Daily Record Financial News &
Monday, August 3, 2015
Vol. 102, No. 186 • Two Sections
Special to the Daily Record
Mobley appointed Clay County Court judge
By Max Marbut Staff Writer July 22 was shaping up as just another day during a vacation for Kristina Mobley, senior staff attorney for the 4th Judicial Circuit. Then her phone rang with a call from the 850 area code. Not just any number, either. Gov. Rick Scott was calling. “It certainly made my vacation more exciting. I got a knot in my stomach,” said Mobley. The knot was from knowing that within a few seconds, she would hear whether she would become Clay County Court’s newest judge. The governor gave Mobley good news.
“I’m a perfectionist. I want to get it right. It’s a lot to learn and I don’t expect it to always be easy, but it’s doable.” Kristina Mobley New Clay County Court judge He selected her to fill a vacancy created by the Aug. 16 retirement of Judge Richard Townsend. For Mobley, 42, the law is her second
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Another spinoff for Fidelity
Second career for ex-teacher
The Mobley family, from left: Katrina, Mariah, Troy, Lily and Joe. Katrina Mobley recently was appointed Clay County Court judge.
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career. After graduating from the University of North Florida with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education, Mobley taught in Clay County, where she has lived since she was 2. After 11 years in the classroom, Mobley realized education would not be a lifelong career. “I had done everything I could as a teacher and I had no interest in administration,” she said. One of the elements of teaching she most enjoyed was working with people. That helped her make the decision to enroll in the Levin College of Law at the University of Florida. Judge continued on Page A-2
What would a Fidelity National Financial Inc. quarterly report be without the announcement of another spinoff? Yes, it happened again last week. Jacksonville-based Fidelity announced it would distribute its shares in restaurant company American Blue Ribbon Holdings to shareholders of FNFV Group. Fidelity, through its FNFV unit, owns a 55 percent stake in American Blue Ribbon, which owns the O’Charley’s, Village Inn, Baker’s Square, Max & Erma’s and Ninety Nine restaurant chains. That business is separate from restaurant company J. Alexander’s Holdings Inc., which operates the J. Alexander’s, Stoney River Steakhouse and Grill, and Redlands Grill chains. Fidelity, which owns 87 percent of J. Alexander’s, is already well on its way to completing a spinoff of those shares. “We are committed to an August distribution of the J. Alexander’s common stock to FNFV shareholders,” Fidelity Chairman Bill Foley said in a conference call with analysts. As for American Blue Ribbon, “we hope to complete that distribution before yearend,” he said. The American Blue Ribbon spinoff was expected. The only question was when it would happen, because Fidelity doesn’t sit still for long. To review its activity over the past year, Fidelity, which is mainly a title insurance company, created FNFV as a tracking stock a year ago to represent its investments in non-real-estate-related businesses. At the end of 2014, Fidelity distributed its majority stake in auto parts company Remy International Inc. to FNFV stockholders. In May, it launched an initial public Basch
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Duval lawyers get explanation for online backlog
By Kevin Hogencamp Contributing Writer It happened overnight. One afternoon, attorney Carolyn Wagner was able to instantly access Duval County court records online; the next morning, some of those records were no longer available. “I am on a case and all of a sudden I can’t pull up a file I previously had access to because confidential information hadn’t been redacted yet,” Wagner said. A legal veteran whose general practice includes family law, Wagner wasn’t — and still isn’t — alone. As of July 3, Duval County’s
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3,600 or so attorneys, their designated staffers and others in private, law-related fields no longer can view online records until they are vetted by Clerk of Court’s office personnel. What’s happening is the culmination of an effort that began in 2004 to develop technology and policies the Florida Supreme Court deems necessary to shield sensitive personal information — like Social Security numbers, medical information and juveniles’ names — from the public. Duval County Clerk of Court officials say since implementing changes July 3, the clerk’s office had reviewed about 24,500 of 28,000 online records requests
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“It is the clerk who is going to get sued if he releases something he shouldn’t release.” Judge Cheryl Munyon Florida Courts Technology Commission chair and that a request backlog has resulted. Among other drawbacks for lawyers, not being able to instantaneously access records makes it
difficult to perform the research necessary to determine whether to take on prospective clients’ cases. “We can’t even look at our own case files,” Wagner complained. Instead, Wagner and others must either visit the courthouse or file an online information request, which triggers a statemandated clerks office confidentiality review that sometimes takes several days, at least. The records in question include felony, misdemeanor, traffic and civil court records not sealed, expunged or otherwise deemed confidential by law or court order. “There are a lot of people saying, ‘I don’t need the informa-
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tion, anymore. I needed it when I asked for it and now four days have passed, six days have passed,’” said Hank Coxe, former president of The Jacksonville Bar Association and The Florida Bar. After banning clerks of court from providing records online in 2004 due to concerns about confidentiality of certain information, the Supreme Court began allowing attorneys remote access to electronic documents in 2006. Years of study led to the Supreme Court’s establishment of a tiered system of access to records. Last year, the court began ironing out details enabling the public to have electronic access to Records continued on Page A-10
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