C. F. BLOOMHUFF
v.
THE MIAMI JOCKEY CLUB, INC.

Fla. | 1942-04-14
WHITFIELD, TERRELL, BUFORD and ADAMS, JJ., concur., BROWN, C.J., CHAPMAN and THOMAS, JJ., concur in conclusion.
150 Fla. 411 Florida Supreme Court (1942) Caution
Also reported at: 7 So. 2d 447
Cited by 5 cases

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Synopsis

Plaintiff took a non-suit in Circuit Court, then filed an identical action in Civil Court of Record with reduced damages. The Miami Jockey Club sought to stay the Civil Court proceedings until plaintiff paid the prior judgment for costs. The Florida Supreme Court reversed the Circuit Court's issuance of a writ of certiorari quashing the Civil Court's order denying the stay, holding the Circuit Court abused its discretion in issuing the writ.


Holding

The Circuit Court abused its discretion in issuing the writ of certiorari. The Civil Court's order denying the stay was a discretionary order reviewable only upon a showing of abuse of discretion, and no such abuse was demonstrated by the record. The uncontested affidavit filed in the Civil Court was sufficient to support its decision.


Key Quotes

“the authority to issue the writ of certiorari to review an interlocutory order entered by a Circuit Court in a law cause was within the sound judicial discretion of this Court, where the order attacked was entered without authority or the essential requirements of the law were violated, causing material injury, and no other adequate appellate review is afforded by law”

Establishes the standard for when certiorari may be used to review interlocutory orders in law cases

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Facts & Procedural History

Plaintiff filed suit against Miami Jockey Club in Circuit Court, but took a non-suit before trial after objections to interrogatories were sustained, …

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Opinion of the Court
PER CURIAM:

PER CURIAM:

On February 28, 1941, plaintiff in error, plaintiff below, took a non-suit in the Circuit Court of Dade County in an action at law against the Miami Jockey Club. A judgment in favor of defendant for costs was rendered in the sum of $284.00. The non-suit was requested before trial had commenced, but, after objections to certain interrogatories made by the plaintiff had been sustained, without the answers to which, he asserts, it would have been useless for him to have gone to trial.

On March 3, 1941, plaintiff filed suit in the Civil Court of Record of Dade County on the identical cause *412of action and against the same defendant, claiming damages sufficiently reduced from the amount formerly claimed to give the Civil Court of Record jurisdiction. Defendant moved the Court to stay the proceedings until the judgment for costs of the Circuit Court in the previous action had been satisfied. Execution on said judgment had been returned nulla bona. An affidavit of plaintiff’s counsel certified that the action was not vexatiously brought, that plaintiff was without funds to pay the outstanding judgment for costs and recited the facts preceding the taking of the non-suit in the previous action. Defendant’s motion to stay the proceedings was denied and the cause was ordered to proceed.

Defendant thereupon petitioned the Circuit Court of Dade County for a writ of certiorari directed to the order of the Civil Court of Record denying defendant’s motion to stay proceedings until the payment of the judgment for costs. On July 1, 1941, the Circuit Court granted the writ and entered an order quashing the order of the Civil Court of Record until the judgment for costs had been paid.

Plaintiff then petitioned this Court for a writ of certiorari to review the order of the Circuit Court. An order was entered here that the proceedings in this Court on certiorari would be considered as if proceedings by writ of error. The cause is now before the Court on an appeal at law by writ of error from the orders of the Circuit Court on certiorari to the Civil Court of Record.

In the recent case of Kilgore v. Bird (opinion filed Feb. 24, 1942) it was held that the authority to issue the writ of certiorari to review an interlocutory order entered by a Circuit Court in a law cause was within *413the sound judicial discretion of this Court, where the order attacked was entered without authority or the essential requirements of the law were violated, causing material injury, and no other adequate appellate review is afforded by law. This holding affords relief in those extraordinary cases where the remedy guaranteed by Sec. 4, Declaration of Rights, Constitution of Florida, for injury done a person in his lands, goods, person or reputation is insufficiently afforded by the more common form of procedure. The Supreme Court has not only the right but the duty in its discretion to afford this relief by common law writ of certiorari where none other is sufficient, even in reviewing interlocutory orders at law.

