Summary
treating an order abating an action as a stay which did not terminate the action, but rather postponed it until the contingency occurred
Summary of this case from Bolen v. Ill. Nat'l Ins. Co.Opinion
No. 4D09-1192.
December 9, 2009. Rehearing Denied February 5, 2010.
Petition for writ of certiorari to the Circuit Court for the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, Broward County; Jeffrey E. Streitfeld, Judge; L.T. Case No. 09-232 19.
Nancy W. Gregoire of Kirschbaum, Birnbaum, Lippman Gregoire, PLLC, Fort Lauderdale, and Steven M. Katzman of Katzman, Wasserman, Bennardini Rubinstein, P.A., Boca Raton, for petitioner.
Glenn J. Waldman and William E. Calnan of Waldman Trigoboff Hildebrandt Marx Calnan, P.A., Weston, for respondents.
G. Bart Billbrough of Billbrough Marks, P.A., Coral Gables, for intervener Bret Berlin, as Personal Representative of the Estate of Jerome Berlin.
Arlene Pecora appeals the Broward Circuit Court's non-final order "abating" her action pending resolution of a parallel receivership proceeding in Miami-Dade County. An order abating or staying an action pending disposition of another action is not a reviewable non-final order. See REWJB Gas Invs. v. Land O'Sun Realty, Ltd., 645 So.2d 1055 (Fla. 4th DCA 1994); Hedin v. Indian River County, 610 So.2d 715 (Fla. 4th DCA 1992). We treat the appeal as a petition for writ of certiorari and deny the petition in light of the Third District's per curiam affirmance of the Miami-Dade Circuit Court's jurisdiction, see Pecora v. Berlin, 23 So.3d 727 (Fla. 3d DCA 2009), and leave undisturbed the "abatement" of the petitioner's action in Broward County.
Although the trial court designated its order as an abatement, the order was effectively a stay, as it did not terminate the action. See Century Sur. Co. v. de Moraes, 998 So.2d 662, 663 n. 1 (Fla. 4th DCA 2009) ("Abatement has been utilized to terminate one of two actions pending simultaneously which involve the same parties and the same issues. A stay, by contrast, essentially postpones one proceeding until a contingency occurs").
Petition denied.
WARNER, LEVINE, JJ., and McCANN, JAMES W., Associate Judge, concur.