STOREY MOUNTAIN LLC v. LAKES KINGDOM II LLC III LLC IV LLC II III IV (2026)

After obtaining a judgment, Appellant Storey Mountain, LLC sought to collect from Appellee Roberto Vinas, as the guarantor of a commercial loan. In that process, Storey Mountain discovered that Vinas’ wife, Martha Yee, agreed to loan Vinas $2.5 million in exchange for a security interest in a condominium they co-owned on Fisher Island. This was evidenced by a promissory note documenting Vinas’ promise to pay and a mortgage confirming Yee's lien on the property.

Storey Mountain asserted that Yee never transferred the monies to Vinas. It moved for supplementary proceedings and requested the trial court to issue a notice to appear to Yee, seeking a judgment for $2.5 million against her. The trial court refused to issue the notice.

Storey Mountain asserts the trial court was required to issue the notice because section 56.29, Florida Statutes, contains the word “shall.” But this overlooks the statute's remaining text. See Antonin Scalia & Bryan Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 167 (2012). Storey Mountain did not meet its other requirements. The record shows that this is a debt due to Yee—not Vinas. The debt of another is not the property of the judgment debtor. See § 56.29(2), Fla. Stat. (2025); Longo v. Associated Limousine Servs., Inc., 236 So. 3d 1115, 1120 (Fla. 4th DCA 2018) (“Simply put, the entire statutory scheme of section 56.29(2) contemplates that the judgment creditor describe ‘any property of the judgment debtor’ or ‘any property, debt, or other obligation due to the judgment debtor’ that may be applied to satisfy the judgment, so as to enable the trial court to issue Notices to Appear that describe the property, debt, or other obligation ‘with reasonable particularity.’ ”). Accordingly, the trial court properly refused to issue the notice to appear.

Affirmed.

PER CURIAM.