This thread hinges on a landmark case, which the opinion was the dissent, cited as ‘Hutchens v. Maxicenters, U.S.A., 541 So. 2d 618 (Florida 5th District Court of Appeal, 1988)’. The case was predicated on a motion for rehearing en banc, which means the full court. Judge Cowart dissented and his dissent was the full opinion of the case. The case is reproduced below, in its entirety, for you to realize the inherent implications of having to plead your case in equity in regards to property rights should you appear in court defending your property and rights, and having your attorney and the courts on your side (emphasis added by the author is in italics, other emphasis (in caps) was by the Court):

Cowart, J. Dissents.

“This case involves a most important and fundamental practice and procedural issue as to the present status in Florida of the difference between law and equity and the difference between remedies and causes of action which should be openly addressed en banc by this court and the Florida Supreme Court. The essential issue is whether the 1954 merger of law procedure and equity procedure has resulted in an amalgamation of the theory and substance of those two bodies of law to the extent that a strictly law remedy, such as replevin, can now be used to directly enforce a strictly equitable cause of action, such as an action to establish a constructive trust.

An employee steals money from his employer and uses it to purchase an automobile with the legal title in the employee's name. Can the employer recover possession of the automobile from the employee by an action at law for replevin? The answer should be no.

Replevin is a possessory law action. The employer does not have legal title to the automobile and is not otherwise entitled to the immediate possession of it. The employee, of course, has violated substantive legal rights of the employer and the employer does have the choice of several LEGAL REMEDIES to redress the violation of these rights. The employer can recover his stolen money by suing the employee at LAW on one or more theories of recovery (SUBSTANTIVE CAUSES OF ACTION) (for example, the tort of CONVERSION or implied ASSUMPSIT, specifically, the implied contractual theory known as the COMMON COUNT for MONEY HAD AND RECEIVED), the same as the employer can sue any stranger who converts his property, and obtain a money judgment, have execution issue and cause the sheriff to seize and sell the automobile (or other leviable property of the employee) to satisfy the judgment.

However, a court of LAW does not have the SUBJECT MATTER JURISDICTION necessary for it to recognize or adjudicate the breach of TRUST which is inherent in the employee's theft from his employer, or to provide the employer a direct customized EQUITABLE REMEDY. COURTS OF EQUITY have EXCLUSIVE JURISDICTION to do that. By proper allegations of fact and demand for relief in a complaint in EQUITY the employer can INVOKE the EXCLUSIVE JURISDICTION of a COURT OF EQUITY to recognize the TRUST relationship between the employee and the employer, to find and adjudicate the employee's breach of that TRUST, and to exercise the special POWER and AUTHORITY of that particular branch, system, or body of law known as EQUITY or CHANCERY (1) to recognize an equitable cause of action because of the lack of power of a COURT of LAW to recognize the employer's SUBSTANTIVE EQUITABLE RIGHTS, which are not known to, or cognizable by, courts of law and (2) to provide any peculiar and special EQUITABLE REMEDIES that might be needed to enforce the employer's substantive equitable rights which are exemplified by corresponding EQUITABLE CAUSES OF ACTION.

Specifically, the employer may plead an EQUITABLE CAUSE OF ACTION for a CONSTRUCTIVE TRUST, and seek an equitable adjudication that the employee's purchase of the automobile with the employer's money resulted, in equity and fairness, in the employee holding the LEGAL TITLE to the automobile in TRUST for the USE AND BENEFIT of the employer who thereby became the beneficial or equitable titleholder, OR, if he prefers, the employer can view and plead the facts to state an equitable cause of action for an EQUITABLE LIEN and obtain an adjudication that the employee's LEGAL TITLE to the automobile is encumbered by an EQUITABLE LIEN in favor of the employer to the extent that the employer's money was used as purchase money for the automobile.

If a CONSTRUCTIVE TRUST is established, the equity court may EXECUTE or enforce the trust by ordering (in the form of a mandatory injunction) the employee to transfer the legal title to, and possession of, the automobile to the employer as beneficial owner, and enforce that injunction or order by the equity court's contempt power, and, if necessary, as relief incident to the exercise of its exclusive equity jurisdiction, the equity court can enforce the employer's resulting legal title and right to possession by any LAW REMEDY available to a law court (such as a writ of replevin or a money judgment should the automobile became lost or destroyed). If an EQUITABLE LIEN is established, the equity court can enforce that lien in any manner that a law court can enforce a lien cognizable by law.

"Equity jurisdiction" as distinguished on the one hand from the general power to decide matters at all, and on the other hand, from the jurisdiction "at law" or "common-law jurisdiction," is the power to hear certain kinds and classes of civil causes according to the principles of the method and procedure adopted by the courts of chancery, and to decide them in accordance with the doctrines and rules of equity jurisprudence, which decision may involve either (1) the determination of the equitable rights, estates and interests of the parties to such causes, or (2) the granting of equitable remedies. In order that a cause may come within the scope of equity jurisdiction, one of two alternatives is essential: (1) either the primary right, estate or interest to be maintained, or the violation of which furnishes the cause of action, must be equitable rather than legal; or (2) (a) the remedy granted must be in its nature purely equitable, or (2) (b) if it be a remedy which may also be given by a court of law, it must be one which, under the facts and circumstances of the case, can only be made complete and adequate through the application of equitable doctrines, principles or remedies.

It is customary to distinguish equitable jurisdiction as exclusive and concurrent, which distinction relates wholly to the nature and form of the remedies and properly belongs, therefore, only to that part of the jurisdiction which is based upon these remedies, i.e., (2)(a) or (2)(b) above. Equity jurisdiction embraces both cases for the maintenance or protection of primary rights, estates and interests purely equitable, and cases for the maintenance or protection of primary rights, estates and interests purely legal; and in the latter class of cases the remedies granted may be of a kind which are peculiar to equity courts, such as, reformation, cancellation, injunction, etc., or remedies of a kind which are administered by courts of law, as the recovery of money, or of the possession of specific real and personal property. The distinction between the exclusive and concurrent jurisdiction of equity represents the fact that the two kinds of remedies, equitable and legal, may, under proper circumstances, be obtained in the class of cases that involve the recovery of money or of the possession of specific things.