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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 17-11004
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 0:15-cv-62078-FAM
CHRISTINA CIMAGLIA,
individually,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
MATTHEW A. MOORE,
individually,
Defendant-Appellee.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
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(January 30, 2018)
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Before WILLIAM PRYOR, MARTIN, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Christina Cimaglia appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment in
favor of Matthew Moore on her claims for unjust enrichment and money lent under
Florida law. Cimaglia says that the $120,000 down payment she made for a house
the two intended to share was a loan. Moore says, to the contrary, it was a gift,
only to be paid back out of proceeds from the sale of the house that never
materialized. After careful review, we affirm in part and reverse and remand in
part.
I.
Cimaglia and Moore met in 2000 and became romantically involved. In
2005, they decided to buy a house together in Florida. Because Moore had better
credit, he applied for the mortgage solely in his name. Because Cimaglia had more
liquid assets, she paid the $120,000 down payment. At the request of the mortgage
broker, Cimaglia signed a Gift Certification, stating that $50,000 of the down
payment was a gift to Moore, and “[t]here [was] no repayment expected or
implied, written or verbal” by Moore. The house was jointly titled in both
Cimaglia’s and Moore’s names.
A few months after buying the house, Moore lost his job and took a new
position in Georgia. Cimaglia and Moore’s relationship ended in 2008. Cimaglia
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continued living in the couple’s Florida home, while Moore lived in Georgia.
Moore continued making payments toward the mortgage of the Florida property
after the relationship ended. The Florida property was sold at a loss in 2015 with
Moore paying over $10,000 to facilitate the closing.
Cimaglia says the $120,000 down payment she made on the Florida property
was always intended as a loan. She says she only signed the Gift Certification
because the mortgage lender required her to, and that she “did not consider the gift
certification to contradict our private intention to make the $50,000.00” repayable.
At some point after the relationship ended, Cimaglia asked that the $120,000 be
paid back. And in a series of emails, Moore seemed to acknowledge that he owed
Cimaglia for the down payment. In November 2008, he wrote “I owe you
$120,000 but I don’t have it all liquid right now.” In August 2009, after an
attorney they’d asked to help sort out their finances shared a draft settlement
agreement, Moore responded “I do not see in this document any language related
to repaying the downpayment of $120,000 to Christina. I would like to set this up
to be repaid over a 10 year period if that is ok with Christina.” In another August
2009 email he wrote “[y]ou will get the $120K back from me. Nothing at closing
will reduce that.” In April 2010, he wrote “I will repay her $120,000 over the next
6 years.” And in fact, Moore made two payments for $20,000 and $15,000 to
Cimaglia that he characterized as “repayment.”
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Cimaglia says Moore should be required to repay the $120,000 she spent on
the down payment. After offsetting the $35,000 Moore already repaid her and an
additional $5,000 in expenses Moore incurred for her, Cimaglia says Moore now
owes her $80,000, plus interest and costs. Cimaglia filed suit in the U.S. District
Court for the Southern District of Florida, with an amended complaint alleging
claims under Florida law for fraud, unjust enrichment, and money lent. Cimaglia
later stipulated dismissal of the fraud claim, and the district court granted summary
judgment for Moore on the unjust enrichment and money lent claims. This appeal
followed.
II.
We review de novo a district court’s grant of summary judgment, “viewing
the record and drawing all factual inferences” in favor of the nonmoving party.
Mazzeo v. Color Resolutions Int’l, LLC,
746 F.3d 1264, 1266 (11th Cir. 2014). A
“court shall grant summary judgment if the movant shows that there is no genuine
dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of
law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). To create a genuine dispute as to a material fact, “[a]
mere scintilla of evidence supporting the nonmoving party’s position will not
suffice; there must be enough of a showing that the jury could reasonably find for
that party.” Allen v. Tyson Foods, Inc.,
121 F.3d 642, 646 (11th Cir. 1997)
(quotation omitted and alteration adopted).
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A.
Under Florida law, “[a] claim for unjust enrichment has three elements: (1)
the plaintiff has conferred a benefit on the defendant; (2) the defendant voluntarily
accepted and retained that benefit; and (3) the circumstances are such that it would
be inequitable for the defendant[] to retain it without paying the value thereof.”
Virgilio v. Ryland Grp., Inc.,
680 F.3d 1329, 1337 (11th Cir. 2012). Recovery
under a theory of unjust enrichment does not require the existence of an
enforceable agreement, but instead looks to the underlying fairness of the conduct
at issue. See Commerce P’ship 8098 Ltd. P’ship v. Equity Contracting Co.,
695
So. 2d 383, 386, 390 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997). “When a defendant has given adequate
consideration to someone for the benefit conferred, a claim of unjust enrichment
fails.” Am. Safety Ins. Serv., Inc. v. Griggs,
959 So. 2d 322, 331–32 (Fla. 5th
DCA 2007).
The district court determined Cimaglia’s unjust enrichment claim failed as a
matter of law because even if Cimaglia could show that she conferred a benefit on
Moore, “there is insufficient record evidence to show that it would be inequitable
for the defendant to retain the benefit without paying the value.” Specifically, the
district court pointed out that Moore and Cimaglia jointly purchased the home,
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both made mortgage payments, and neither received any proceeds from the house
when it was sold. The court also highlighted that Cimaglia lived in the home
without Moore for over six years, that Moore paid more than $10,000 to facilitate
the sale, and that Moore effectively paid Cimaglia $40,000 after the house sold at a
loss.
