Florida/Georgia Personal Injury & Workers Compensation

...il to the judgment debtor notice that a foreign judgment has been recorded. Section 55.505(3) of the Act provides that no execution or other process for enforcement of a foreign judgment shall issue until thirty days after the mailing of the notice. Section 55.507 of the Act provides that the foreign judgment shall not operate as a lien until thirty days after the mailing of the notice....

...4th DCA 2001) (differentiating between seeking to domesticate a foreign judgment pursuant to the FEFJA and pursuing a common law action to enforce a final judgment). Section 55.505, Florida Statutes, sets forth the procedures by which a judgment may be recorded. Section 55.507 provides that the foreign judgment becomes a lien thirty days after mailing of the notice required by section 55.505. Section 55.503 allows for the recording of a certified copy of any foreign judgment and provides that any judgment so recorded shall have the same effect of a judgment of a Florida court. Nowhere in section 55.504, 55.505, or 55.507 is there any limitation on the number of times a judgment can be recorded under Florida law....

...The Soltesizes sought a determination that the Ohio judgment was inferior to the Barnett second mortgage because that mortgage was recorded while the Ohio judgment was under an alleged section 55.509(1) challenge. The trial court rendered a final order that recognized the inconsistency between sections 55.503(1) and 55.507, Florida Statutes (1989), but determined that the Ohio judgment was subordinate to the Barnett second mortgage because the Barnett mortgage was recorded within the thirty-day period....

...l, was res judicata on that issue. The trial court dismissed the Dollar counterclaim as to Barnett, granted the motion to strike the affirmative defenses and, although not requested by the pleadings, made a specific finding that, as a matter of law, section 55.507 prohibited a recorded foreign judgment from becoming a lien until after expiration of the thirty days from the date of the mailing of the notice required by section 55.505 by the circuit court clerk....

...While various sections of chapter 55 may appear to lead to contrary results, we are required to interpret those provisions to reach a logical result and one that will facilitate what we determine to be the intent of the legislature in its enactments. In doing so, we interpret sections 55.10, 55.502, 55.503, 55.505, 55.507 and 55.509 (§§ 55.501-55.509 are referred to as the "Florida Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act") in a manner that establishes the priority of the lien of a judgment recorded thereunder at the moment of recording. The enforcement of that lien must await the expiration of the thirty-day period established in sections 55.507 and 55.509 or the culmination of any action filed pursuant to section 55.509....

...iority. Mortgages, for instance, have their priority as a lien established upon recording of the mortgage, but their enforcement as a lien awaits a default and subsequent foreclosure actions. But for the use of the terms "effective" and "operate" in section 55.507, the statutory provisions under consideration speak clearly in support of our conclusions as to the interpretation that should be followed. Section 55.507 is intriguing, to say the least, in the choice of words used. The title to section 55.507 is "Lien; when effective," the term "effective" being the action word. However, the body of section 55.507 does not use the term "effective" but substitutes the term "operate" when it provides that "a foreign judgment does not operate as a lien until 30 days after the mailing of the notice by the clerk. When an action authorized in s. 55.509(1) is filed, it acts as an automatic stay of the effect of this section." (Emphasis supplied.) It is significant to us that section 55.507 does not state that the recorded foreign judgment shall not be a lien until thirty days after the mailing of the notice. There is very little, if anything, to distinguish the apparent intended effect of section 55.507 from the immediately preceding section 55.505(3), which states: "No execution or other process for enforcement of a foreign judgment recorded hereunder shall issue until 30 days after the mailing of notice by the clerk. When an action authorized in s. 55.509(1) is filed, it acts as an automatic stay of the effect of this section." (Emphasis supplied.) We conclude that the "automatic stay of the effect of this section" provided in both sections 55.505(3) and 55.507 is a further stay (or extension) of the thirty-day hiatus for enforcement until the culmination of the 55.509 action....

...hasis supplied.) It seems to add to the confusing nature of the various statutory provisions to provide for a courtordered stay in section 55.509 when an automatic stay, based upon the same events, has been provided for in sections 55.505(3) and *66 55.507....

...In effect, we construe Section 55.10 as referring only to Florida judgments. (Citations omitted.) It, therefore, appears to us that when the "Florida Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act" was enacted, it supplied the very authority we found lacking in Coolidge. While, as we have observed, section 55.507 confuses by referring alternately to the terms "effective" and "operate," we conclude the confusion is dissipated by the repeated reference in other sections of chapter 55 to "enforcement" as the term of art....

...On May 5, 2004 Financial Federal recorded a copy of the Registered Judgment in the public records of Marion County, Florida. [4] The warrant was filed by the State of New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. [5] This transcript was filed on behalf of the New York Oil Spill Fund. [6] Fla. Stat. § 55.507 provides that a foreign judgment "does not operate as a lien until 30 days after the mailing of notice by the clerk." [7] To the extent that any of Plaintiff's creditors who filed judgments in the Marion County public records after the fili...