Opinion
No. 4D15–1620.
04-06-2016
TOOTIE DISCOUNT PALACE, LLC, Appellant, v. PTX PERFORMANCE PRODUCTS, INC., Huy International, Inc., a Florida corporation, and Global Brand Closeout, LLC, a Florida Limited Liability Company, Appellees.
John Elias of Law Offices of John Elias, Pembroke Pines, for appellant. David M. Levine and Ernesto M. Rubi of Carey Rodriguez Milian Gonya, LLP, Miami, for appellee PTX Performance Products, Inc.
John Elias of Law Offices of John Elias, Pembroke Pines, for appellant.
David M. Levine and Ernesto M. Rubi of Carey Rodriguez Milian Gonya, LLP, Miami, for appellee PTX Performance Products, Inc.
PER CURIAM.
The trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying Appellant's motion to intervene post-judgment. Such motions are not appropriate when there is an alternative procedure that is available to protect the interest of the moving party. De Sousa v. JP Morgan Chase, N.A., 170 So.3d 928, 931 (Fla. 4th DCA 2015). Here, Appellant had available to it section 56.16, Florida Statutes (2015), which provides that "any person other than the defendant in execution [who] claims any property levied on ... may obtain possession of the property" by following certain procedures. Because Appellant had this alternate procedure available to it, Appellant's motion to intervene was inappropriate and properly denied.
We note that the 2016 amendment to this statute, not yet in effect, appears to simply clarify pronouns in the statute and does not substantively alter its availability under the facts of this case.
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We dismiss Appellant's issue regarding attorneys' fees as not yet ripe; the trial court merely reserved jurisdiction to assess future attorneys' fees and did not actually make a grant of fees. See Winkelman v. Toll, 632 So.2d 130, 131–32 (Fla. 4th DCA 1994). No motion for fees was made in this Court, so no appellate attorneys' fees should be awarded.
Affirmed in part; dismissed in part.
STEVENSON, GROSS and FORST, JJ., concur.