Civil Sanctions for Failure to Pay Child Support

Everyday in Florida parents are subject to civil sanctions for failure to pay court ordered child support. It is common that a General Magistrate or Circuit Court Judge will order sanctions despite the fact that the parent who has been ordered to pay is not able. Sanctions often include driver's license suspension or incarceration. The fact is, and the law is, that if a parent who is ordered to pay child support does not have the ability to pay -- sanctions cannot be imposed. The inability to pay child support is not contempt of court. Contempt of court, must be willful -- not unable. Read the following appellate case. It's not long, and not hard to follow, and it may just keep you driving and out of jail.

LARSEN v. LARSEN No. 4D04-773.

901 So.2d 327 (2005)

John Edward LARSEN, Appellant,
v.
Eva LARSEN, Appellee.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.

May 4, 2005.

WARNER, J.

Appellant challenges an order authorizing the suspension of his driver's license for nonpayment of child support with a purge provision of $2,500. He claims that he does not have the present ability to pay the purge amount. Because the suspension of a driver's license constitutes a civil sanction, the court must provide the contemnor with the opportunity to purge the sanction, and it must determine that the contemnor has the present ability to pay the purge amount. Gregory v. Rice, 727 So.2d 251, 253-54 (Fla.1999). Not only did the trial court fail to make such a finding, nothing in the record would support a finding that appellant has the ability to pay that amount. We therefore reverse. 

Appellant has accumulated substantial arrearages on alimony and child support obligations. He has instituted several modification proceedings since the dissolution of marriage, mainly because he lost his job as a pilot. In a mediated settlement in July 2002, the parties agreed to an arrearage, and appellant agreed that should he miss one payment, the Support Enforcement Division would be entitled to seek automatic suspension of his driver's license.

Subsequent to the agreement, appellant again moved for modification, and SED moved for contempt and sought to suspend appellant's license for nonpayment of support. The contempt motion was referred to a general master who recommended holding the father in contempt and requiring a purge amount of $1,638.25. The trial court adopted the general master's recommendations, and appellant filed a petition for writ of prohibition in this court, which we treated as a non-final appeal. We reversed the order of contempt, determining, in part, that the order lacked a finding that appellant had the present ability to comply with the purge amount, and failed to provide a factual basis for such finding as required by Florida Family Law Rule of Procedure 12.615(e). See Larsen v. Larsen, 854 So.2d 293 (Fla. 4th DCA 2003).

While his petition for modification was pending, appellant received notice of SED's intent to file for suspension pursuant to section 61.13016, Florida Statutes (2003), and moved for a case status conference as well as a hearing on his motion to contest the suspension. At the hearing, the court stated that the suspension of the driver's license was not a contempt sanction. The court denied appellant's objections to the impending suspension, but imposed a purge provision of $2,500. Upon receipt of the purge amount, SED was directed to abate the proceedings for license and motor vehicle registration suspension until further order of the court. Appellant's license was suspended after he failed to pay the purge amount.

Section 61.13016 provides that an obligor who has been given notice of the intent to suspend his or her driver's license may petition the court to contest the delinquency action. § 61.13016(1)(c)1.c. The obligor may contest the notice by showing a mistake of fact as to the delinquency or the obligor's identity. § 61.13016(3). The statute does not contain language excusing the suspension for inability to pay.

However, this case is controlled by expansive language¹ in Gregory v. Rice, 727 So.2d at 254:

Under Bagwell, regardless of whether the sanction is incarceration, garnishment of wages, additional employment, the filing of reports, additional fines, the delivery of certain assets, the revocation of a driver's license, or other type of sanction, the court must provide the contemnor with the ability to purge the contempt; that is, if the contemnor satisfies the underlying support obligation, the sanctions must be lifted.

(Emphasis added). Gregory also reconfirmed the principles of Bowen v. Bowen, 471 So.2d 1274 (Fla.1985), that the court must find a present ability to pay the purge amount in order to enter a civil sanction. 727 So.2d at 253-54.

Therefore, the sanction of driver's license suspension must be considered a contempt sanction under Gregory for which the court must find a present ability to pay any purge amount set. Here, the court made no such finding. Thus, the order authorizing the suspension must be reversed.

Appellee argues that appellant agreed to the automatic suspension of his license should he fall behind in support payments. However, no agreement was made as to the terms of any purge provision. Without a purge provision, the coercive sanction becomes a criminal contempt sanction, requiring the due process protections of a criminal proceeding. See Bowen, 471 So.2d at 1277.

