Rules of Appellate Procedure — Amendment

IN RE: AMENDMENTS TO THE FLORIDA RULES OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE. Supreme Court
of Florida. Case No. SC14-227. November 6, 2014. Original Proceeding — Florida
Rules of Appellate Procedure Committee. Counsel: Wendy S. Loquasto, Chair,
Appellate Court Rules Committee, Fox & Loquasto P.A., Tallahassee, Eduardo
I. Sanchez, Past Chair, Appellate Court Rules Committee, Miami, John F.
Harkness, Jr., Executive Director, and Heather Savage Telfer, Bar Staff Liaison,
The Florida Bar, Tallahassee, for Petitioner. Beverly A. Pohl of Broad and
Cassel, Fort Lauderdale, and Andrew McBride Stanton, Assistant Public Defender,
Miami, and Joshua Ryan Heller, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee,
Responding with comments.

(PER CURIAM.) The Appellate Court Rules Committee (Committee) has filed its
regular-cycle report proposing amendments to the Florida Rules of Appellate
Procedure. The regular-cycle report is submitted pursuant to Florida Rule of
Judicial Administration 2.140(b). We have jurisdiction. See art. V, §
2(a), Fla. Const.

Consistent with rule 2.140(b), the Committee published its initial proposals,
received comments, and revised and republished some of the proposals before
submitting them to the Court. As required by the rule, the proposed amendments
were also submitted to the Board of Governors of The Florida Bar, which
recommends adoption of the amendments. Following the filing of the Committee’s
report with this Court, the proposals were again published for comment, and
several comments were received. The Committee has responded to the comments. The
Court held oral argument on the proposed amendments.

The Committee proposes amendments to the following rules: 9.020
(Definitions); 9.100 (Original Proceedings); 9.110 (Appeal Proceedings to Review
Final Orders of Lower Tribunals and Orders Granting New Trial in Jury and
Non-Jury Cases); 9.130 (Proceedings to Review Non-Final Orders and Specified
Final Orders); 9.140 (Appeal Proceedings in Criminal Cases); 9.141 (Review
Proceedings in Collateral or Post-Conviction Criminal Cases); 9.142 (Procedures
for Review in Death Penalty Cases); 9.145 (Appeal Proceedings in Juvenile
Delinquency Cases); 9.146 (Appeal Proceedings in Juvenile Dependency and
Termination of Parental Rights Cases and Cases Involving Families and Children
in Need of Services); 9.160 (Discretionary Proceedings to Review Decisions of
County Courts); 9.180 (Appeal Proceedings to Review Workers’ Compensation
Cases); 9.190 (Judicial Review of Administrative Action); 9.200 (The Record);
9.210 (Briefs); 9.300 (Motions); 9.310 (Stay Pending Review); 9.320 (Oral
Argument); 9.330 (Rehearing; Clarification; Certification); 9.331 (Determination
of Causes in a District Court of Appeal En Banc); 9.340 (Mandate); 9.350
(Dismissal of Causes); 9.400 (Costs and Attorneys’ Fees); 9.410 (Sanctions);
9.420 (Filing; Service of Copies; Computation of Time); 9.430 (Proceedings by
Indigents); 9.600 (Jurisdiction of Lower Tribunal Pending Review); 9.720
(Mediation Procedures); 9.800 (Uniform Citation System); and 9.900 (Forms). The
Committee also proposes the adoption of a new rule, rule 9.147 (Appeal
Proceedings to Review Final Orders Dismissing Petitions for Judicial Waiver of
Parental Notice of Termination of Pregnancy), the substance of which is not new
but is being moved from rule 9.110(n) and adopted as a separate rule.

With respect to several of the rules, the Committee has submitted optional
proposals as explained below. Having considered the Committee’s report, the
comments, and the Committee’s responses to the comments, and having heard oral
argument, we adopt the majority of the Committee’s proposals and choose between
its optional proposals as to one of the rules. With respect to one proposal, we
decline to adopt the Committee’s language but adopt a revised amendment instead.
And finally, we decline to adopt one of the Committee’s amendment proposals as
explained below.

Florida Rules of Appellate Procedure 9.020(i), Rendition, and
9.110(l), Premature Appeals, are amended to clarify the relationship
between the two rules. Rule 9.020(i) is amended to eliminate the language
providing that postjudgment motions are abandoned upon the filing of a notice of
appeal. The amended rule will allow an appeal to be held in abeyance until
disposition of a postjudgment motion. Under rule 9.110(l), premature
appeals are subject to dismissal. The amendment adds language recognizing the
exception provided in rule 9.020(i) and recognizing that the lower tribunal
retains jurisdiction to render a final order. The amendment further provides
that the court may allow the parties time to obtain a final order.

