TERRELL KING vs FARAH & FARAH, P.A., EDDIE E. FARAH, AND CHARLIE E. FARAH

• Court: District Court of Appeal of Florida
• Decided: April 6, 2023
• Docket: 23-0020
• Status: Published

Opinion

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA FIFTH DISTRICT

NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE MOTION FOR REHEARING AND DISPOSITION THEREOF IF FILED

TERRELL KING,

Appellant, Case No. 5D23-20 v. LT Case No. 2014-CA-001683

FARAH & FARAH, P.A., EDDIE E. FARAH, AND CHARLIE E. FARAH,

Appellees.

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Opinion filed April 6, 2023

Appeal from Circuit Court for Duval County, Bruce R. Anderson, Jr., Judge.

Kara Rockenbach Link and Daniel M. Schwarz, of Link & Rockenbach, PA, West Palm Beach, and Carlos R. Diaz-Arguelles and Maria D. Tejedor, of Diaz-Arguelles & Tejedor, P.A., Orlando, for Appellant.

Michael R. D’Lugo, of Wicker Smith O’Hara McCoy & Ford, P.A., Orlando, and Richard E. Ramsey, of Wicker Smith O’Hara McCoy & Ford, P.A., Jacksonville, for Appellees. PER CURIAM.

This case involves a claim of legal malpractice related to an underlying

negligent security action for which Terrell King claims he sought legal

representation from the law firm of Farah and Farah. The trial court granted

the law firm’s motion for final summary judgment, adopting verbatim the

proposed order the law firm submitted. King raises several issues on appeal,

some of which go to the substantive merits of whether the motion should

have been granted. We do not address and take no position on these issues

because we agree with King’s overarching argument that the trial court’s

wholesale adoption of the law firm’s forty-page proposed order under the

specific circumstances of this case does not show independent judicial

analysis, thereby requiring reversal.

In Perlow v. Berg-Perlow, 875 So. 2d 383 (Fla. 2004), the Florida

Supreme Court held that the verbatim adoption of one party’s twenty-five

page proposed final judgment created an appearance that the trial judge did

not exercise independent judgment. In doing so, it considered a number of

factors that are relevant in making this determination, such as the length and

detail of the proposal, whether the parties were given an opportunity to object

to each other’s submissions, how long it took for the trial judge to adopt the

proposal, and whether the trial judge made findings of fact and conclusions

2 of law on the record to guide the parties’ preparation of their respective

submissions. Id. at 389−90.

Here, the forty-page final summary judgment is lengthy and factually

and legally detailed, which would require substantial time and effort for

judicial review. Adoption of such a detailed order, by itself, does not mandate

reversal, however, because the trial court took over six months from the

summary judgment hearing1 to enter and file the judgment for disposition,

providing more than adequate time for review, reflection, and modifications;

in contrast, in Perlow, the trial judge took just two hours to adopt the

proposal. But the trial judge made no changes whatsoever to the proposed

order, which had been submitted in an editable format, suggesting a lack of

independent review. Confirming this point is that the order cites the wrong

standard for summary judgment and had some language that could be

interpreted as overly harsh and injudicious.

More importantly, the trial judge specifically instructed the parties to

not allow one another to see their proposals (“I don’t want [your proposed

orders] sent to each other. They’re going to come directly to my judicial

1 We note that the trial court may have taken less time due to its resolution of a pending motion to strike post-hearing evidence, which was granted and then followed soon thereafter by entry of the proposed order; but even with six full months of potential judicial review, reversal is required for the reasons stated elsewhere in this opinion.

3 assistant. I don’t want you all responding to each other’s proposed

orders.”) (emphasis added). As was stated in Perlow, appellate courts

understand and appreciate the fact that a trial judge in these often complex and multi-issue dissolution cases can benefit from proposed findings and conclusions prepared by the parties. Such proposals can serve as a starting point and reminder of the facts and issues that should be considered and weighed by the judge in his or her own evaluation.

875 So. 2d at 389.

That said, it warrants emphasis that “such submissions cannot

substitute for a thoughtful and independent analysis of the facts, issues, and

law by the trial judge.” Id. at 390. As the supreme court stated in Perlow:

When the trial judge accepts verbatim a proposed final judgment submitted by one party without an opportunity for comments or objections by the other party, there is an appearance that the trial judge did not exercise his or her independent judgment in the case. This is especially true when the judge has made no findings or conclusions on the record that would form the basis for the party’s proposed final judgment. This type of proceeding is fair to neither the parties involved in a particular case nor our judicial system.

Id. (footnote omitted). Because the trial judge adopted the law firm’s

proposed order word for word, without allowing objection by King’s counsel,

and made no factual findings or legal conclusions to guide the parties in

preparing their orders, we conclude that independent judgment does not

appear to have been exercised as Perlow and our precedent require. See,

e.g., West v. West, 228 So. 3d 727, 728–29 (Fla. 5th DCA 2017) (“The

4 appearance of impropriety exists when the trial judge adopts verbatim one

party’s one-sided final judgment, especially where the judge did not orally

announce findings or rulings during or at the end of trial.”). We therefore

reverse and remand for further consideration to include a “thoughtful and

independent analysis of the facts, issues, and law by the trial judge.” Perlow,

875 So. 2d at 390.

REVERSED AND REMANDED.

MAKAR, EDWARDS and HARRIS, JJ., concur.