We recognize that this opinion may cause considerable uncertainty in the use of driver's license and other license suspensions in child support proceedings without the setting of a purge amount in accordance with the dictates of Bowen. However, we are bound by the clear language of Gregory.

Reversed and remanded for further proceedings.

FARMER, C.J., and GROSS, J., concur.

FootNotes

1. The language is expansive because International Union v. Bagwell, 512 U.S. 821, 114 S.Ct. 2552, 129 L.Ed.2d 642 (1994), discusses only civil fines and incarceration. It never mentions other civil sanctions.

$864 Million Bank of America Fine a Fraction of Damage Done

Today, November 9, 2013, reported on Reuters, the U.S. government urged that Bank of America pay $863.6 million in damages after a federal jury found Bank of America liable for fraud over defective mortgages sold by its Countrywide unit. The case centered on a mortgage lending process at Countrywide, which Bank of America bought in July 2008, known as the "High Speed Swim Lane," or alternatively "HSSL" or "Hustle." Government prosecutors said Countrywide's program emphasized and rewarded employees for the quantity rather than the quality of loans produced, and eliminated checkpoints designed to ensure that loans were sound. The Hustle case, like some other financial crisis cases recently pursued by the government, was brought under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act, a law passed after the 1980s savings-and-loan scandals.

The lawsuit is the first government case to go to trial over the faulty mortgage practices that led to the 2008 financial crisis.

A new wave of claims against financial institutions and rating agencies could breathe new life into an old law. Federal prosecutors have turned to the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA). FIRREA is a civil anti-fraud law passed in the wake of the savings and loan crisis.

FIRREA was passed, in part, to “enhance the regulatory and enforcement powers of Federal financial institutions’ regulatory agencies.” The obvious precedent event was the Savings & Loan Crisis that caused billions of dollars in losses to investors and federally insured deposit funds. Read more about FIRREA

Net income is what remains of a company's revenue after subtracting all costs. It is also referred to as net profit, earnings, or the bottom line. Net Income that is not paid out in dividends is added to retained earnings. On October 16, 2013 Bank of America Corporation reported net income rose to $2.5 billion in the third quarter of 2013 from $340 million in the year-ago quarter.

I admit that $864 million sounds like a lot of money, a whopping fine. But when you do the math, its not much. The proposed fine resulting from the FIRREA based law suit I mentioned, represents only .345% of Bank of America's most recent quarterly net. One quarter, Q3 only. Less than 1% of one quarter's net. How bad is that slap on the hand going to hurt?

According to RealtyTrac.com - November 2013.

Although many media types continually speak of the foreclosure crisis, and the world financial crisis in the past tense. We are not past it. The nightmare continues. There are currently 1,254,701 properties in U.S. that are in some stage of foreclosure. In September, the number of properties that received a foreclosure filing in U.S. was 2% higher than the previous month.

According to an article published in Huffington Post in May 2013, Americans lost $192.6 billion in wealth, or an average of $1,700 per household, in 2012 due to foreclosures. The article also stated that the U.S. could lose $221 billion more within the next year if officials don't come to the aid of millions of borrowers who owe more on their homes than they're actually worth.

And in the Fall 2012 issue of "Democracy, A Journal of Ideas", declared that wealth stripping has increased during the economic crisis. Since the onset of the Great Recession, Americans have lost $7 trillion in equity in their homes. The Federal Reserve estimates the median American family has lost nearly two decades of wealth, or almost 40 percent of their assets. In a separate report, the Pew Research Center estimates that Latinos, Asians, and African Americans have experienced wealth losses of 66 percent, 54 percent, and 53 percent respectively, compared to 13 percent for whites. These losses are largely due to home foreclosures and lost equity.

So, no, less than 1% of one quarter earnings as a fine for Bank of America is not nearly enough to put a dent in the damage done.

4 Reasons to Contest a Will

Despite what you see on TV, there are only four limited grounds on which to contest a will:

• The will wasn't signed in accordance with state law. If a will fails to meet the very stringent execution standards, then it won't be deemed to be a will. If it's not a will, it can't transfer your property at death. This has led to many people believing that they have a perfectly valid estate plan-but instead leaving their heirs in for an unpleasant surprise because the will wasn't executed properly. 
  
