Third District Court of Appeal
State of Florida
Opinion filed December 23, 2020.
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No. 3D20-462
Lower Tribunal No. 11-942
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Brian Giller,
Appellant,
vs.
Anita Grossman and Ira D. Giller,
Appellees.
An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Rosa C. Figarola,
Judge.
Law Offices of Andrew B. Peretz, P.A., and Andrew B. Peretz (Fort
Lauderdale), for appellant.
Berger Singerman, LLP, James D. Gassenheimer and Christina Perry, for
appellee Anita Grossman; Harper Meyer Perez Hagen Albert Dribin & DeLuca LLP,
Roselvin S. Edelman and Michael A. Dribin, for appellee Ira D. Giller.
Before FERNANDEZ, LOGUE and GORDO, JJ.
PER CURIAM.
ON CONFESSION OF ERROR
Appellant, Brian Giller, challenges the lower court’s order dismissing with
prejudice his action for the removal of Appellees, his brother and sister, as personal
representatives of his father’s estate. The adversarial proceeding was one of several
suits relating to the administration of the Estate of Norman M. Giller. The lower
court issued an order to progress case in the adversary proceeding, which stated the
personal representatives must take some action in furtherance of the case. Appellees
did nothing in furtherance of the order. Thereafter, the lower court entered an order
of dismissal as a sanction based on the personal representatives’ failure to prosecute
the adversary proceeding in violation of the order, despite that Giller was not the
personal representative. Appellees then moved for entry of a corrected order of
dismissal noting numerous clerical errors and alleging that Giller had been ordered
to progress the case. The court granted the Appellees’ motion and issued a corrected
order of dismissal.
Upon the Appellees’ proper confession of error, along with our independent
review of the record, we find there was no legal or factual basis in the record to
support the dismissal as a sanction and the corrected order of dismissal was not
entered in compliance with Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.420(e).
Reversed and remanded for further proceedings.
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