It need not here be determined whether the ruling in the Kilgore case applies to the Circuit Courts in the exercise of their appellate jurisdiction so that they may issue the common law writ of certiorari, within their discretion, to review an interlocutory order of a Civil Court of Record where that order is without authority or the essential requirements of the law have been violated, causing an injury for which no other adequate review is afforded. Here the issuance of the writ by the Circuit Court was an abuse of any discretionary power it may have. The order sought to be reviewed by the writ of certiorari was itself a discretionary order subject to review by a superior court only on a showing of abuse of discretion. State ex rel. Larkin v. Bird, 145 Fla. 477, 199 So. 758. No such abuse of discretion by the Civil Court of Record is here shown. An uncontested affidavit was filed in that court denying that the suit was vexatiously brought and asserting that the plaintiff was unable to pay the existing judgment for costs. It is true that this affida*414vit was made by plaintiff’s attorney rather than by plaintiff himself, but this alone is not sufficient to entitle the Circuit Court, or this Court, to condemn the action of the Civil Court of Record which had all the facts before it, as an abuse of discretion under the facts shown by the record.

The orders of the Circuit Court on writ of certiorari should therefore be reversed.

So ordered.

WHITFIELD, TERRELL, BUFORD and ADAMS, JJ., concur.

BROWN, C.J., CHAPMAN and THOMAS, JJ., concur in conclusion.

CHAPMAN, J.,

concurring in conclusion only:

In the case of Kilgore v. Bird, filed February 24, 1942, and cited in the case at bar, I was unable to agree thereto, because the scope of the functions of the writ of certiorari was so extended as to exceed the previous holdings of this Court in such matters. I joined in a dissenting opinion prepared by Mr. Justice Brown, in which I dissented to an extension of the rule on the theory that the extension was not supported by the previous decisions of this Court. While I cannot agree to the opinion in the case at bar, I do agree to the conclusion reached.

Concurrence
CHAPMAN, J.,

CHAPMAN, J.,

concurring in conclusion only:

In the case of Kilgore v. Bird, filed February 24, 1942, and cited in the case at bar, I was unable to agree thereto, because the scope of the functions of the writ of certiorari was so extended as to exceed the previous holdings of this Court in such matters. I joined in a dissenting opinion prepared by Mr. Justice Brown, in which I dissented to an extension of the rule on the theory that the extension was not supported by the previous decisions of this Court. While I cannot agree to the opinion in the case at bar, I do agree to the conclusion reached.

Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • Patten v. Daoud, 152 Fla. 448 (Fla. 1943)
    …orders in this manner. Ulsch v. Mountain City Mill Co., 103 Fla. 932, 138 So. 483; Midland Motor Car Company v. Willys-Overland, Inc., 101 Fla. 837, 132 So. 692; Kilgore v. Bird, et al., 149 Fla. 570, 6 So. (2nd) 541; Bloomhuff v. Miami Jockey Club, 150 Fla. 411, 7 So. (2nd) 447. These cases are different from the case at bar in that they involve instances in which the trial court proceeded contrary to the essential requirements of law or departed from substantial legal requirements, and review by certiora…
  • Bernhart v. Peebles, 153 Fla. 431 (Fla. 1943)
    …is possible without doing violence to any of the rights of the litigants or to a logical interpretation of that Act.” If the same strain of justice is administered in the case at bar as was done in the case of Bloomhuff v. Miami Jockey Club, Inc., 150 Fla. 411, 7 So. (2nd) 477, then the motion to dismiss will be denied and the appeal perfected here heard in an orderly manner on its merits. I think the motion to dismiss should be denied under the authority of Bloomhuff v. Miami Jockey Club, Inc., supra, B…

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