Caballero v. Caballero

May 3, 2016 by Justia

David Caballero filed a Petition for Partition of Property against his former wife, Teresa Caballero seeking to partition the community property acquired during the marriage. The Family Court amended its judgment to award Teresa over $1.5 million, which included her claim to have of David's alleged underpaid income from Home Servicing, LLC (Home). David filed a devolutive appeal from the amended judgment which pending. Because David did not file a suspensive appeal, Teresa sought to enforce the judgment against him. Teresa requested issuance of a writ of fieri fascias seizing David’s alleged membership interest in Home. Teresa asserted that 56.8% of Home’s membership interests were owned by Prime Acquisitions, L.L.C. (“Prime”), which was wholly owned by David. Teresa further asserted that prior to the court’s amended judgment, David caused Prime to donate its interest in Home to himself via an Act of Distribution and then formally dissolved Prime. Thus, according to Teresa, all of Prime’s remaining assets and liabilities devolved to David pursuant to the laws governing dissolution of limited liability companies. Teresa filed a notice of a corporate and records deposition, and issued a subpoena duces tecum seeking certain business records from Home. Following limited, unsuccessful settlement discussions regarding the scope of documents to be produced pursuant to the subpoena, Home filed an exception of lack of subject matter jurisdiction and a motion to quash the subpoena duces tecum, arguing the Family Court did not have subject matter jurisdiction over a third party in a garnishment proceeding. After a hearing, the Family Court overruled the exception of lack of subject matter jurisdiction and deferred ruling on the motion to quash. The court of appeal reversed the Family Court’s ruling and sustained Home’s exception of lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Teresa then sought certiorari review from the Supreme Court. Finding that the Family Court had jurisdiction, the Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Caballero v. Caballero" on Justia Law