Arbitration & Mediation

F.S. 57.105 Sanctions Rest on "Insufficiently Supported" Claims or Defenses, Not Necessarily Ones with a "Complete Lack of Justiciable Issues"

By Christopher B. Hopkins, Esq.

The First District came down hard on a plaintiff and her trial and appellate lawyers, setting forth the grounds why sanctions against the party and lawyers was warranted.

In Melissa Long v. AvMed, Inc., the First DCA (Hawkes, Lewis and Thomas) found that the plaintiff rushed filing a claim in hopes that they could collect attorney's fees under their statutory claim. The court went on the claim that the plaintiff concealed facts and that the trial and appellate counsel knew or should have known that the claim was invalid (the Panel specifically singled out appellate counsel for sanctionable conduct of not presenting the facts accurately and in a forthright manner).

The defendant had filed a 57.105 motion and it was granted at the trial level and upheld on appeal. The Panel held that the test for 57.105 was whether a party or counsel knew or should have known, at the time a claim or defense was presented, that it is not grounded in fact or warranted by existing law. The court further concluded that the moving party does NOT need to prove a complete absence of a justiciable issue -- only that the claim was "insufficiently supported."

Full post as published by Florida Arbitration Law on July 25, 2009 (boomark / email).