Frisbie v. Carolina Casualty Insurance Co.
Frisbie v. Carolina Casualty Insurance Co.
Opinion of the Court
Bill Frisbie, Yankee Trailer Court, LLC, and Yankee Trailer Court, Inc. (“Appellants”), appeal the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Carolina Casualty Insurance Company (“Appellee”). Appellants argue that the trial court erred because Appellee failed to properly plead the doctrine of unclean hands prior to its second motion for summary judgment. We reverse and remand for further proceedings because the issue of unclean hands — asserted by Appellee as an avoidance to Appellants’ affirmative defenses— should have been pleaded in a reply to Appellants’ answer. We decline to address Appellants’ other arguments because they are without merit.
This court previously reversed the trial court’s first grant of summary judgment in favor of Appellee after finding that “genuine issues of fact existed as to whether waiver or estoppel barred rescission.” Frisbie v. Carolina Cas. Ins. Co., 103 So.3d 1011, 1012 (Fla. 5th DCA 2012). After remand, Appellee filed a second motion for summary judgment, arguing that the material misrepresentations of Appellants’ law firm — in whose shoes Appellants stand for purposes of this case — constituted unclean hands and precluded Appellants from asserting the affirmative defenses of waiver or estoppel in answer to Appellee’s claim for rescission. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of Appellee for a second time, ruling that the doctrine of unclean hands precluded Appellants’ reliance on the affirmative defenses of waiver or estoppel.
Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.100(a) requires that “[i]f an answer ... contains an affirmative defense and the
We also adopt the fourth district’s opinion that summary judgment based on unclean hands “is not an appropriate vehicle to resolve disputed issues of fact.” Cohen v. Kravit Estate Buyers, Inc., 843 So.2d 989, 992 (Fla. 4th DCA 2003) (citing Dery v. Occhiuzzo & Occhiuzzo Enters., Inc., 771 So.2d 1276, 1278-79 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000) (ruling that the issue of unclean hands “requires the resolution of disputed facts”)). In addition to the unresolved factual issue of unclean hands, we reiterate that genuine issues of fact exist as to whether waiver or estoppel barred rescission in the instant case.
REVERSED and REMANDED.
Concurring Opinion
concurring and concurring specially.
I concur in the majority opinion but write to address an issue not specifically argued by the parties. The “avoidance” of unclean hands should not be available here because it is predicated upon the precise acts on which the misrepresentation claim is also predicated. In other words, Appel-lee seeks rescission of the insurance contract based upon acts of misrepresentation. Appellants interposed the defenses of waiver and estoppel to avoid the misrepresentation claim. Appellee’s attempt to assert unclean hands to avoid the waiver and estoppel defenses is nothing more than an attempt to get a second bite of the apple, based upon the same purported conduct. The so-called “unclean hands” avoidance is entirely subsumed in the misrepresentation claim. Accordingly, if the jury concludes that Appellee waived its misrepresentation claim, or is estopped to assert it, then the waiver or estoppel operates as a defense to the conduct, irrespective of
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.