Posted by Nydia Streets of Streets Law in Florida Divorce

Summary judgment as to certain issues in a Florida family law case can be granted. A summary judgment means there are no disputes as to material issues of fact, and therefore it is not necessary to have a trial, and the judge can just decide the merits of the case based on testimony and other evidence that has been provided. This was an issue in the case Rich v. Rich, et. al., 2D20-440 (Fla. 2d DCA January 14, 2022).

The parties were locked in contentious litigation in their divorce for nine years. The parties were both attorneys who were married for nine years by the time their case began. The former husband’s father and corporations owned by former husband, his father or both. The former wife contended the former husband’s father and the added corporate defendants held marital assets and/or that they committed “nefarious acts” by creating liens to dissipate the marital estate. The added defendants moved for summary judgment on the basis that the parties’ prenuptial agreement, which the court found to be valid, made it clear the assets in question were non-marital. The former wife submitted into evidence at a hearing documents she retrieved from a dumpster behind the former husband’s accountant’s office. These documents, the former wife contended, supported her claim that non-marital and marital funds had been commingled. The former husband, nor the added defendants, objected to the admission of this evidence and acknowledged that any accountant-client privilege had been waived as to these documents. Ultimately, the court, after finding that there were credibility issues on both sides, granted summary judgment to the added defendants and disregarded the dumpster evidence. The former wife appealed.

The appellate court reversed the summary judgment, holding “Because the record is void of any evidence supporting the Former Husband's and the Additional Defendants' claims that the additional shares were acquired by use of nonmarital funds— thereby allowing the shares to retain their nonmarital character, whether by terms of the Agreement or under section 61.075(6)(b), Florida Statutes (2009)—the burden never shifted to the Former Wife to introduce evidence that the shares were acquired by the use of marital funds, namely those held by 656 R/E Venture.” As to the dumpster documents, the court held “Here, the trial court found the Former Wife to be not credible. However, in the unique context of this case, that credibility finding simply cannot serve as the basis to entirely disregard the ‘dumpster documents’ as substantive evidence.”

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