Posted by Nydia Streets of Streets Law in Florida Family Law Procedure
When a party asks for help paying attorney’s fees and costs in a Florida family law case, can the costs include the fees of an expert required to testify about the reasonableness of the fees? This was an issue in the case Echeverria v. Trombino, 4D2023-0739 (Fla. 4th DCA March 20, 2024).
In this case, the appellee sought fees and costs on the trial court level for a pending appeal. The trial court held a hearing at which the appellee presented testimony of an expert as to the reasonableness of the fees and costs sought. Included in the testimony was the amount paid to the expert to testify. The appellant argued it was premature to award fees when the merits of the underlying case had not yet been decided, and that it was error to award the amount charged by the expert to testify. The trial court awarded fees and costs to the appellee and an appeal ensued.
The appellate court affirmed on all issues, only discussing the issue of the expert’s fee. The court held “A trial court’s determination to tax expert witness fees as a cost is reviewed for abuse of discretion. United [internal citation omitted]. Section 92.231(2), Florida Statutes (2022), governs expert witness fees and provides that ‘[a]ny expert or skilled witness who shall have testified in any cause shall be allowed a witness fee . . . and the same shall be taxed as costs.’ In Travieso v. Travieso, 474 So. 2d 1184 (Fla. 1985), our Supreme Court clarified that ‘when a person is called to testify in any cause if such person is presented and accepted by the court as an expert, the party calling the witness may have an expert witness fee taxed if costs are awarded to that party.’ Id. at 1185. Cases applying Travieso have established that the trial court has the discretion to determine whether to award expert fees for experts testifying as to the reasonableness of attorney’s fees. [. . .] Here, considering that the trial court is in a better position to address whether expert fees are proper, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in taxing the expert’s fee as a cost. We also note that [the appellant] called his own fees expert at the hearing. Thus, we affirm.”
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