Family Law Rules of Procedure, In re

• Decision Date: 07 July 1995
• Docket Number: No. 84337,84337
• Citation: 663 So.2d 1047
• Parties: In re FAMILY LAW RULES OF PROCEDURE.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 1047

663 So.2d 1047

In re FAMILY LAW RULES OF PROCEDURE.

No. 84337.

Supreme Court of Florida.

July 7, 1995.

Original Proceeding--Florida Family Law Rules of Procedure.

John F. Harkness, Jr., Executive Director, The Florida Bar, Tallahassee; and Miriam E. Mason, Chair, Family Law Rules Committee, Sessums & Mason, P.A., Tampa, for Petitioner.

Deborah Marks, individually, North Miami, in Opposition to a Portion of Proposed Rule 12.490.

Frederick D. Smith, Circuit Judge, Eighth Judicial Circuit, Gainesville; Renee K. Fehr of Cobb, Cole & Bell, Daytona Beach, as Chairperson, Volusia County Bar Association Pro Bono Committee, and on behalf of Horace Smith, Esquire, Volusia County Bar, Richard Brown, Esquire, Chairman, Volusia County Bar Association Family Law Committee and David Jenks, Esquire, Pro Bono Developer, Volunteer Lawyers Project; I. Bruce Frumkin, Ph.D., ABPP and Carolyn Stimel, Ph.D., ABPP, of Forensic and Clinical Psychology Associates, P.A., South Miami; John S. Morse of John S. Morse, P.A., Tampa; Debra Katz, M.D., Chair, Child Adolescent Psychiatry Subcommittee, South Florida Psychiatric Society, Miami; James P. D'Angelo of James P. D'Angelo, P.A., Coral Springs; Henry P. Trawick, Jr., Sarasota; Lawrence J. Hamilton II, President, Young Lawyers Division, The Florida Bar, Jacksonville; and Winifred J. Sharp, Chair, Gender Bias Study Implementation Commission, Objections and Comments regarding Family Law Rules.

OVERTON, Justice.

In accordance with our prior determination to have separate rules for family law cases, we have for adoption the Florida Family Law Rules of Procedure as proposed by the Family Law Rules Committee (the Committee). See In re Fla. R. Family Ct. P., 607 So.2d 396 (Fla.1992) (Family Law Rules I ). We have jurisdiction. Art. V, Sec. 2(a), Fla. Const. After the proposed rules were submitted to this Court by the Committee, the rules were published in The Florida Bar News for comment. A divided Board of Governors of The Florida Bar voted to approve the proposed rules in concept but recommended a number of changes. After considering comments from the Board of Governors and others, we adopt a substantially modified version of the proposed rules. In this opinion, we discuss some of the significant modifications to the proposed rules and, in view of the major changes to the proposed rules, we again invite comments from all interested parties before our final adoption of the rules.

A great number of comments were received from interested parties regarding the initial rules proposed by the Committee. The primary concerns articulated in those comments involved: (1) the Committee's total incorporation of the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure into the proposed family law rules, along with numerous technical and substantive changes, rather than references in the family law rules to additions and exceptions to the civil rules; (2) the complexity of the proposed rules given the large amount of pro bono work and pro se litigants in this area; (3) the mandatory disclosure requirements; and (4) the requirements placed on psychologists in the evaluation of children.

We first address the concerns regarding the total incorporation of the civil rules. Essentially, the Committee lifted the text of the civil rules and placed it into the family rules. The Committee then made both substantive and stylistic changes to the rules. Although the Committee's approach was well-intended, the scheme of the rules as proposed would make it difficult for general practitioners to easily discern what differences existed between the civil rules and the family law rules and what changes were in fact substantive and what changes were only stylistic. Notably, the Board of Governors of The Florida Bar voted unanimously to change the format of the proposed rules to allow for reference to the civil rules when necessary rather than to totally incorporate those rules. The Committee however, rejected this proposal by a fourteen-to-nine vote.

After reviewing the proposed rules and the comments of the Board of Governors and others, we find that the rules should reference the civil rules where necessary rather than totally incorporate them with significant changes. Such a finding is consistent with our directives in Family Law Rules I, wherein we stated:

We request that The Florida Bar immediately appoint the Family Law Rules Committee and request that the initial set of rules for family law be submitted to this Court.... To avoid confusion among members of the Bar who practice in both family law and other civil areas, we request the committee to maintain as much uniformity as possible between its proposed Family Law Rules and the Rules of Civil Procedure.

607 So.2d at 396 (emphasis added). Consequently, we have redrafted the rules to require that the civil rules apply to family law matters except as set forth in the family law rules. See Fla.Fam.L.R.P. 12.020.

We next address concerns regarding the complexity of the rules and the mandatory disclosure requirements. Many of the comments received indicated that the proposed rules appeared to be fashioned for complex dissolution cases. Fears were expressed that the complicated nature of the rules and the mandatory...