Florida Probate Litigation: Do Contempt Proceedings Occur When Parties Fail to Follow a Court Order?

When the other side fails to follow a court order in a Florida trust lawsuit or will contest, you may be able to seek contempt proceedings. West Palm Beach estate lawyers need to know the ins and outs of these rules because they may not be as simple as they sound. Want to learn more? Check out this recent appeal from the Fourth District Court of Appeal (DCA).

Is not paying up a judgment, or failing to obey a court order, enough to warrant a contempt proceeding in Florida probate court? Your Florida probate lawyer should be very familiar with what contempt is, and how to avoid it. Estate attorneys know that paying attention to court orders is critical to getting what you want out of a probate trial or will contest. Contempt proceedings occur when parties fail to follow a court order. Frequently, a defense will be raised that it was impossible to follow that court order. It may surprise you but impossibility is a valid excuse when faced with contempt proceedings. However, what if you simply choose not to attend a court ordered conference? Check out A May 21, 2017 Fourth DCA opinion, Rosenwater v. Deutsche Bank National Trust Company.

Here, a trial judge issued an order scheduling a case management conference. The order stated: SHOULD YOU FAIL TO PERSONALLY ATTEND THE CASE MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE, YOUR FAILURE TO ATTEND COULD RESULT IN A DISMISSAL, DEFAULT, STRIKING THE ABSENT PARTIES’ PLEADINGS AND/OR OTHER APPROPRIATE SANCTIONS. Despite the order, the defense counsel decided not to appear at this conference. During the conference, the trial judge called defense counsel on speaker phone. The defense counsel’s staff was not very accommodating to the judge. At first, the judge wasn’t even able to speak with defense counsel himself. The office stated that he was on the phone. Then, they had an associate attorney come on the line. The associate stated that “his office did not feel the need to attend the CMC because Defendant and the bank’s counsel had worked out an agreed order on the pending Motion to Dismiss.” Does this make it OK for a Florida lawyer to ignore a court order? Is it EVER OK to ignore a court order? Eventually, defense counsel did come on the line. Instead of apologizing to the judge for ignoring the court order, or asking to attend the conference via telephone, defense counsel gave reasons why he felt the CMC was not worthy of even having coverage counsel attend. This all ended up resulting in the trial judge finding defense counsel guilty of criminal contempt. The trial judged fined him $500. In addition, defense counsel was committed to St. Lucie County jail for “10 days, suspended, pending compliance with all of the terms of the order.” Defense counsel appealed. What did the Florida appellate court say? To read the entire case, click here.