Seven judges, Bar referrals, bias claims: How a condo dispute reached ‘DEFCON’ levels
Inside the oceanfront 56-story Armani/Casa tower in Sunny Isles Beach, residents are living large in apartments worth up to $17 million with access to a movie theater and a wine cellar. There’s no sign of the modest Seashore Club that once stood there, a two-story condo complex that was bought out years ago by high-powered developers Related Group and Dezer Development to make way for their glitzy new project.
But in the rubble of what was one of the few remaining low-rise buildings on densely developed Collins Avenue, a nasty and seemingly endless battle has played out in Miami-Dade circuit court among attorneys and condo owners — one that has lasted eight years, spanned seven judges, and featured a flurry of allegations of misconduct.
“It’s torpedo warfare, nuclear, probably going to end up in mutual destruction,” Judge Jennifer Bailey said during a hearing in February 2019. The litigation, which has included more than a dozen lawsuits dating to 2013, had reached “DEFCON 9 level,” Bailey said.
At the root of it all are four Cuban-exile senior citizens who owned three units at the Seashore Club. They claim that two sibling attorneys who also owned a unit there, Dario and Flavia Carnevale, broke a promise to negotiate fair settlements with the developers on the entire group’s behalf, instead chasing more money for themselves by becoming the final holdout in the group.
The siblings, meanwhile, say they made the seniors into millionaires, and that they are still owed a cut from the seniors and their attorneys. The seniors — Domingo and Nilda Delgado, Olga Fernandez and Roberto Romero — got about $1.8 million per unit from the developers. The Carnevales haven’t disclosed how much they got for their own unit, but statements by their opponents in court filings have suggested it was at least $8 million.
Lawyers vs. lawyers
There’s also a bitter fight between the Carnevales and attorneys from Shir Law Group, who represented the siblings and the seniors in negotiations with the developers. Part of the case has hinged on the question of whether the Carnevales were acting as lawyers for the seniors — a matter complicated by a bizarre line in a document that suggests “F Lavac Ernvale” (a near-anagram of Flavia Carnevale but not an actual person) was acting as co-counsel.
Separately, the Carnevales say Shir Law Group obstructed them from buying a unit in another low-rise condo building next door, the Miami Beach Club, another likely site of future development.
The details are enough to make even a lawyer’s head spin. The dispute has had a bit of everything, from sanctions against attorneys to referrals to the Florida Bar and claims of bias against a judge.
One lawsuit that started in 2014 has almost 1,700 docket entries and 100 court hearings. It has dragged on, in part, because seven different judges have been on the case, either recusing themselves or making scheduled transfers into new divisions and forcing each new judge to start from scratch.
“You have a perfect storm here,” Bob Jarvis, a Nova Southeastern University law professor, told the Miami Herald. “These cases are always very problematic when you have multiple judges, complicated facts and a long stretch of time.”
The case, Jarvis added, “points out in stark relief the need to speed up our litigation system.”
Judge vacated colleague’s Florida Bar referrals
At summary judgment hearings this week, Judge Veronica Diaz heard arguments on many of the central issues in the case. On Thursday, she said she would consider it all before making final rulings.
If she rules in the Carnevales’ favor, it could bring much of the dispute to a conclusion. A lawyer for the Carnevales, Javier Lopez, said his clients stand to win about $6 million if things go their way, as has been the case in recent months. But appeals will surely follow — as will questions about why the case’s fate turned after Diaz took over in late 2019.
Diaz, who is transferring out of the civil division on Jan. 19, has consistently ruled in favor of the Carnevales, a departure from some of her predecessors on the case. In 2018, Judge Miguel de la O referred the siblings to the Florida Bar for possible discipline, saying they had “repeatedly and intentionally lied under oath.”
“This Court is enormously troubled by the conduct of these two Florida attorneys,” de la O wrote. “Not only have the Carnevales repeatedly and intentionally lied under oath in both [a related case] and in this case, they also repeatedly made misrepresentations to this Court’s predecessors.”
But Diaz vacated de la O’s ruling last summer, prompting the Bar to drop its investigations. Diaz said court hearings revealed “there was no evidence to support the findings of fact” in de la O’s order, adding that the Carnevales had not been given an “opportunity to provide an explanation or evidence” on their own behalf. De la O said in his order that the siblings had been asked to testify but chose not to.
“The Carnevales’ testimony in the prior, closed litigation was truthful, and the Carnevales’ testimony in this litigation was truthful,” Diaz wrote. Therefore, she said, the parts of de la O’s order “imposing sanctions, including monetary sanctions and a referral to the Florida Bar, are hereby vacated.”
Diaz has also departed from de la O’s view on whether the Carnevales were acting as co-counsel for the group of seniors — the “F Lavac Ernvale” matter. De la O said a “strong argument” could be made that they were acting as lawyers, which would jeopardize their ability to collect on contingency and attorney fee agreements with their fellow condo owners. But Diaz has ruled that they were not, paving the way for big payouts.
An attorney representing Shir Law Group, Robert Menje, told the Herald he believes Diaz’s repeated rulings in the Carnevales’ favor give the appearance of bias. Lopez, the Carnevales’ attorney, was a member of Diaz’s approximately 50-member campaign committee during her recent re-election bid, and her campaign treasurer was hired by the same firm, Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton, after he was appointed in the treasurer role.
Diaz, a former assistant city attorney in Miami who became a judge in 2014, ran unopposed in November. She took over the Seashore Club litigation prior to the qualifying period when opponents could have filed to run against her.
Shir Law Group moved for Diaz to recuse herself, saying she should have disclosed her ties to Lopez and his firm as potential conflicts of interest. But Diaz has remained on the case. Menje, the Shir Law attorney, said nothing has gone his way since.
“I have not won a motion in over a year. I am 0-for-21 with Judge Diaz,” he said. For the Carnevales, on the other hand, “she’s granted every single motion that they’ve filed,” Menje said.
Change in judges
Guy Shir, an attorney with Shir Law Group, said he and his firm could now lose millions of dollars from court judgments. Before Diaz came on board, he said, they were “a week away” from winning the case. Now, he said, “we’re a week away from total destruction.”
But Lopez, the Carnevales’ attorney, said Diaz wasn’t biased. Instead, he said, previous judges like de La O had been led astray by his opponents, and Diaz is making things right. “I think that we were able to stop the noise and the smoke that the other side was trying to create to get the court away from the merits of the case,” Lopez said. “When the judges focus on the facts, it’s pretty clear that my clients are the victims and were taken advantage of.”
Jarvis, the Nova Southeastern professor, said Diaz ideally would have disclosed the connections between her campaign and the Carnevales’ attorneys, but that it wasn’t necessarily improper not to do so. It was also within her discretion to stay on the case, he said, given that many lawyers serve on the campaign committees of numerous judges at once.
“That really speaks to the problem of having elected judges who have to raise money,” Jarvis said.
The key question under the Florida code of judicial conduct, Jarvis said, is whether “the public would have a reasonable belief that the judge is acting improperly.”
Diaz declined to comment to the Herald through Miami-Dade courts spokeswoman Eunice Sigler, who said judicial ethics rules prohibit judges from commenting on pending cases.
This story was originally published January 15, 2021 at 12:54 PM.