  
• Lack of testamentary capacity. This invalidates a will on the grounds that the person executing the will was incompetent to do so at the time they did it. You most often see this issue raised regarding an older person who modifies their will and removes some people who were beneficiaries under a prior will. The fact of the matter is that the level of capacity required to execute a will isn't very high; it's actually lower than the level of capacity needed to execute a contract. In essence, in order to be competent to execute a will, a person needs to know (1) the nature and value of their assets, (2) who would receive their assets if they didn't have a will, and (3) the legal effect of signing the will. Someone would have a long road ahead of them to prove you didn't have the capacity to execute your will. It's hard to come by historic evidence of lack of capacity. 
  
  
• Undue influence. This is the biggie when it comes to will contests. The issue is that if a person is in a confidential relationship with you, then the person might be able to cause you such duress about your will that you lose your independence of thought process. What if you rely on one of your daughters to cook and clean for you, and she hints that unless she gets the house, she won't be able to continue helping you? Or, what if a hired caregiver threatens to withhold your medication unless you change your will to benefit them? Or, perhaps your nephew helpfully drives you to his attorney to create a new will, which just happens to leave everything to him. When a will has unequal distributions, or distributions to non-family members, a court is reasonably concerned that the will was created out of fear that the favored beneficiary would cease caring for or even harm the person making out the will. Nine months before you died, were you threatened into changing your will to name your caregiver as the primary beneficiary? Or has your caregiver helped you for eight years, you don't see your relatives, and you just got around to making out your will nine months before you died? 
  
  
• Fraud. You give a person a contract to sign, and it turns out someone slipped a will into the document and the person didn't know they were signing a will. The will is invalid because it clearly isn't an expression of the person's intent. Another fraudulent situation is where somebody slips pages into the middle of the will. This is why best practices dictate that the person making out a will or revocable trust initial each and every page.
  

Reputation Repair & Management

Predictions made decades ago about the world becoming a global village have come true. Now more than ever before our reputations are our most valuable asset. Prospective employers, business associates and potential mates search each other online to learn more; usually soon after the first contact.

First go to a computer, preferably not your own computer, and put your name into Google, then Bing, then Yahoo search engines. You may want to use various versions of your name, a maiden name, or with and without your middle initial. Also if you are known by a nickname or shortened version of your name, plug those in as well. You can go as deep as you like on each of these search engines, I recommend that you search up to page three or four. 

What do you find? Good, bad, ugly? If a search comes up showing you dancing on the bar at your last party, you've got some work to do. Likewise, if you have ever been arrested, your face - the worst picture taken on the worst day of your life - your mugshot may appear on the very first page of Google. 

The permanence of the web creates a major branding challenge: once negative information is out there, it's difficult to remove. If you've created the questionable content you can delete it and -- eventually -- it will be removed from the caches of Google and other search engines If you don't control the content, the first thing to do is ask the person who does control the content to remove it. 

Create your own content and drive the bad stuff down in search engine rankings. No one, usually not even your worst enemy will bother to search past the first several pages on any of the search engines; most readers will stick to the first page or two. Creating a robust social media and online presence guarantees that the top results will be the ones you want people to see. Studies have shown that video, in particular, is prized by Google and will rank highly, so you might want to consider a video blog. Traditional blogs, because their content is updated frequently, are also search-engine-friendly. Creating profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter also helps. 

There are certain reputation repair and management tasks that you can easily do yourself; and tasks that you may need help with. The basic principle is to bury negative information by providing positive information to take its place. Take a close look at the pages returned in a search. Would you want your grandmother or your nine year old daughter to see it? If the picture of you dancing on the bar is on your own Facebook page, take it down, or tighten your privacy settings. Follow suit with Twitter if you need to. If you don't have a Twitter account, create one to tweet positively and intelligently. Your Linkedin account is one of the vital parts of creating your positive online presence. You are creating your own personal brand, make sure the information that you share with the world positively reflects who you are. Making comments on popular blogs with well considered responses may also help build your online reputation. 

If information online is untrue and defamatory you may be able to have it taken down. Forcing a company to remove defamatory information may not be easy, but it is possible. Possibly you can file suit; contact the hosting company and request that the information be removed; or as we suggest -- bury negative information by piling positive information on top.

