Jury Trials in Florida Probate Actions: probate courts typically don’t have jury trials

If you are involved in a Florida probate dispute, can you get a jury trial?  If you are involved in a lawsuit involving a deceased (dead) Florida resident, or a Florida probate, or the property of a deceased Florida resident, do you have a right to have your case, your lawsuit, decided by a Florida jury and not a judge?  Your probate lawyer or probate litigator will help you decide whether you want, or want to avoid, a jury trial for your Florida lawsuit.   There are distinct advantages and dis-advantages to having a jury trial that litigators routinely consider and evaluate.   Not every dispute involving a Florida estate or a Florida trust or a Florida probate needs, or offers you the chance to have, a jury trial.  Most probate matters are bench trials– they are decided by a Florida probate judge.  Courthouses in West Palm Beach, Miami and Ft. Lauderdale are equipped, set up, to handle jury trials, but the satellite courthouses like Delray Beach and Palm Beach Gardens are not necessariy set up to have a jury trial for a probate matter.  If you are going to have a jury trial in a Florida probate, the case may be transferred to, say the Main Courthouse in West Palm Beach, for this purpose.  If you have considered that you want a jury trial involving a probate lawsuit, you need to demand a jury trial at first instance.  If you don’t, you waive this right.  So, demand the Florida jury trial in the complaint or petition if you are the Florida plaintiff, or in the answer if you are the Florida defendant. If you are being sued and you don’t want a jury trial which was demanded by the other side, then you need to object, or file a motion to strike jury trial, at first instance, or your objection is waived and may not be raised later. Let’s say a Florida resident dies in Boca Raton with an estate of $5,000,000, survived by a spouse who is the trustee of the Florida resident’s Florida trust and who is also the executor, or personal representative of the Palm Beach County estate, which is being administered in the South County Courthouse in Delray Beach.  The spouse was co-trustee during the last year of the now deceased Bocar Raton resident’s life, and you believe that the spouse, as co-trustee, did “bad” things to the Florida trust and has interfered with your inheritance.  You sue the surviving spouse, trustee, for fraud and tortuous interference with an expectancy.  You sue the spouse as personal representative (a fiduciary capacity) and also as trustee (of the trust) and also personally or individually.  The case is filed in the civil division of Palm Beach County’s court system and there is a legal “battle” over whether you case should be heard in the probate division, by a probate judge , or in the civil division.  You demanded a jury trial for this lawsuit and the Florida trustee/Florida personal representative (executor)/spouse files a motion to strike the jury trial demand.   Who wins?  Well, some matters, like equitable actions in Florida, do not entitle a plaintiff, or one filing a lawsuit (like an heir or trust beneficiary) to a jury trial.  So, all equitable actions, all actions in equity, will be heard by the judge.  You may or may not be able to transfer the case, filed in the civil division, to the probate judge.  Any tort or fraud part of the Florida lawsuit should be heard by a Palm Beach jury since you demanded a jury trial.  It’s possible that part of your Florida lawsuit is determined by  a probate judge in Delray Beach and part of the lawsuit is heard by a jury in West Palm Beach.  Knowing whether a jury trial makes sense in a Florida probate lawsuit is an important part of your legal strategy.  Advocate hard.  Litigate smart.