Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Fifth District Affirms and Issues Sanctions Order On Own Motion

In Badgley v. SunTrust Mortgage (5D13-2500), the Fifth District affirmed the trial court's sanction order and, sua sponte, ordered "order Badgley and her attorney to pay, in equal amounts, the reasonable attorneys' fees and costs incurred by Appellees in this appeal, pursuant to section 57.105(1), Florida Statutes." There were a number of issues raised on appeal and are generally described below:
In her first issue, she baldly asserts that dismissing a complaint prior to discovery violates due process of law. The law is to the contrary.
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In her second and third issues, Badgley argues that the dismissal of her complaint with prejudice was error even though she had already amended the complaint once as a matter of right and her quiet title theory was legally unsupportable based on the alleged facts. She claimed her lenders created a cloud on her title by refusing to respond to her absurd demand of them to "prove" that she owed them money. Not only is there no legal basis to support such a claim, the attachments to the complaint clearly demonstrate, as Badgley later admitted, that she 'took a mortgage and got the money.'
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In her fourth issue, Badgley claims Appellees' fee motion below was untimely filed after the dismissal judgment even though Appellees' motion for sanctions was timely filed before the judgment awarding fees.
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Finally, Badgley disputes the sanction award even though similar complaints by plaintiffs represented by her attorney have been dismissed and have been the basis for sanctions.
In a footnote to the discussion of the second and third issue, the court described the claim that the lender created a cloud on title as follows: "Badgley sent Appellees a written demand to 'validate that an actual debt exists' by producing twenty-three separate categories of documents. The demand stated that if Appellees failed to produce the information requested in their next correspondence, they would 'be accepting my offer to provide pen pal services at $100,000.00 per correspondence.' It further notified Appellees that by 'failure to validate the alleged debt,"as demanded, they would tacitly agree to waive any and all claims against Badgley, would release her from any encumbrances clouding title to her property, and would be subject to a quiet title action.'" (Emphasis is mine).

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