Armando Gutierrez v. Caridad Gutierrez

• Court: District Court of Appeal of Florida
• Decided: August 28, 2024
• Docket: 2023-1434
• Status: Published

Opinion

Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida

Opinion filed August 28, 2024. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

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No. 3D23-1434 Lower Tribunal No. 20-3640 ________________

Armando Gutierrez, Appellant,

vs.

Caridad Gutierrez, Appellee.

An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Victoria Del Pino, Judge.

Bofill Law Group, and Jose C. Bofill, for appellant.

Carolan Family Law Firm, P.A., and Aliette H. Carolan, for appellee.

Before SCALES, MILLER, and BOKOR, JJ.

PER CURIAM. Armando Gutierrez (“Husband”) appeals a May 9, 2023 final judgment

dissolving his forty-year marriage to Caridad Gutierrez (“Wife”). Husband

raises several issues on appeal, but we find that one issue – the failure to

join as a party the limited liability company that owns the Islamorada, Florida

house that the trial court ordered be sold to pay Wife’s lump-sum permanent

alimony award – requires reversal.

After conducting a two-day bench trial, the trial court found that the

Islamorada house, deeded from Husband to Plaza del Lugo, LLC (“LLC”) in

November 2012, was marital property. The trial court also found that Wife

was entitled to permanent alimony1 of $2,500 per month, based on its

determination of Husband’s monthly income as $5,095.83 per month. The

trial court also found that Wife was entitled to a lump-sum alimony payment

of $640,200, a discounted total calculated by multiplying Wife’s life

expectancy times her monthly permanent alimony payments. The trial court

ordered the LLC, which had not been joined as a party to the dissolution

proceedings, to sell the Islamorada house to pay Wife’s lump-sum

permanent alimony payment.

1 The trial court’s final judgment pre-dated the effective date of the Florida Legislature’s 2023 abolition of permanent alimony.

2 While, on appeal, Husband challenges all of the trial court’s factual

findings recited above, we need not, and do not, address those findings

because, as a jurisdictional matter, the trial court was without power or

authority to order the LLC to sell the Islamorada house. Ehman v. Ehman,

156 So. 3d 7, 8 (Fla. 3d DCA 2014). Because the sale of the Islamorada

house was an essential component of both the trial court’s equitable

distribution and alimony awards, we are compelled to reverse those findings

as well. Ehman, 156 So. 3d at 8-9; see Nelson v. Nelson, 206 So. 3d 818,

822 (Fla. 2d DCA 2016) (“Because our decision affects the overall equitable

distribution scheme, we remand with instructions for the trial court to address

the equitable distribution and alimony determinations anew. We express

neither an opinion as to equitable distribution upon remand nor as to

entitlement, if any, to alimony upon remand. We leave those determinations

to the sound discretion of the trial court. We affirm the trial court’s dissolution

of the parties’ marriage.”) (citation omitted); Feldman v. Feldman, 390 So. 2d

1231, 1232 (Fla. 3d DCA 1980) (holding that the trial court, in a dissolution

of marriage proceeding, was not empowered to transfer assets of a

corporation to the wife because the corporation was not a party to the

proceeding).

3 Thus, we affirm the trial court’s dissolution of the parties’ marriage but

reverse those portions of the final judgment of dissolution regarding the sale

of the Islamorada house, equitable distribution, and permanent alimony, and

remand for the trial court to conduct further proceedings it deems appropriate

that are not inconsistent with this opinion.

Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded with instructions.