MOLLIE ZWEIG, APPELLANT,
v.
II VILLAGGIO CONDOMINIUM ASSOCIATION, INC., APPELLEE
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A unit owner sought an injunction to prevent a condominium association from approving a neighboring unit owner's application to combine two units. The trial court granted summary judgment against the unit owner on ripeness grounds, and the appellate court affirmed, holding that the lawsuit was premature because no application had yet been filed.
The lawsuit was not ripe because it was based on speculative future harm. The claim that the unit owner might be harmed if an application is filed and subsequently approved is too attenuated to support judicial intervention. If an application is ultimately filed and unlawfully approved, sufficient legal and equitable remedies will exist to address any potential harm.
[1] A claim is not ripe for adjudication when it is based on speculative future events that may not occur.
[2] A lawsuit seeking to prevent a condominium association from approving a unit combination is premature when no application for such combination has been filed.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“the claim that the unit owner might be harmed if an application is filed, and if the application is granted, is too attenuated to support a lawsuit”
Establishes that speculative, contingent harm is insufficient to satisfy the ripeness requirement for judicial review
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceThe condominium association's board permitted a neighboring unit owner's engineer to preliminarily test a concrete slab to determine if combining two …
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In the case below, the appellant unit owner filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction to require the appellee condominium association to “refrain from approving the vertical unit combination” of two units of a neighboring owner. The trial court entered summary judgment against her because her lawsuit was not ripe. We affirm.
Although the condominium association’s board allowed the neighboring unit owner’s engineer to preliminarily test a concrete slab to determine if combining the units was structurally feasible, no application for permission to combine the units had been filed. As the case stood at the time of summary judgment, therefore, the application to combine the units may ultimately not be filed. If filed, the application may not be approved, and if unlawfully approved, sufficient legal and equitable remedies will exist to address any potential harm to the appellant unit owner. In these circumstances, the claim that the unit owner might be harmed if an application is filed, and if the application is granted, is too attenuated to support a lawsuit. See Condos. on Intracoastal Ass’n, Inc. v. Barnett Bank of Palm Beach Cty., 502 So.2d 84, 86 (Fla. 4th DCA 1987) (suit to bar association from conducting a meeting to consider amendment to declaration of condominium was premature because the “record contains no evidence to support a finding that the members of the condominium association will in fact pass the amendment”). See generally, Hernandez v. Bd. of Comm’rs of Hillsborough Cty., 114 Fla. 219, 153 So. 790, 791 (1934) (“Mere allegations that a board of county commissioners is threatening to pass resolutions or edicts which, if passed, will be unlawful or ineffective, constitute no ground for in-junctive interference with the preliminary internal functioning of the county board.”).
Affirmed.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Authorities Cited
- Hernandez v. Bd. of Cnty. Comm'rs of Hillsborough Cnty., 114 Fla. 219 (Fla. 1934)
- Whitaker v. Pizza HUT & State of Fla., 502 So. 2d 84 (Fla. 4th DCA 1987)