Lazara A. Rodriguez, Appellant, vs. The Bank of New York Mellon, etc., et al., Appellees.
No. 3D21-1778
Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida
September 22, 2021
Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.
Lower Tribunal No. 19-25195
An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Peter R. Lopez, Judge.
Jacobs Legal, PLLC, and Bruce Jacobs, for appellant.
Liebler, Gonzalez & Portuondo, and Adam J. Wick; Holland & Knight, LLP, and Courtney Oakes (Fort Lauderdale); Quintairos, Prieto, Wood & Boyer, P.A., and Sonia Henriques McDowell (Orlando), for appellees.
Before FERNANDEZ, C.J., and GORDO and LOBREE, JJ.
GORDO, J.
Appellant, Lazara A. Rodriguez, has filed an emergency motion to stay eviction pending appeal of the trial court‘s order denying her motion for rehearing of its order finding
The underlying foreclosure action commenced in 2009 and was litigated for nine years. On March 2, 2018, the trial court entered a consent final judgment of foreclosure based on a joint stipulation by the parties. In the stipulation, Ms. Rodriguez, who had been represented by counsel throughout the course of the proceedings, agreed not to contest the foreclosure, waived all claims and defenses to foreclosure and agreed to the sale of the property within 90 days.
The property was sold to the Bank of New York Mellon at the foreclosure sale in January 2019 and certificate of title was issued in February 2019. The property was then sold to a third-party purchaser, Vanessa Veytia, in October 2020. Meanwhile, Ms. Rodriguez continued to occupy the property and filed a separate action to vacate the consent final judgment of foreclosure alleging it was obtained by fraud. In February 2021, Ms. Veytia filed an emergency motion for writ of possession. The trial court granted the motion and issued a writ of possession for the subject property on February 16, 2021. Since that time, Ms. Rodriguez has repeatedly sought to stop the writ of possession and has remained unlawfully at the property.1 On June 5, 2021, the trial court ultimately granted a stay of the writ pending an
We address the procedural history of this case on motion to stay because Ms. Rodriguez presents a passionate argument that her constitutional rights have been violated by the eviction. As the record in this case makes clear, Ms. Rodriguez consented to the final judgment of foreclosure in 2018. Since that time, however, Ms. Rodriguez has continuously tried to delay her inevitable eviction from the property that is legally owned by Ms. Veytia, a bona fide third-party purchaser. Ms. Veytia, meanwhile, has been deprived of the possession and enjoyment of her property by the repeated delay tactics.
Ms. Rodriguez files the instant motion for stay on the eve of her eviction without presenting any cognizable legal grounds warranting a stay. Instead, Ms. Rodriguez seeks to appeal to this Court‘s sympathies. “Unfortunately, neither the ground of fairness nor ‘the “ground” of benevolence and compassion . . . constitute[s] a lawful, cognizable basis for granting relief to one side to the detriment of the other, and thus cannot support [the requested relief]: no judicial action of any kind can rest on such a foundation.‘” Phoenix Holding, LLC v. Martinez, 27 So. 3d 791, 793 (Fla. 3d DCA 2010) (quoting Republic Fed. Bank, N.A. v. Doyle, 19 So. 3d 1053, 1054 (Fla. 3d DCA 2009)); see Firstbank Puerto Rico v. Othon, 190 So. 3d 110, 111 (Fla. 4th DCA 2015) (finding trial court abused its discretion where it granted a continuance of a foreclosure sale based upon compassion for the mortgagor). While we may be sympathetic to Ms. Rodriguez‘s plight, our guiding principle is the law. We are mindful that “[i]t is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 177 (1803). And the law must be applied equally to all natural persons.
Here, Ms. Rodriguez
Stay denied.