Case ID: so2d_940/html/0605-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      FARMER, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Joseph STANFORD, Appellant, v. Miriam STANFORD, Appellee.
    No. 4D06-96.
    District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.
    Nov. 1, 2006.
    Richard G. Bartmon of the Law Offices of Bartmon & Bartmon, P.A., Boca Raton, for appellant.
    Jan Peter Weiss, Lake Worth, for appel-lee.
   FARMER, J.

In a pretrial order allowing husband’s lawyer to withdraw, the court gave husband 60 days to obtain new counsel. Exactly 28 days after that order, and within the 60-day period allowed for the appearance of new counsel, the trial judge inexplicably proceeded to try the case in the absence of the husband or his counsel, entering a final judgment of dissolution of marriage — essentially by default. We reverse the trial judge’s denial of the husband’s later motion to vacate the final judgment.

We deem it a denial of due process to grant a litigant a specific period of time to obtain new counsel and then proceed to try the case before the afforded time has lapsed. So fundamental is the right of a litigant to rely on orders of the court, the refusal to vacate the judgment is a manifest abuse of discretion.

Reversed for new trial.

STONE and POLEN, JJ., concur.