who would eventually gain ownership. It appears that Huskey instituted an informal method of collecting contributions from members of the three associations to pay the expenses of operating the areas and that this has somehow worked without controversy for many years.

Huskey attempted to bring declaratory judgment and interpleader actions and sought to join the other two associations as indispensable parties and as third party defendants, but all of those attempts resulted in dismissals.

Club and Country Club then moved to intervene in the action initially filed by Oaks, alleging a right to use the recreational areas, that the recreational areas were not shown within the boundaries of any of the associations or plats of the subdivisions, and that members of all three associations had been using the recreation areas and had been assessed by each of the respective associations for upkeep. The motions to intervene were denied. Subsequently, a summary final judgment was entered which vested title to the recreation areas in Oaks subject to any rights or claims the other two associations may have although the latter were not parties to that action. ²

The trial court stated its reasons for denying intervention: (1) The motions for intervention were untimely and would cause substantial delay, and discovery would have to be reopened; (2) the intervenors were seeking to inject new matters that would cause delay; (3) the intervenors were alleging use rights rather than ownership rights in the property, and their right to assert entitlement to use of the property could not be prejudiced by the final judgment; and (4) the documents attached to the motions to intervene failed to show standing to assert their claims in the property.

TIMELINESS OF MOTIONS TO INTERVENE

Oaks filed its original complaint in March 1990. In September 1991, Huskey filed its second amended counterclaim. Club and Country Club also filed their motions to intervene in September 1991. The proceedings were still in the pleading stage, and no pretrial conference or trial date had been set. Oaks had not yet filed its motion for summary judgment, and, although the order disallowing intervention indicated that discovery would have to be reopened, nothing in the record we have examined indicates that discovery had ever been closed.

Oaks supports the order of denial by citing Hatcher v. Roberts, 478 So.2d 1083 (Fla. 1st DCA 1985), review denied, 488 So.2d 68 (Fla.1986). There, a motion to intervene was found to be untimely when it was filed one day before a hearing on a motion for summary judgment when the latter motion was filed three months before the hearing. When the motions to intervene were filed in the instant case, no motion for summary judgment had been filed. Most of the Florida cases denying intervention as untimely involved motions filed after final judgment was entered. Lewis v. Turlington, 499 So.2d 905 (Fla. 1st DCA 1986). See De Anza Corp. v. Hollywood Estates Homeowners Ass'n, Inc., 443 So.2d 462 (Fla. 4th DCA 1984); While Oaks had filed its suit approximately eighteen months earlier, the record indicates that it had not progressed past the pleading stage, and, had the motion to intervene been granted, the order would not have delayed any hearing since none had been scheduled. We also note that, by disallowing the intervention, two proceedings, rather than one, were required. The second suit involved all of the parties to the first suit, in addition to those who sought to intervene in that suit.

Boca Development Associates Ltd. v. Holiday City Civic Ass'n, Inc., 411 So.2d 343 (Fla. 4th DCA 1982); Maryland Casualty Co. v. Hanson Dredging, Inc., 393 So.2d 595 (Fla. 4th DCA 1981); Wong v. Von Wersebe, 365 So.2d 429 (Fla. 3d DCA 1978). In National Wildlife Federation, Inc., v. Glisson, 531 So.2d 996 (Fla. 1st DCA 1988), a motion to intervene filed twenty-three months after initiation of a suit was allowed when the...