We agree with the district court that Cimaglia’s unjust enrichment claim
fails as a matter of law. The Third Restatement of Restitution and Unjust
Enrichment specifically addresses the application of unjust enrichment to facts
similar to these, saying that if one member of an unmarried couple has made
“substantial, uncompensated contributions” to an asset of the other, “the person
making such contributions has a claim in restitution against the owner as necessary
to prevent unjust enrichment upon the dissolution of the relationship.”
Restatement (Third) of Restitution and Unjust Enrichment § 28 (Am. Law Inst.
2011). But the Restatement’s unjust enrichment scenario is distinguishable from
this case in two important ways. First, Cimaglia didn’t make substantial,
uncompensated contributions to Moore’s asset. Rather, she provided a down
payment for a house that she co-owned and lived in, even after her relationship
with Moore ended. And second, even if the $120,000 down payment was a benefit
conferred on Moore, we cannot say that Moore unjustly retained that benefit.
When the house was sold, neither Moore nor Cimaglia received any proceeds.
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And in fact, Moore paid more than $10,000 to facilitate closing. In retrospect it
seems unfair that Cimaglia bore the bulk of the risk in the housing investment, but
unjust enrichment is not an appropriate vehicle for recovery when there has been
no return whatsoever on an investment. Cimaglia’s claim for unjust enrichment
therefore fails.
B.
“An action for money lent is an action at law which lies whenever there has
been a payment of money from the plaintiff to the defendant as a loan.” 42 C.J.S.
Implied Contracts § 2 (2010). A plaintiff making a claim for money lent must
show “money was delivered to the defendant, the money was intended as a loan,
and the loan has not been repaid.”
Id. There are very few Florida cases that
address a claim for money lent. The district court cited to one unpublished case
from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, and neither
Cimaglia nor Moore give us other examples of a court analyzing a money lent
claim. However, the claim is included on a Florida Rules of Civil Procedure Form.
Fla. R. Civ. P. Form 1.936 (“Defendant owes plaintiff $ …… that is due with
interest since ….. (date) ….., for money lent by plaintiff to defendant on ……
(date) …..). And a number of Florida lower courts have recognized the existence
of the claim even if they don’t analyze it in depth. See, e.g., Burt v. Hudson &
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Keyse, LLC,
138 So. 3d 1193, 1194 (Fla. 5th DCA 2014); Sun Bank/Miami, N.A.
v. Saewitz,
579 So. 2d 255, 255 (Fla. 3d DCA 1991).
The district court found that Cimaglia failed to show the first two
requirements of a claim for money lent. First, the court determined that Cimaglia
didn’t show “money was delivered to the defendant” because it was used as a
down payment on Cimaglia and Moore’s jointly titled home. Second, the court
determined that Cimaglia did not provide sufficient evidence that the down
payment was intended as a loan because she executed a gift certification explicitly
designating $50,000 of the payment as a gift, and the only other evidence presented
was “after-the-fact e-mails years after the initial purchase.”
Both of these determinations are at odds with the record before us. First,
there is a genuine dispute of material fact about whether money was delivered to
Moore. The mortgage to the Florida home was in Moore’s name only, and as a
result, Cimaglia was not legally obligated to make payments toward the mortgage.
We are also unpersuaded by Moore’s argument that Cimaglia’s claim fails because
she paid the bank directly rather than first providing the funds for the down
payment to Moore. Cimaglia’s payment of $120,000 of Moore’s debt was a direct
benefit to him, even if it didn’t pass through his bank account first.
Second, there is a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether the down
payment was intended as a loan. While the litany of emails from Moore do not
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definitively establish that he accepted Cimaglia’s payment as a loan, they certainly
lend support to that theory. Although it is true, as Moore emphasizes, that the
word “loan” does not appear in the emails, he repeatedly couches his payments in
terms of “repayment,” suggesting a prior obligation, rather than a gratuitous
payment. Cimaglia’s version of events is also supported by her sworn deposition
testimony and the fact that Moore gave her $40,000 toward his “repayment.”
While the Gift Certification places an additional barrier to Cimaglia’s
recovery of $50,000 of the loan, we find that a dispute of material fact exists as to
whether that agreement was enforceable or alternatively supplanted by a different
agreement with Moore. In support of this view, Cimaglia relies on Florida
appellate court rulings that a gift certification letter did not conclusively establish
that a money transfer was intended as a gift rather than a loan. See Smith v.
Anderson,
821 So. 2d 323, 326–27 (Fla. 2d DCA 2002); cf. Monroe v. Appelton,
419 So. 2d 356 (Fla. 2d DCA 1982) (finding a writing describing a transfer as a
loan did not conclusively establish that the transfer was intended as a loan rather
than a gift). While these cases give only cursory analysis, they recognize that
defenses may exist that prevent writings from being enforceable. And, for
example, if Cimaglia and Moore reached a separate agreement not to honor the
Gift Certification, or Moore implied that he would not rely on the Gift
Certification, a reasonable jury could decide not to allow Moore to enforce that
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agreement against Cimaglia. We also find Moore’s repeated reference in email to
his intent to repay $120,000 rather than $70,000 supports an inference that the
parties had come to a different agreement than that described in the Gift
Certification.
Drawing all inferences in Cimaglia’s favor, we find that she has made a
claim for money lent for $80,000—the original $120,000 down payment less the
$40,000 already repaid by Moore—sufficient to survive summary judgment. We
therefore affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Moore
on the unjust enrichment claim but reverse and remand for trial on the money lent
claim.
AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED AND REMANDED IN PART
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