00-3238 SOARES V. LANGER

State: Florida

Court: Florida Third District Court

Docket No: 00-3238 SOARES V. LANGER

Case Date: 02/13/2002

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IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDA THIRD DISTRICT JANUARY TERM, A.D. 2002

SOARES DA COSTA CONTRACTOR, INC., Appellant,

** ** **

vs. ** LANGER ELECTRIC COMPANY, ** Appellee. **

CASE NO. 3D00-3238 LOWER TRIBUNAL NO. 99-16140

Opinion filed February 13, 2002. An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Dade County, Robert Kaye, Judge. Fowler, White, Burnett, Hurley, Banick & Strickroot and June G. Hoffman and Michael N. Kreitzer and Alan J. Perlman, for appellant. H. Hugh McConnell, for appellee. Before SCHWARTZ, C.J., and COPE and GERSTEN, JJ. SCHWARTZ, Chief Judge. The appellant, Soares Da Costa Contractor, Inc., a lender and the general contractor in a failed building project owned and developed by Edel International Developers, Ltd., and then a

secured creditor when Edel went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, appeals from an adverse summary judgment for Langer Electric Company, one of Soares' subcontractors on the job and an unsecured creditor in Edel's bankruptcy estate, in an action for money damages for breach of the subcontract. The ruling was based on the determination that the order confirming the Chapter 11 plan of arrangement was res judicata in the instant action between Soares and Langer. reverse for determination on the merits. This ruling is founded on the absence of the core requirement for giving preclusive effect to a previous judgment under the federal rule which applies here or any other: that it have indeed "adjudicated" the issues sought to be foreclosed. See National We

Union Fire Ins. Co. v. Grusky, 763 So. 2d 1206 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000); Baxas Howell Mobley, Inc. v. BP Oil Co., 630 So. 2d 207 (Fla. 3d DCA 1993). The judgment involved in this case, Edel's Chapter 11 confirmation order, did not and indeed could not do more than deal with the debtor's rights and obligations with its own creditors and claimants. It did not and indeed could not concern the rights and obligations inter se of two other entities, the present parties, which had in common in the Chapter 11 proceeding only that they both happened to be creditors of the same debtor. Bankruptcy

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