TARLO v. METROPOLITAN LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY (2023)

Appellants Margarita Golkova and Boris Tarlo challenge the trial court's final foreclosure judgment in favor of appellee Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, asserting that the trial court erred in denying appellants’ third motion seeking to continue the trial. We review a denial of a motion for continuance for an abuse of discretion. Taylor v. Mazda Motor of Am., Inc., 934 So. 2d 518, 520 (Fla. 3d DCA 2005).

A week before the bench trial was scheduled to begin, appellants filed their motion for continuance, suggesting that appellant, Boris Tarlo, had a medical condition that would prevent him from testifying that he never received the default notice of Metropolitan Life's loan servicer.

In adjudicating appellants’ continuance motion, the trial court was confronted with the following: (i) multiple requests for continuance by appellants; (ii) a case that was over three and one-half years old; (iii) Tarlo's not providing a sworn proffer as to what he would testify to at trial; (iv) the failure of the appellants and their counsel to appear for a court-ordered mediation; (v) the continuance motion made only a week before the scheduled start of trial; and (vi) the prejudice to the appellee associated with another continuance based on what appeared to the trial court to be an open-ended medical condition.

On this record, we are unable to conclude that the trial court abused its discretion. See Bahad v. Wilmington Sav. Fund Soc'y, FSB, 278 So. 3d 740, 740 (Fla. 3d DCA 2019) (finding no abuse of discretion in the trial court's denial of an ore tenus motion to continue a foreclosure final hearing after having granted “prior numerous requests to continue”).

Affirmed.

PER CURIAM.