Richard Meruelo v. Maria C. Meruelo

• Court: District Court of Appeal of Florida
• Decided: December 18, 2024
• Docket: 3D2023-0617
• Status: Published

Opinion

Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida

Opinion filed December 18, 2024. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

________________

Nos. 3D23-0617 & 3D23-0676 Lower Tribunal No. 19-18029 ________________

Richard Meruelo, et al., Appellants,

vs.

Maria C. Meruelo, Appellee.

Appeals from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, George A. Sarduy, Judge.

Law Offices of Geoffrey B. Marks, and Geoffrey B. Marks (Vero Beach), for appellant Richard Meruelo; Dorta Law, and Matias R. Dorta, for appellant PNTRX, LLC.

Rafool, PLLC, and Raymond J. Rafool and Seth J. Rutman and Kaylin R. Cohen; Ehrenstein Sager, and Brett D. Sager, for appellee.

Before EMAS, FERNANDEZ and BOKOR, JJ.

PER CURIAM. In these consolidated cases, former husband Richard Meruelo and

PNTRX, LLC appeal orders enforcing a partial marital settlement. The trial

court found that Mr. Meruelo improperly sold his interest in the marital home

to PNTRX, a company controlled by his mother, while foreclosure

proceedings were pending and attempted to then redeem the property by

depositing the sale proceeds into the court registry. Thus, the court ruled that

the sale proceeds were subject to distribution and denied PNTRX’s motion

to intervene and stay disbursement of those funds.

While these appeals were pending, this Court affirmed as to Mr.

Meruelo’s appeal of an order in the related foreclosure case finding that he

had sold the property to PNTRX and could not redeem the property because

the winning bidder had become the owner by the time of the supposed

redemption. See Meruelo v. Pine Tree Dev., LLC, No. 3D23-0457, 2024 WL

4280619 (Fla. 3d DCA Sep. 25, 2024). This ruling resolved the issues of both

the validity of the redemption and the underlying foreclosure judgment and

sale.

We asked the parties for supplemental briefing to address the impact

of the decision in Meruelo on the remaining appeals. Specifically, we asked

“whether the affirmance in 3D2023-0457 moots or otherwise resolves the

2 salient legal issues raised” in the remaining appeals. “An issue is moot when

the controversy has been so fully resolved that a judicial determination can

have no actual effect,” and “[a] case is ‘moot’ when it presents no actual

controversy or when the issues have ceased to exist.” Godwin v. State, 593

So. 2d 211, 212 (Fla. 1992); see also Montgomery v. Dep’t of Health &

Rehab. Servs., 468 So. 2d 1014, 1016 (Fla. 1st DCA 1985) (“A case

becomes moot, for purposes of appeal, where, by a change of circumstances

prior to the appellate decision, an intervening event makes it impossible for

the court to grant a party any effectual relief. Mootness can be raised by the

appellate court on its own motion.” (citation omitted)). “A moot case generally

will be dismissed.” Godwin, 593 So. 2d at 212.

We have reviewed the parties’ arguments on these appeals and the

supplemental briefing and find the salient issues sufficiently resolved by our

prior affirmance of the foreclosure order. As it pertains to the consolidated

appeals addressed herein, the fact that this court affirmed the propriety of

the foreclosure sale either renders the appeals here moot, or, alternatively,

renders the decisions on appeal eminently reasonable considering such

determination affirming the propriety of the foreclosure. See, e.g., Merrick

Park, LLC v. Garcia, 299 So. 3d 1096, 1103 (Fla. 3d DCA 2019) (setting forth

the abuse of discretion standard to review a motion to intervene).

3 Accordingly, we dismiss any issue arising from the propriety of the

foreclosure sale as moot and to the extent Mr. Meruelo or PNTRX make any

argument not directly mooted by the above-referenced affirmance in

Meruelo, we affirm without further discussion.

Affirmed in part, dismissed in part.