PBCBA BAR BULLETINS pbcba_bulletin_sept2018 | Page 18

Florida Real Property and Business Litigation Report
Department of State as determining
whether the certificate was fraudulently
obtained is an executive function.
Hawks v. Libit, Case No. 2D17-4526 (Fla. 2d
DCA 2018).
A party seeking to recover costs under
Florida Statute section 57.041(1) must meet
the “party recovering judgment,” and not the
“prevailing party,” standard to be entitled to
an award of costs.
Essenson v. Bloom, Case No. 2D16-4994 (Fla.
2d DCA 2018).
Aligning itself with the Fourth District,
the Second District holds that an appellate
court may prohibit, in advance, a trial court
from awarding appellate costs.
Abt v. Metro Motors Ventures, Inc., Case No.
4D17-1960 (Fla. 4th DCA 2018).
An attorney is not entitled to an award of
attorney’s fees for enforcing a charging lien
previously awarded for unpaid attorney’s
fees.
Schneider v. First American Bank, Case No.
4D17-2239 (Fla. 4th DCA 2018).
A judgment containing both foreclosure and
money judgments may permit execution
upon the money judgment if the foreclosure
sale is stayed but may not authorize both
execution and foreclosure sale to proceed
simultaneously.
Newman v. Mayer Brown, LLP, Case No.
4D17-3416 (Fla. 4th DCA 2018).
An assignee of claims against a party is
subject to discovery by the party on the
claims; it may not use its assignee status as
both sword and shield.
Professor Ehrhardt
“Emerging Issues in Florida Evidence”
Available by DVD or CD
The renowned expert on Evidence,
Professor Charles Ehrhardt spoke before
the PBC Bar Association last November. In
case you missed it, his talk on “Emerging
Issues in Florida Evidence” is available by
DVD or CD. To obtain a copy, please visit the
Bar’s site and click the “Membership/CLE”
link at the top of the screen. This program
offers 2.0 CLER, plus 2.0 certification credits
in Appellate Practice, Civil Trial, Criminal
Appellate Law and Criminal Trial Law.
(continued from pg 15)
Better Safe than Sued in your next
Real Estate Closing
OLIVIA SODEN
the funds they’ve wired. On top of that, you,
as their Attorney, could end up smack in the
middle of a lawsuit. Yes, a lawsuit.
Just last year, the Justice League covered
a story of a Colorado couple, who lost their
life savings while trying to buy their dream
retirement home. The couple sold their
house and were using the proceeds - more
than $272,000.00 - as a down payment on
their dream home.
But, within 24 hours of closing, not only
did they not have the new home, but had
also lost all of their money. So this couple
filed suit against their lender, realtor and
their closing/title company. This couple
felt that not enough had been done by these
representatives to protect them against
wire fraud.
Wire fraud, wire fraud, wire fraud.
Everyone’s talking about it. But it’ll never
happen to your clients as part of a Real
Estate transaction, right? Wrong! Real
estate transactions are an easy and
lucrative target for hackers. In fact, nearly
$1 BILLION in real estate transactions were
the target of wire fraud. Yes, $1 Billion, and
that is just in 2017 alone.
Do not let this happen to your clients or
you! Make sure to protect your clients
So, what does this mean for you, as their from wire fraud. Here is a link to a short
Closing Attorney? If your clients are the video you can send to your clients to help
victim of wire fraud, they cannot recover protect them: https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=ek4TwC9owwY.