Item 12.16 on the Agenda for last night’s City Commission Meeting was a proposed Resolution to settle a lawsuit against the city in the amount of $142,181.88.
City “Attorney” Joseph S. Geller, as expected, made himself out to be the hero who worked so hard on this case on behalf of the city.
City “Attorney” Joseph S. Geller most likely did not expect that anyone would bother to review all the court pleadings filed in Case No. 2025-001578-CA-01, entitled Giancarlo Schwarz, et al, vs. The City of North Miami Beach.
City “Attorney” Joseph S. Geller was wrong.
We did exactly that and, as usual, we have the receipts.
Joe Geller was hired as the North Miami Beach City “Attorney” on April 9, 2024.
According to an Exhibit to the Complaint filed on January 29, 2025, the Plaintiffs’ lawyer sent a certified letter to the City nearly six months earlier on June 12, 2024 advising them that a claim was pending for personal injuries, and to please “refer this matter to your liability insurance department with instructions to have a representative contact the undersigned at their earliest possible convenience to discuss this matter further.”
Apparently, Joe Geller had over two months to merely turn this matter over to the city’s insurance company.
Instead, he let the letter collect dust on the desk at City Hall where he rarely even shows up.
In their lawsuit, the Plaintiffs stated that after “more than six months to review this claim,” the city “made no efforts to resolve the matter.” The Complaint stated that the city’s negligence caused their child to be severely injured at a playground owned and operated by the City of North Miami Beach.
Civil Action Summonses were served to both the Mayor and the Chief Financial Officer of the city on January 30, 2025, which were received by each of them on February 25, 2025 and March 5, 2025, respectively.
On March 20, 2025 Joe filed an Answer and Affirmative Defenses, in which he denied everything, including allegations that were irrefutably and provably true. It’s almost as if Joe couldn’t even be bothered to give this lawsuit the consideration it deserved to even bother giving accurate responses.
On March 31, 2025, the Plaintiffs filed a Reply to Affirmative Defenses, stating:
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- Defendant’s first affirmative defense is denied as the city is liable and responsible for its operational negligence.
- The Defendant’s second affirmative offense is denied as the minor Plaintiff was injured exclusively as a result of the Defendant’s failure to properly organize, supervise, manage and run its aftercare program. Plaintiff denies comparative fault.
- Plaintiff denies Defendant’s third affirmative defense as the Defendants failed to set forth, or identify the “risk” at issue and, accordingly to Defendant’s third affirmative defense is vague, incomplete and unsupportable.
- Plaintiffs deny Defendant’s fifth affirmative defense as inapplicable to the subject action. There is no settlement, release or covenant whatsoever.
- Plaintiff denies Defendant’s seventh affirmative defense as the same is vague, incomplete and contains no facts, no factual basis upon which Plaintiff can respond or meet Defendant’s allegations.
- Plaintiff denies and moves to strike Defendant’s ninth affirmative defense as the same is overbroad and cites a statute which contains multiple paragraphs and subparts. Plaintiff has no way of addressing, meeting or responding to this affirmative defense and the same should be stricken.
- Plaintiff moves to strike Defendant’s tenth affirmative defense as the same fails to comply with Florida’s pleading requirements of statute 768.81(3)(a)(1) which requires the Defendant to identify the non-party or describe the non-party as specifically as practicable. Defendant’s tenth affirmative defense is incomplete and defective and accordingly should be stricken.
By June 3, 2025, the Plaintiffs had received no response from Joe Geller for their request to depose city representatives, so they proceeded to file a Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel Defendant’s Representative for Deposition.
On July 21, 2025, Plaintiffs filed Request for Production to Defendant and Request for Admissions.
By October 10, 2025, Joe Geller was still not cooperating so the Plaintiffs filed a Motion to Compel Executed Answers and Better Response, stating:
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- Plaintiff served Defendants with their Request for Production on 7/21/25.
- On 10/7/25, the Defendants responded to Plaintiff’s requests, however, offered incomplete responses to the following:
- #1, 14, 18, 19, 20 and 22, by stating, “Documents responsive to this request will be produced on a rolling basis upon Defendant’s receipt and compilation.”
- First, responses were long overdue.
- Second, Plaintiff is unable to complete discovery and/or prepare this case for trial due to the Defendant’s non-compliance and/or incomplete responses.
- Additionally, Defendant has not verified its answers to affirmative defense interrogatories as required.
In that Motion, the Plaintiffs asked the court “for an order compelling the defendants to provide responsive documents to plaintiff’s requests for production and verified answers to affirmative defense interrogatories.”
Also on that same date, the Plaintiffs filed a Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel Depositions.
On October 21, 2025, the Plaintiffs filed a Notice of Mediation scheduled for October 29, 2025.
On October 30, 2025, the Mediator filed a Mediation Report stating that the Plaintiffs and their attorneys attended, and that Ahmand Johnson, Esq. of Greenspoon Marder showed up on behalf of the city. The report also stated that there was no settlement reached.
On November 6, 2025, Plaintiffs filed a Motion for Sanctions because the city’s lawyer showed up alone and did not bring “a prospective representative of the Defendant in order to assure that a representative with settlement authority was present in accordance with the rule pertaining to mediations.”
