ROBERT L. HALL, APPELLANT,
v.
CITY OF POMPANO BEACH, BARRY KUHNLY AND MICHAEL MCLAIN, APPELLEES
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The court held that the trial court erred in awarding attorney's fees under Section 57.105 because the circumstances did not meet the strict legal test for such awards.
Appellant sued appellees for intentional torts arising from an arrest that was eventually dismissed. The trial court directed verdicts for the appelle…
The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.
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PER CURIAM.
We affirm the judgments and orders of the trial court in all respects but one. We find no error in the trial court’s action in directing verdicts for the appellees upon the trial of the multiple intentional tort actions brought by the appellant, Robert L. Hall, arising out of his prior arrest on charges that were eventually dismissed. However, we reverse the award of attorney’s fees under Section 57.105, Florida Statutes (1983).
Upon the evidence presented the trial court found that probable cause for the arrest of Hall was established as a matter of law and that the proof also failed on each claim with reference to the allegations of willfulness, malice or intent. We find no harmful error in the trial court’s exclusion of the testimony of appellant’s police procedures expert on the issue of probable cause, because we believe the evidence supports the trial court’s ruling on the probable cause issue notwithstanding the expert’s opinion. In other words, under the facts of this case the trial judge was obligated to grant the motions for directed verdict because the relevant facts pertaining to certain essential elements of the alleged torts were not in dispute. Cf City of Pensacola v. Owens, 369 So. 2d 328 (Fla. 1979).
We disapprove of the trial court’s award of attorney’s fees to appellees under section 57.105 because we do not believe the circumstances here meet the strict test laid down in the case law to justify such awards. Whitten v. Progressive Casualty Insurance Co., 410 So. 2d 501 (Fla.1982) and Allen v. Estate of Dutton, 384 So. 2d 171 (Fla. 5th DCA 1980).
Accordingly, we affirm in all respects except that we direct the trial court to vacate the attorney’s fees award in accord with the above opinion.
ANSTEAD, J., BARKETT, ROSEMARY, and HURLEY, DANIEL T.K., Associate Judges, concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
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McLAIN v. Hall, 521 So. 2d 190 (Fla. 4th DCA 1988)…vor is the predicate upon which McLain brought this suit. Although the final judgment in that case had been affirmed on the merits, the award of attorney’s fees under section 57.105, Florida Statutes had been reversed. Hall v. City of Pompano Beach, 487 So. 2d 318 (Fla. 4th DCA 1986). The trial court viewed the reversal of the attorney’s fee award to McLain as a determination by this court that Hall had acted with probable cause in bringing his suit initially. That construction of this court’s opinion in Hall…
Authorities Cited
- Whitten v. Progressive Cas. Ins. Co., 410 So. 2d 501 (Fla. 1982)
- Carola D. Allen v. Est. of Ellen C. Dutton, 384 So. 2d 171 (Fla. 5th DCA 1980)
- City OF Pensacola v. Kiplan Carlyle Owens, 369 So. 2d 328 (Fla. 1979)