Fifth DCA Case: Court Fails to Give Notice of Trial, Dismisses Case

Experienced Palm Beach probate litigators know that even the most seasoned courtroom veterans make a mistake once and a while and forget to serve notice on the opposing party. Any experienced courteous litigator will usually apologize and re-file a notice of hearing with proper service, but what happens when it is the trial court that forgets to notify the parties? Apparently one trial court thought that after neither party showed up for a trial it had not noticed them on that the case should be dismissed. Do you agree? Read more and find out.

Notice

• Notices are an important part of any litigator’s daily routine – you cannot just expect the other side to know when a West Palm Beach will contest is taking place.
• Often because of competing schedules a jury trial in West Palm Beach can be rescheduled, sometimes multiple times.
• It can be hard to make it so that every witness is available and such.
• Also sometimes a notice slips through the cracks and a party is not served.
• This happens for a variety of reasons.
• In the old days things got lost in the mail.
• Now a day sometimes an email ends up in the spam folder.
• Mistakes happen and justice has to proceed.

Wells Fargo Bank v. Michaels et. Al.

• In this interesting case the bank had a foreclosure action against a homeowner and they appealed after the case was dismissed.
• The interesting thing is why it was dismissed.
• The trial court had issued a continuance of the trial, meaning they were staying the trial to a later date.
• The trial court set that later date but failed to notice the parties.
• When no one showed up that day for trial the Court decided to dismiss the case.
• On appeal this was reversed, as it was clearly error.

Do you agree?

Want to learn more?

Check out the entire case by clicking here.