There are companies that specialize in reputation repair and management. Some of them do all the work for you, others do some of it; still others provide you the tools to repair and manage your reputation yourself. I recommend a company called Brand Yourself because I have had first hand experience with it, and know that it works. Click here or click the logo and try it yourself.

A pro se litigant, first recommended Brand Yourself to me. He had a criminal charge which had been dismissed, but it continued to haunt him. He is a chef in a competitive market, and was not being offered positions for which he was well qualified because of the negative information gleaned from the pre-employment pre-interview internet search. We can say that with confidence, because after he went through the Brand Yourself process, he began receiving the type of job offers he deserves.

In a second example, someone I know managed to bury two mug shots, by using the services provided in Brand Yourself. We know it works. Brand Yourself offers a free service, which works just fine, but you have to patient. You can upgrade to their paid service, and see your online reputation improve faster. Either way, you receive an alert every time anything changes when your name is searched. 

 

American Dream to American Nightmare

Homeowners facing foreclosure face a gamut of challenges and emotions. Many cannot afford an attorney or they would not be in foreclosure in the first place. And, oh so many, were told when they first bought or refinanced back during the boom years -- don't worry you can re-fi in two years and get out from under that adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) - get out from under that ARM that is tied to the mysterious LIBOR which was manipulated anyway and which caps the adjustable rate at some outrageous rate as much as 15%. People bought the lie and bought the line. After all, property values were going up and up, why couldn't they re-fi in a couple of years, cash out the old equity and get a fixed rate. Oops there go the goal posts. Now way way over there. This strategy worked for a while, as all good Ponzi schemes do. The homeowners who jumped on fast, and then jumped off the merry go round, made some money. It's the people who didn't jump off fast enough that got run over, and it's still happening. Lots of homeowner roadkill.

Homeowners in foreclosure feel shame. Shame that they are unable to pay their mortgage, and shame that they fell for it. Most scams are under reported because the victims are ashamed. They berate themselves that they should have known better.

The Ponzi Scheme

If current events have proven anything, it’s that there is no more potentially profitable con game than the Ponzi scheme. The trick dates back hundreds of years, but it was popularized by Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant to the U.S. who swindled investors out of millions in the early 1900s before being arrested. The modern Ponzi scheme is a form of investment fraud in which a fake or corrupt stockbroker uses the money of his new investors to pay the imaginary returns of his old ones. Initial investments with the fake broker might yield enormous returns for the people being conned, but in reality their money has not been invested in anything–the con man has simply been putting it all into a bank account. Any time someone wants to withdraw money, or if he has to pay the returns of his old investors, the con man simply uses the money he’s gotten from new investors to do it. Nothing is actually being invested, won, or lost in the market. The con man is simply giving that impression so that people keep handing over more and more cash. Because it can only grow so far, any Ponzi scheme is destined to eventually collapse under its own weight, so the con man usually pulls a disappearing act after collecting enough money, leaving the investors with nothing but the fake returns they received to keep them involved in the swindle. Undoubtedly the most famous recent example involved Bernard Madoff, a New York financier who engineered a Ponzi scheme estimated to be in the neighborhood of $65 billion. Madoff was eventually caught and sentenced to 150 years in prison, but not before pulling of what is essentially the biggest con game of all time.

Sound Familiar?

Maybe not yet, stay with me. The picture becomes more clear the more you learn about this huge scam being perpetrated by the too big to fail banks. You go to buy a house. Like most Americans, you expect to put money down and get a mortgage on the house. That's how it has always been done. When you go to the closing table you sign the mountain of documents that are briefly explained, but there is no time to read the documents. And no time to absorb or question the brief explanation. So you sign. Somewhere in that mountain of paperwork, sign sign signing, is the agreement and acknowledgment that this lender may sell and transfer the debt to another entity, shall I say lender? Problem is, it isn't really a lender, it is a trust, a pooling service agreement. At the time, you don't really care, because all you're trying to do is close on this house and take possession. Even if some of the paperwork doesn't seem quite right or you don't understand it, you let it go. We all did. You think, if you question it at all, is that you have protections. There are laws that protect home buyers from fraud. The mortgage industry must have rules and standards to protect buyers. This is America.

You live your life. A month or more after buying you get a letter stating that the original lender transferred the debt or the servicing to another company. The letter includes assurances that the terms of your debt remain the same. You continue to pay the same monthly amount, the only difference is that you send your payments to a new address. Life goes on.

