Posted by Nydia Streets of Streets Law in Florida Family Law Procedure

What happens if a party wants to appeal a general magistrate’s ruling in a Florida family law case? First the party is usually required to file a motion for exceptions to the general magistrate’s report within a certain amount of time. Doing so allows the trial judge to review the general magistrate’s ruling and decide whether or not an error was committed. We review this procedure in the case Langsetmo v. Metza, 4D19-2138 (Fla. 4th DCA November 4, 2020).

The parties entered a postnuptial agreement in which the former wife agreed to pay the former husband a certain sum of money. The agreement also stated the former husband was to receive two bicycles. After the postnuptial agreement was incorporated in a final judgment of divorce, the former husband filed a motion for contempt and enforcement alleging the former wife had not paid the sum due to him and he was entitled to a third bicycle. After a hearing before a general magistrate, a report was rendered which recommended that the former husband’s request for a third bicycle be denied because the postnuptial agreement did not entitle him to it, and that he be awarded the outstanding sum due to him plus interest accruing since he filed his motion for contempt.

The former husband filed a motion for exceptions to the general magistrate’s report as to the bicycle and the interest accrual date. He received notice from the court that he needed to provide a transcript of the hearing that was held before the magistrate. Thereafter he filed a motion for extension of time to do so and filed the report within 30 days. Nonetheless, the trial court denied the former husband’s motion for exceptions on the basis that he had abandoned it by failing to file a transcript within 60 days of filing his motion for exceptions. The former husband appealed.

The appellate court agreed with the former husband that his motion was denied in error. The court held “"This Court's decision in Murison v. Coral Park Properties, Inc., 64 So. 3d 1288 (Fla. 4th DCA 2011), is on point. There, we held that a trial court could not deny exceptions without a hearing on grounds that the transcript from the magistrate's hearing had not yet been provided [. . .] Here, it is undisputed that Former Husband timely filed his exceptions. The trial court's basis for denying Former Husband's exceptions without a hearing was that he did not file the transcript within sixty days of filing the exceptions, as required by the Nineteenth Circuit Court's Administrative Order. Former Husband, however, ordered the transcript, filed a motion for enlargement of time to file the transcript, and promptly filed the transcript once he received it. Based on these facts, Murison makes clear that it was error for the trial court to deny Former Husband's right to a hearing on his exceptions because the transcript was not filed within the sixty-day time frame imposed by the Nineteenth Circuit Court's Administrative Order.”

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