Nikooie v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.

In this appeal and cross-appeal, we review a final judgment addressing competing claims among a group of real estate lenders. Despite the relative simplicity of Florida’s recording laws and the well-settled procedures for mortgage loan closings, the underlying development project became a tangled knot of claims and counterclaims.1 Embarrassingly for the legal profession, most of the tangled web is attributable to the acts and omissions of lawyers — -though not those representing the parties here or in the trial court.2

We affirm the trial court’s rulings in all respects but two. We reverse the…