New rule 9.147 is not actually new. It is merely a readoption of existing
rule 9.110, subdivision (n), as a separate rule. Subdivision (n) is accordingly
deleted from rule 9.110.

Rule 9.100, Original Proceedings, governs the procedure applicable to
original petitions. As it exists currently, subdivision (h) provides as follows:

The Committee proposes two optional amendments to this rule. The Committee’s
report states that its proposed changes are in response to a concern that
“courts are avoiding the automatic stay [in prohibition cases] by requiring a
response instead of issuing an order to show cause.” Proposed option 1 would
provide that the only way for a court to request a response to a writ petition
is by issuing an order to show cause. The proposal would add the following
sentence to subdivision (h): “The court shall request a response to a petition
only through the issuance of an order to show cause.” Thus the court’s
discretion to request a response in a prohibition case without staying the
proceedings in the lower tribunal would be eliminated. Proposed option 2 would
recognize the court’s discretion to choose either path, i.e., either issue an
order to show cause and stay the proceedings below (in prohibition cases) or
request a response, which would not stay the proceedings. Option 2 would make
explicit that which up to now has been the unwritten but well understood effect
of the language of subdivision (h).

In order to continue to allow courts the discretion to request a response to
a petition for writ of prohibition without bringing the proceedings in the lower
tribunal to a halt, we adopt option 2 as reflected in the appendix.

Rule 9.110(k) governs review of partial final judgments and in pertinent part
provides that “partial final judgments are reviewable either on appeal from the
partial final judgment or on appeal from the final judgment in the entire case.”
The Committee proposes adding the following language to subdivision (k): “A
partial final judgment, other than one that disposes of an entire case as to any
party, is one that disposes of a claim that is completely unrelated to the
claims that remain pending.” We decline to adopt this proposed language and
instead look to the case of Mendez v. West Flagler Family Ass’n, 303 So.
2d 1 (Fla. 1974), as a guide to better distinguish those partial final judgments
that are immediately appealable from those that are not. Under Mendez, a
partial final judgment is appealable if it disposes of a “separate and distinct
cause of action . . . which is not interdependent with other pleaded claims.”
Id. at 5. We revise the proposed amendment and adopt it as shown in the
appendix.

Rule 9.310, Stay Pending Review, provides in subdivision (a) that, except as
specified, “a party seeking to stay a final or non-final order pending review
shall file a motion in the lower tribunal, which shall have continuing
jurisdiction, in its discretion, to grant, modify, or deny such relief.” The
subdivision, as currently written, further provides: “A stay pending review may
be conditioned on the posting of a good and sufficient bond, other conditions,
or both.” Subdivision (b) of the rule provides in pertinent part:

The Committee proposes two alternative amendments to subdivision (b).
Proposed option 1 would provide that a party can only obtain a stay of a
judgment that is “solely for the payment of money” by posting a “good and
sufficient bond” in the amount of the principal plus twice the statutory rate of
interest. Proposed option 2 would provide that if a party does not obtain an
automatic stay of a money judgment, the court may, upon a showing of
extraordinary circumstances, grant a stay which must be conditioned on
posting bond, other conditions, or both. We decline to adopt either of the
Committee’s alternative proposed amendments and choose instead to leave rule
9.310 as it is.

We amend rule 9.420, Filing; Service of Copies; Computation of Time, as
proposed. As currently written, rule 9.420(a)(2), Inmate Filing, provides that a
document filed by “a pro se inmate confined in an institution” is presumed to
have been filed on the date the inmate certifies that he or she placed the
document in the hands of an institution official for mailing. As amended the
rule provides that when the institution has a system designed for legal mail
that records the date a document is placed in the hands of an institution
official for mailing and the inmate uses that system, then the date of filing
will be presumed to be the date recorded by the institution’s legal mail system.
If the institution does not have a legal mail system that complies with the
rule’s requirements, then the current presumption based on the inmate’s
certificate of service is still applicable.

The rest of the amendments are, for the most part, either technical
corrections, clarifications, or reorganizations, or are necessary to conform
language to current terminology or amended provisions in other rules, and need
not be discussed further. Except for the matters discussed above, the Court
adopts the amendments as proposed. We hereby amend the Florida Rules of
Appellate Procedure as shown in the appendix. New language is indicated by
underlining; deleted language is shown using struck-through type. The Committee
Notes are not adopted as parts of these rules but reflect the views of the
Committee only. The amended rules shall take effect at 12:02 a.m. on January 1,
2015.

It is so ordered. (LABARGA, C.J., and PARIENTE, LEWIS, QUINCE, CANADY,
POLSTON, and 

PERRY, JJ., concur.)

[Editor’s note: The Appendix is not included in this report, due to its
length. It may be viewed in its entirety at http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/decisions/2014/sc14-227.pdf]
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