And life has a way of bringing on life events. Maybe you get sick. Maybe your spouse gets sick. Maybe your spouse dies. Maybe you lose your job. Maybe this country experiences the worst economic down turn since the Great Depression. And then, your ARM resets.

What you didn't know, behind the scenes, is that when your original "lender" transferred their interest in your property to another entity, your debt morphed into an Asset Backed Security, a bond, a security theoretically to be sold on Wall Street.

The lenders and the servicers were busy selling these securitized debt instruments all over the world. They gleefully sold the paper -- over and over. And that debt, in many cases, was never actually placed in any trust or pooling service agreement. They sold these as more like a potential asset, a position, and investors bought. The higher the risk the more the return. As long as new "mortgages" were created money was flowing. The investors were paid. Paid over and over handsomely. But when the financial crisis hit the world, sometime around 2008, and homeowners began defaulting on their mortgages, and it became clear that the asset backed securities were based on loans that had been misrepresented and the asset backed securities that had supposedly been put into trusts were never transferred correctly and homeowners ARMs reset - the s**t hit the fan.

The bottom tier of the Ponzi scheme failed. The house of cards tumbled.

And this just in:

Hey friend,

INCREDIBLE: The Justice Department has evidence JP Morgan Chase committed major banking fraud - but instead of filing criminal charges, they're *negotiating* with them to settle for a small fraction of the damage they did.

Tell the Department of Justice that negotiating with criminals on their own punishment is unacceptable. America is tired of Chase paying fines. We need Chase doing Time:

http://other98.com/dont-negotiate-with-chase-prosecute-them

Thank you for doing the right thing.

Fourth Annual FALDP Conference

The Fourth Annual FALDP Conference this past weekend in Cedar Key, Florida was a huge success. Participants came away saying they were happy to have attended. One characterized the event as "priceless". Florida legal document preparers sometimes work in isolation. Many document preparation companies are one person operations, a few others are family businesses, and still others are partnerships. Our FALDP annual conference offers members the rare chance to meet their cohorts and colleagues to exchange ideas and information. FALDP as an association has persistently promoted the idea that we should be collaborative rather than competitive. There are many pro se litigants that need document preparation services. We are unlikely to run out of customers anytime soon. Helping each other learn how to prepare more documents, sharing business ideas, and teaching document preparers how to educate pro se litigants to help themselves are fundamental tenets of our association.

Despite a few minor challenges, the event went without a hitch. Cedar Key is pretty and quaint, but a little bit third world Florida. If you're not a Florida native, you may be surprised that this step back in time exists. (No chain restaurants, no MacDonalds, some places don't take plastic). We try to hold the FALDP conferences is out of the way or smaller coastal towns, hoping that attendees will see a part of Florida they have never seen before. The streets in Cedar Key empty early in the evening, you can walk down the center of main street and not get run over. The library and the post office are apparently one in the same.

The two guest speakers were humorous, inspiring, and informative. The group was small enough to allow for lively discussion, yet large enough to provide for alternative view points. We had fun!

To read more and see pictures about the conference - go to Conference 2013.  

Diligent Defense?

Homeowners in foreclosure seeking the help of a foreclosure defense attorney, do not always receive the diligent defense they so desperately need.  This is a letter from an attorney to his client. All names have been removed to protect the innocent and the guilty.

When a friend sent me the letter, my only response was an immediate OMG! Following is the text of the letter retyped verbatim:

"The purpose of this letter is to bring you up-to-date on the status of mortgage foreclosure cases in Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, and Walton Counties under a program in which retired Circuit Court Judges are handling these cases on an expedited basis. This means that it is no longer possible to allow years to go by before a foreclosure will occur as the Judges are insisting that their dockets be handled efficiently and promptly. This means that in the cases of modifying mortgages, mediation must be held promptly and the financial documents produced ASAP for the bank's review to see if you qualify for modifying the mortgage based on income formulas. In general you have to have monthly income a gross income basis of at least three times the amount of the new monthly mortgage payments and the best rates that we have seen recently are 4%  for 40 years with the default tacked on to the end of the mortgage as a balloon. You can calculate your monthly mortgage payments less taxes and insurance by looking at amortization schedules on your computer and in an amortization book maintained by most realtors. If modification is not going to work, the other preferable solution is a short sale of the property with a release of liability on the note and mortgage. This means that the properties have to be promptly listed for sale with an expert broker that we recommend and hustled through the system to avoid the foreclosure. The result is far better for your credit score and also a good solution if the property is worth less than its mortgage balance.

