Key Points

  • The Fourth District affirmed a final default summary judgment insofar as it established the landlord's standing, the circuit court's jurisdiction, and the tenant's and guarantor's liability for breach of the lease and guaranty.
  • The court held that rent, reletting commissions, tenant improvement costs and lease-negotiation legal fees totaling $85,782.80 were unliquidated damages because they could not be determined with exactness from the pleadings.
  • An affidavit of indebtedness does not liquidate damages, and a non-evidentiary summary judgment hearing cannot substitute for the damages trial noticed under Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.440 that the court's precedent requires.
  • The court acknowledged that Florida's district courts are divided on the issue, noting the Fifth District's holding that such a summary judgment is voidable but not void, and adhered to its own precedent because the landlord did not ask it to recede.
  • The damages award was reversed and the case remanded for a properly noticed damages trial.

A Florida appeals court on Thursday reversed an $85,782.80 damages award that a Palm Beach County judge entered against a defaulted commercial tenant and its guarantor. The court held that damages that cannot be calculated from the complaint itself must be set at a properly noticed trial, not at a summary judgment hearing.

A three-judge panel of the Fourth District Court of Appeal left intact the ruling that First Care Therapy LLC and its guarantor, Loodjhinssy Lafaille-Paul, are liable to their landlord, Congress Ave Boynton LLC, for breaching a lease and guaranty. Judge Forst wrote for the court, and Judges Shepherd and Shaw concurred. The panel sent the case back to the trial court to decide anew how much the tenant and guarantor owe.

The decision applies an August ruling in which the same court reversed a default judgment on facts it called "materially indistinguishable from those in the present case." It also acknowledges that Florida's district courts of appeal are divided over whether unliquidated damages, meaning amounts a court can set only by weighing evidence, may be fixed against a defaulted defendant through ordinary summary judgment procedure. The Fourth District adhered to its own precedent, noting that the landlord never asked it to change course.

According to the opinion, First Care Therapy leased commercial space in Boynton Beach in September 2021 from SNH Medical Office Properties Trust, and Lafaille-Paul guaranteed the lease. Congress Ave Boynton bought the property in May 2024 and took an assignment of the lease and guaranty.

The landlord sued on Feb. 21, 2025, over unpaid rent. Its complaint did not demand a specific amount. It attached a lease ledger listing $34,337.91 in unpaid charges and an agreement under which the tenant would return the premises and the landlord would try to relet them. Neither defendant responded, and the clerk entered a default in March 2025.

The landlord then moved for final summary judgment, supported by an "Affidavit of Indebtedness" from its managing agent seeking $85,782.80. The affidavit broke that figure into $48,480 in rent, $4,222 in "legal fees to draft and negotiate new lease," $10,557 in "commission paid to relet" and $22,523 in "tenant improvement in relet."

At the July 2025 hearing before Circuit Judge Gregory Keyser, Lafaille-Paul appeared without a lawyer, and no attorney appeared for the company. The final judgment states only that the court "heard argument." It awarded the landlord the exact amount requested, plus interest, and found the landlord entitled to attorney's fees.

On appeal, the tenant and guarantor argued that the judgment was void because the landlord lacked standing, the trial court lacked jurisdiction, and they were denied due process. The panel rejected the standing and jurisdiction arguments. It held that the circuit court had subject matter jurisdiction over the contract suit and that the defendants had waived any objection to the court's authority to act in this particular case. "Appellants conflate subject matter jurisdiction with case jurisdiction," Forst wrote.

The landlord's failure to attach the written assignment to its complaint did not defeat its standing, the court held, because Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.130 required it to attach only the lease and guaranty it sued on. By defaulting, the defendants also admitted the complaint's allegation that the assignment had occurred. "That implicit admission established Landlord's status as assignee—and thus Landlord's standing—as a matter of law," Forst wrote. The court also rejected the company's due process claim, citing the appellants' own acknowledgment that a company cannot appear in court without a lawyer.

The damages ruling went the other way. Under the court's precedent, a clerk's default entitles a plaintiff to liquidated damages but not unliquidated ones, and damages are liquidated only where "the proper amount to be awarded can be determined with exactness from the cause of action as pleaded." A complaint's demand for a fixed sum does not make damages liquidated, the court said, and neither does an affidavit of proof.

"Here, the damages were unliquidated," Forst wrote. "The ledger attached to the complaint totaled $34,337.91, less than half of the $85,782.80 which the court ultimately awarded." The trial judge could reach the judgment figure only by consulting the affidavit, which required weighing evidence. The prejudgment interest and costs were likewise unliquidated, the court held.

The court's precedents require an evidentiary hearing or damages trial, noticed under Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.440(d), before a court may award unliquidated damages against a defaulted defendant. The July 2025 proceeding did not qualify, the panel said, because the judge received argument rather than evidence and awarded the precise sum the landlord requested. "Summary judgment proceedings are not a substitute for the noticed damages trial which our cases require," Forst wrote.

The missing hearing transcript did not save the award, the court held, because the error "appears on the face of the final judgment and the record."

In a footnote, the court repeated its acknowledgment from the August decision, Affinity Health Partners LLC v. Hayes Locums LLC, that the district courts are divided on whether Rule 1.440 always requires such a trial. The Fifth District held in 2021, in Specialty Solutions Inc. v. Baxter Gypsum & Concrete LLC, that a summary judgment awarding unliquidated damages against a defaulted defendant, entered after proper notice and on timely filed evidence, is "voidable but not void."

The landlord had not asked the Fourth District to abandon its own rule. "Appellee's answer brief does not address our precedent on this issue," the footnote states. "Accordingly, we adhere to our precedent in this case."

Lawyers for the tenant and guarantor included Dexter F. George of the Law Office of Dexter F. George. The landlord was represented by Daniel E. Nordby of Shutts & Bowen LLP.

The case, No. 4D2025-2466, returns to the Palm Beach County Circuit Court for a properly noticed trial to determine damages. The opinion states that it is not final until the court disposes of any timely filed motion for rehearing.