Longtime owners switch gears in legal fight over the future of the Naples Beach Hotel

The owners of the Naples Beach Hotel have changed their legal strategy in a court fight that has delayed the long-anticipated sale and redevelopment of their landmark property. 

The Watkins family no longer seeks outright dismissal of the lawsuit.

Instead, they're asking for a summary judgment in their favor.

The Watkins are still fighting for a dismissal of what they describe as a "wrongful" lis pendens filed by the plaintiff, along with his lawsuit.

The lis pendens — a formal notice of the lawsuit — has muddied the title.

The legal action against the Watkins family came from a local resident within days of their scheduled sale of the hotel property, leading the buyers to delay the closing, out of caution.

In case you missed it:Naples Beach Hotel: Court decision on lawsuit holding up the sale has been delayed to August

Previously:Naples resident holding up sale of Naples Beach Hotel is no stranger to legal battles

More:New Naples Beach Club project advances with enthusiastic final design approvals

Based on publicly recorded plats and easements, plaintiff Gregory Myers asserts in his lawsuit that he has an interest in the Watkins family's land, although he doesn't technically own any of it. With that interest, he argues he should have more power to determine what becomes of the 125-acre property that is so close to his home.

Claims in his lawsuit include slander of title, nuisance and civil conspiracy. He also alleges breach of covenant and breach of development agreement.

Myers has declined media interviews about his case. 

The buyers are also defendants in the lawsuit. They plan to follow in the sellers' footsteps, dropping their motion to dismiss to instead ask for summary judgment. 

Judge Lauren Brodie, who is handling the contentious case, never heard the full arguments on the dual motions to dismiss the case.

A hearing on the motions was delayed several times, and it's unclear how the judge would have sided on them.

The new motion by the Watkins family is based on new standards for summary judgments in Florida, which took effect May 1, mimicking federal rules.  

According to court documents, the new standards adopted by the Florida Supreme Court are designed "simply to improve the fairness and efficiency of Florida's civil justice system, to relieve parties from the expense and burdens of meritless litigation and to save the work of juries for cases where there are real factual disputes that need resolution." 

In the motion for summary judgment, Naples attorney Jeffrey Fridkin, who represents the Watkinses, argues  Myers "cannot show any fact, or any lawful authority, to support his essential contention" that he has rights "over, across or upon" the resort property.

Myers' "entire house of cards," Fridkin wrote, "is premised upon his false and confabulated allegations that his warranty deed, delivered to him in 2007, created implied rights in his favor," based on a plat recorded in 1933.

The attorney goes on to argue "Myers' house of cards collapses when exposed to the simple legal analysis required" in the case.

"No genuine issues of any material facts exist," Fridkin wrote, describing Myers' legal claims as "frivolous."

Myers, who represents himself in the case, has yet to file a response to the motion for summary judgment.

Before filing the suit, Myers repeatedly aired his concerns about the planned multimillion-dollar redevelopment of the resort property at Naples City Council meeting, including his objections to any major changes to the championship golf course and any development that would tamper with his "right to an unobstructed view of the Gulf of Mexico."

The Athens Group plans to raze the beach hotel and build a five-star 220-room resort with "best-in-class" residential condos along both sides of Gulf Shore Boulevard North. In April, the developers confirmed that they had signed a letter of intent with Four Seasons to operate the smaller, but more upscale resort that will replace the storied waterfront hotel that opened in 1946 — at 851 Gulf Shore Blvd. N.

At a case management conference Friday, Judge Brodie set some timelines in the case, including establishing Nov. 5 as the deadline for Myers to complete his depositions and reserving May 31 through June 24 as the window for a trial next year.

At the court hearing, Myers argued his case should be treated as complex litigation and not rushed toward resolution because it's fact intensive. 

"To suggest anything is going to be fast is, I'm sorry, disingenuous and it's putting the cart before the horse," he said.

The case is going to be so complicated, Myers said, because it will not only involve private interests, but municipal, state and federal ones.

He told the judge he hadn't formally requested supporting documents from the city or others yet, and he expects the documents to number in the "thousands of pages." It will take time to review all that information, he said, and fully understand what happened when with the property — dating back to the 1930s.

"There are all sorts of shenanigans," he said. "Let me just sum it up there." 

The Watkins have filed a motion to add Myers' wife as a plaintiff in the case because she's also an owner of the home that's at the crux of the legal fight, making her an "indispensable party."

Myers is fighting the motion, which the judge will hear at another time.

At last week's court hearing, held via ZOOM, Myers repeatedly expressed his frustration with the pace of his case, saying he felt that it needed to move more slowly, without so many seemingly artificial deadlines upfront that won't be met.

The judge disagreed with his approach.

"I'm not going to leave things open-ended," Brodie said. "Because I need to make sure things move along in an orderly way." 

Myers told the judge he'd faced pushback in getting the necessary depositions for his case, but opposing counsel challenged the validity of those claims.

The defendants contend there's nothing complicated about the case, with their attorneys describing it as "very simple" in court.

The case, Fridkin told the judge, will require little discovery and will "essentially be determined by the public record."

Confident that his clients will win the case, Fridkin said the trial window the judge set for the case would "end up to be moot" because he anticipates resolving the case in short order, in favor of his clients.

Further, he said, the defendants don't think there are any "jury issues," so they don't see a need for a jury trial, sought by Myers. 

Myers is no stranger to legal battles.

He has fought bankruptcy and foreclosure for years and he's filed multiple suits against the developers of the WaterColor community, also known as the Villages at Seagrove, located in northwest Florida, in an attempt to keep them from making changes to open and natural areas.

His lawsuit involving the Naples Beach Hotel includes some of the same legal claims as the ones he brought over changes at Villages at Seagrove.