The summary judgments of foreclosure resulting in a forced sale of the properties can be heard at anytime the Court feels the paperwork is sufficient in the  file to allow the bank to proceed. This means that even at routine hearings such as hearings on discovery dispute or Motions to Dismiss that we have filed, the Court can grant summary judgment for the Plaintiff. This is not the result that we want and we certainly want to avoid if at all possible.

If you have any doubts about what you wan to do with this property, find a qualified broker, who will tell you exactly what the property will sell for in the market based upon its condition and the comparables, and call me so we can make a joint decision on the best way to proceed."

What's wrong with this picture?

My analysis is below:

The letter states:
"The purpose of this letter is to bring you up-to-date on the status of mortgage foreclosure cases in Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, and Walton Counties under a program in which retired Circuit Court Judges are handling these cases on an expedited basis. This means that it is no longer possible to allow years to go by before a foreclosure will occur as the Judges are insisting that their dockets be handled efficiently and promptly."

My take:

This expedited program to foreclose on homeowners is commonly known as the rocket docket. Retired judges/ senior judges have been assigned to hear these expedited cases. The problem with senior judges presiding over foreclosure cases is that senior judges do not have accountability. They have already retired, and do not need to care if their rulings are overturned on appeal. They have already retired, and are not subject to being voted out of office, as they are already out of office. Another issue regarding senior judges could be one of a conflict of interest. If the senior judges pensions are handled by the bank who is the Plaintiff in a foreclosure suit, this raises questions about the integrity of the proceedings. 

The letter states:

This means that in the cases of modifying mortgages, mediation must be held promptly and the financial documents produced ASAP for the bank's review to see if you qualify for modifying the mortgage based on income formulas. In general you have to have monthly income a gross income basis of at least three times the amount of the new monthly mortgage payments and the best rates that we have seen recently are 4%  for 40 years with the default tacked on to the end of the mortgage as a balloon. You can calculate your monthly mortgage payments less taxes and insurance by looking at amortization schedules on your computer and in an amortization book maintained by most realtors.

My take:

Really??? One of the biggest complaints about the mortgage modification process is the lenders dragging their feet, and not reacting to the documents which are repeatedly produced by the homeowner for the modification assessment. This situation persists despite Florida Attorney General, Pam Bondi's stern letter to Bank of America earlier this year. Calculating a mortgage amount is easy. Amortization calculators are all over the internet. However, actually obtaining a 4% mortgage is another matter entirely. Particularly when the homeowner is in foreclosure and has already taken a hit on the credit score.

The letter states:

If modification is not going to work, the other preferable solution is a short sale of the property with a release of liability on the note and mortgage. This means that the properties have to be promptly listed for sale with an expert broker that we recommend and hustled through the system to avoid the foreclosure. The result is far better for your credit score and also a good solution if the property is worth less than its mortgage balance.

My take:

Again, really??? When was the last time you tried to arm wrestle a realtor into including a a release of liability on a short sale. Realtors will tell short sale sellers, no problem they won't come after you. But to actually get that promise in the documents -- good luck! And even better, "an expert broker that we recommend". I smell kick back.

The letter states:
The summary judgments of foreclosure resulting in a forced sale of the properties can be heard at anytime the Court feels the paperwork is sufficient in the  file to allow the bank to proceed. This means that even at routine hearings such as hearings on a discovery dispute or Motions to Dismiss that we have filed, the Court can grant summary judgment for the Plaintiff.

My take:

Hold on, hold up! A summary judgment is not proper if there are material issues in dispute. The last time I checked, Florida is still a judicial foreclosure state. That means that there are specific rules that the Court and the Plaintiff must follow to bring a foreclosure to auction. It is not when the Court "feels" the paperwork is sufficient to proceed. The Court is not supposed to feel. The Court is supposed to be an unbiased trier of fact. The letter was written by a foreclosure defense attorney, and somehow I don't think he is doing his job if "even at routine hearings such as hearings on a discovery dispute or Motion to Dismiss the Court can grant summary judgment. For starters the Plaintiff would have had to file a Motion for Summary Judgment. And there are defenses to that, such as an Affidavit in Opposition to Motion for Summary Judgment; and Affidavit of Denial of Debt.