The Motion also stated that the “claim involves a significant injury to a minor child, and accordingly, both of his parents took the day off of work to attend mediation and were present.”
Even worse, “prior to the commencement of mediation, the undersigned and mediator attempted to ascertain whether the Defendant would be appearing since no authority was filed prior to the mediation pursuant to the requirements of FRCP 1.720(e); counsel for the Defendant represented that he had “authority” and/or the ability to resolve the claim.”
The Motion concluded with:
After approximately 3 hours of mediation, it was reported that the Defendant did not have access to speak with his client or person with authority and/or communicate sufficiently such that the mediation was incomplete and essentially a waste of time.
The court should note that the Defendants have not conducted any discovery, not taken any depositions, not requested nor subpoenaed any documents, and it was clear they were unprepared at time of mediation.
That the thwarting of the mediation rules by the Defendant, has essentially resulted in a breakdown of the process, waste of valuable resources, expense and delay.
Plaintiff seeks an award of sanctions, reimbursing the cost of mediation, and attorney’s fees for the time spent preparing for the same and attending the same, payment of Plaintiff’s for lost wages and any further sanctions this court deems necessary.
On December 9, 2025, the Judge issued an Order Granting Sanctions against the Defendant and ordered the city to pay the Plaintiffs’ mediation fee and attorney’s fees for the three hours of the time they wasted due to Joe’s incompetence. The Judge also ordered another mediation to be held within 45 days.
On January 23, 2026, a Notice of Mediation was filed setting a Zoom mediation on Thursday, February 5, 2026, during which “Ahmand Johnson, Esq. will be in attendance at the mediation with authority pursuant to Rule 1.720(b)(2).”
On February 10, 2026, the Plaintiffs filed a Notice of Settlement, and asked the court to cancel the trial date that had previously been scheduled.
On April 14, 2026, the Judge issued an Order of Dismissal Based on Plaintiff’s Notice of Settlement.
On June 12, 2026, the Plaintiffs filed a Motion to Enforce Settlement since Joe had done nothing about it in the two months since the Judge had dismissed the case.
On July 10, 2026, the Judge issued an Order on Plaintiffs’ Motion to Enforce Settlement, ordering Joe to place it on the Agenda for July 21, 2026 and to pay the Plaintiffs by no later than August 4, 2026.
All of which explains why Joe Geller tried to slip this under the radar by placing it on the Consent Agenda, hoping no one would pay attention.
Which also explains why none of the Commissioners we spoke to knew anything about this.
Folks, we really can’t make this shit up.
In the meantime, North Miami Beach taxpayers are not only on the hook for the $142,181.88 settlement amount due to the Plaintiffs, but for Joe’s “additional litigation” fees on this case alone over and above his monthly salary in the amount of $7,237.50 (as of May 29, 2026) for barely showing up at City Hall, as well as the Plaintiff’s share of the mediator’s and attorneys’ fees as ordered by the court because Joe couldn’t be bothered to properly prepare or even show up at the court ordered Mediation.
In the end, Joe Geller managed to bamboozle the Commission, except for Commissioners Fortuna Smukler and Lynn Su, who voted NO.
Unfortunately, the Resolution was approved by a vote of 5-2.
This is just one of the dozens of things Joe Geller has screwed up since he started his cushy, overpaid job as the City “Attorney” of North Miami Beach.
It also echoes the majority of reasons that he was fired as the municipal attorney for the Town of Bay Harbor Islands last year as reported by Florida Politics.
According to the article, council member “Eric Rappaport referenced a three-page list interim Town Clerk and Deputy Town Manager Eveyln Herbello compiled of Geller’s purportedly unfinished work, including at least one dating back to 2023.” Vice Mayor Stephanie Bruder also “said he often seems disengaged during meetings and cited an unresolved $2.4 million payment in transferred development rights from last year.”
Interestingly, according to the article, Greenspoon Marder partner Ahmand Johnson, who showed up empty handed at the Schwarz v. NMB mediation, “conceded there’s been ‘an underperformance issue’ Greenspoon Marder has been addressing, but argued the Council’s recent pay hike signaled general satisfaction with the firm’s work.” Johnson defended Sleepy Joe by stating, “It does appear to be more about politics than anything else.”
In other words, Joe Geller might be an idiot, but he’s our idiot.
Bay Harbor Islands Mayor Isaac Salver nailed it when he complained that Joe Geller “openly and loudly” supported candidates running for office, and stated that, “The perfect Town Attorney would be … perfectly neutral.”
As we already pointed out in a previous column, Joe Geller is heavily involved in the North Miami Beach shady PAC, Stronger NMB, and all the shady characters behind the dangerous petition it’s pushing.
As far as we’re concerned, there is only one solution to this problem …
JOE GELLER MUST BE FIRED AND DISBARRED!
Stephanie
NMB doesn’t have to make shit up, it is the norm! If we read that the people sitting on the dais were making productive and transparent decisions for the city of NMB, I would say, Now that’s making some shit up”. How pathetic. To have SO MUCH corruption right there in front of our faces, yet nothing is being done to stop it. Transparency to me, means we are sitting behind a window looking at the corruption, but we can only see it, we can’t stop it.
Joe Geller is a politician. He doesn’t care is NMB burns, or drowns. He only wants to have the power, and hands everywhere, so he can influence in decisions that help developers rather than our city.