Settlement Agreement Appeals

When can you appeal an order enforcing a settlement agreement?

Settlement agreement appeals. When can you appeal an order enforcing a settlement agreement. Hello, my name is John Pankauski, I’m a litigation attorney with Pankauski Hauser in West Palm Beach. The trial lawyers and appellate lawyers in our firm handle matters throughout Florida. Many times we hired by a client to negotiate hard, from strength to fashion a settlement that is often expressed in a written agreement called a settlement agreement. Many times, lawyers will seek approval of the court that is handling your lawsuit to approve the settlement agreement and make it part of an order. So if someone doesn’t comply with the Florida settlement agreement they are in contempt of court and the court typically reserves jurisdiction to enforce the settlement agreement. Read a very recent case called the Mack case. It’s a Feb 21st 2018 from Florida’s 4th District Court of Appeal. In that case, it was an appeal regarding a lack of prosecution order. The 4th District Court of Appeal in it’s opinion dismissed the appeal. What they said was you are really trying to appeal the lower court’s order on an order enforcing the settlement agreement and that time to appeal that order has come and gone and therefor the appellate court lacked jurisdiction. So if you are involved in settlement agreement that there is a order enforcing it, be mindful that you may have a very very limited time to appeal that order, typically 30 days and you can’t at a later time try to appeal it under some other theory or law. Talk to litigation attorney more about your appellate rights and whether an order that is entered by a trial court should be reviewed by a District Court of Appeal.