## Facts

- A consent final judgment of dissolution incorporated a marital settlement agreement under which John G. Schanck owed his former wife an equalizing payment of $2.5 million in installments, in exchange for her waiver of claims to certain assets, including any interest in Stellar Recovery, Inc.
- The agreement provided the payment obligation would survive her death and be enforceable by her estate.
- After her death, Schanck stopped making payments, and the estate obtained money judgments for missed installments, including a first judgment that Schanck later paid and a second judgment entered after additional missed payments.
- In post-judgment discovery, Schanck testified he did not know the location of stock certificates and membership certificates reflecting his interests in Stellar Recovery, Inc. and DataSignals, LLC.
- The estate moved for an order to aid execution requiring Schanck to turn over the certificates or, if unavailable, to reissue and turn over replacement certificates.
- Schanck did not appear at the hearing; by affidavit he claimed the certificates had been taken to his new wife’s residence in Canada, and argued the court lacked authority over certificates located outside Florida and lacked authority to compel cancellation and reissuance.
- The trial court ordered Schanck to cancel the existing certificates, reissue them, and turn the reissued certificates over to the estate in aid of execution.

## Issues

1. Whether a Florida court enforcing a Florida money judgment against a Florida resident may order the debtor to cancel, reissue, and turn over certificates in Florida business entities when the paper certificates are allegedly located outside Florida.
2. Whether the court lacked authority to require cancellation and reissuance because the Uniform Commercial Code or entity-law principles purportedly required the issuing entities to take those actions and to be joined as parties.

## Decision

- The appellate court affirmed the turnover order.
- The trial court acted within its legal and equitable authority to aid execution of a money judgment against Schanck.
- The order was treated as an in personam directive to a judgment debtor subject to Florida jurisdiction, not an impermissible exercise of jurisdiction over foreign property.
- The court rejected the argument that the absence of express UCC authorization barred the relief or that joinder of the issuing entities was required on these facts.

## Legal Principles

- A court with personal jurisdiction over a judgment debtor may issue in personam orders compelling the debtor to take actions necessary to make assets or interests available to satisfy a money judgment, even if related documents are physically outside the state.
- Post-judgment equitable remedies to aid execution are not limited to mechanisms expressly enumerated in the UCC when the order is directed at the debtor’s control over the interest to be reached.
- Where the debtor is the sole owner of closely held Florida entities, a court may require the debtor to use that control to effect cancellation and reissuance of certificates and to deliver the reissued certificates to the judgment creditor, without necessarily joining the entities as parties.

## Conclusion

The court upheld a broad post-judgment turnover remedy, holding that Florida courts may compel a judgment debtor to cancel, reissue, and deliver certificates representing the debtor’s interests in Florida entities to satisfy a money judgment, notwithstanding the alleged out-of-state location of the original certificates and without a showing that the UCC or nonjoinder of the entities barred such relief.


Schanck v. Gayhart, 245 So. 3d 970 (Fla. 1st DCA 2018)