Rawson v. UMLIC VP, LLC

933 So. 2d 1206, 2006 WL 1805602
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedJuly 3, 2006
Docket1D05-4482
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 933 So. 2d 1206 (Rawson v. UMLIC VP, LLC) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rawson v. UMLIC VP, LLC, 933 So. 2d 1206, 2006 WL 1805602 (Fla. Ct. App. 2006).

Opinion

933 So.2d 1206 (2006)

David W. RAWSON and Patricia S. Rawson, Appellants,
v.
UMLIC VP, L.L.C., Appellee.

No. 1D05-4482.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.

July 3, 2006.

*1207 Scott A. Remington and Gayle H. Cramer of Clark, Partington, Hart, Larry, Bond & Stackhouse, Pensacola, for Appellants.

Robert O. Beasley of Litvak, Beasley & Wilson, LLP, Pensacola, for Appellee.

ERVIN, J.

David W. Rawson and Patricia S. Rawson appeal from a final judgment denying them rescission of certain real estate contracts. They contend (1) that the lower court erred in refusing to grant the parties' joint motion for new trial and for disqualification of the trial judge by reason of its failure to render final judgment for a period of 18 months following trial, which impaired the court's ability as a fact-finder, and (2) that the lower court erred in concluding that the Rawsons were not entitled to rescission of the real estate contract, because, contrary to the lower court's finding, the parties' mutual mistake was material to the transaction, in that the undisputed evidence disclosed that UMLIC's failure of title affected 23.5 percent of the property it conveyed to the Rawsons. Because we conclude the parties' contractual agreements for the sale of the real estate allocated the risk of their mutual mistake as to the boundaries of the property to the Rawsons, we affirm the final judgment.

*1208 The facts preceding the conveyance of the disputed property reveal that the Rawsons' predecessors in title, John and Rebecca Neal, received a deed for nine parcels of real property in Escambia County, Florida, in 1995. A year thereafter, they obtained from the grantor a corrected warranty deed which added a 300-foot-wide strip of land, comprising 18 acres, to the property purchased, which had been omitted from their original deed. Thereafter, the Neals executed a mortgage on the property, which, in 2001, went into foreclosure, resulting in the mortgagee's assignee, appellee, UMLIC, VP, L.L.C., receiving a certificate of title to the property. The legal description attached to the mortgages and certificate of title, however, matched that in the original warranty deed, rather than in the corrected deed, excluding the 18-acre strip. In 2002, UMLIC offered the property, listing 14 separate parcels for sale by auction. The auction brochure described parcels three and five as including the 300-foot strip on their western boundaries, which the court below found UMLIC was unaware it did not own; moreover, UMLIC did not prepare a survey, other than a "site sale survey," which was not a legal survey. The site survey, labeled "VISUAL AID ONLY," also represented parcels three and five as including the additional 300-foot strip on their western boundaries and referred as well to the erroneous legal descriptions.

Appellants David and Patricia Rawson separately bid and purchased parcels three, four and five, believing they were all contiguous and that they contained a total of 76.5 acres. See diagram attached as Appendix. The Rawsons executed sales contracts for the three parcels and received a general warranty deed, containing the incorrect legal descriptions for parcels three and five. After the purchase of the property, a survey was prepared and the omitted strip of property was discovered, leading the Rawsons to seek rescission of the sales contracts and damages.

Trial was held on February 10, 2004. On August 5, 2005, the parties filed a joint motion for new trial and for disqualification of the judge, alleging that they believed the court's delay in rendering final judgment had been unreasonable, which would affect the court's ability to recall testimony introduced at trial. Additionally, they alleged that, under the circumstances, they did not believe the trial court could render a fair and impartial decision, because, if the case were retried before the same judge, an appearance of potential prejudice would arise due to his prior delay in rendering judgment. The lower court denied the motion for disqualification, finding that it did not state a legally sufficient reason for disqualification. It also denied the motion for new trial, concluding there was no need for another hearing, because the record contained sufficient evidence to enable it to enter a correct judgment. The court thereupon entered final judgment for UMLIC, rejecting the Rawsons' claims for rescission and breach of contract, concluding that, although the parties were both mistaken as to the amount of acreage to be conveyed, the breach of the contractual terms was not material because the Rawsons did not obtain legal descriptions or surveys of the parcels before making their bid, and, in any event, the contract assigned the risk of mistake to the Rawsons.[1]

*1209 Turning first to the Rawsons' contention that the lower court erred in denying their motion for disqualification, we agree the motion was correctly denied because it was legally insufficient. Florida Rule of Judicial Administration 2.160(d) permits disqualification based only upon a fear that a party will not receive a fair trial because of "prejudice or bias of the judge," or because the judge has an interest in the case. None of the cases appellants rely upon involve disqualification of a trial judge on the basis of a delay in issuing a ruling.

As for the trial court's denial of the parties' motion for new trial, we initially agree with appellants that an 18-month delay between the time of trial and a court's ruling is unreasonable. See Fla. R. Jud. Admin. 2.050(f) (requiring judges to rule on matters submitted to them "within a reasonable time"). We also agree that the final judgment contains factual inaccuracies, i.e., the findings therein that the evidence disclosed "the property was not auctioned by legal description," and "no legal description of the parcels [was] provided prior to bid." As appellants point out, UMLIC had prepared a Visual Aid of the property offered for sale, which was prominently displayed at the time of the auction, containing a diagram of the properties which showed parcels three, four and five as contiguous, and provided a legal description for all of the parcels.[2] Moreover, UMLIC distributed a sales pamphlet that included a drawing of the 14 parcels, and depicted parcels three, four and five as contiguously situated, which Dr. Rawson examined before bidding. Finally, paragraph 13 of the sales contract explicitly recited that a legal description for each parcel had been furnished.

Despite the inaccurate findings, we conclude they had no substantial effect on the judgment entered. The lower court otherwise found that the drawings of parcels three, four and five, which were based on the incorrect legal descriptions, depicted the parcels as "adjacent to one another." It further found that even if erroneous legal descriptions were not provided to the Rawsons, the deeds contained the incorrect descriptions and became part of the contracts for sale, thereby indicating the lower court concluded the purchasers were furnished the descriptions before the completion of the sale. As recognized in Ascontec Consulting, Inc. v. Young, 714 So.2d 585, 587 (Fla. 3d DCA 1998), reversal due to a delay between an evidentiary hearing and the entry of a written order "typically involves a combination of delay plus an indication that something is seriously amiss on the merits." Accord Reis v. Reis, 739 So.2d 704 (Fla. 3d DCA 1999).

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Bluebook (online)
933 So. 2d 1206, 2006 WL 1805602, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rawson-v-umlic-vp-llc-fladistctapp-2006.