STEVEN FRANK SCHNEIDER, 

HUSBAND,

Appellant,

v.

ANGELA M. SCHNEIDER, 

WIFE,

Appellee.

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL

FIRST DISTRICT, STATE OF FLORIDA

NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO 

FILE MOTION FOR REHEARING AND 

DISPOSITION THEREOF IF FILED

CASE NO. 1D15-914

_____________________________/

Opinion filed April 8, 2016.

An appeal from the Circuit Court for Clay County.

Dan Wilensky, Judge.

Lynn W. Martin of Law Offices of Lynn W. Martin, Jacksonville, for Appellant.

No appearance for Appellee.

RAY, J.

Steven Frank Schneider, the former husband, appeals from a final order 

finding him in contempt for failure to timely pay an amount due under a final 

judgment of dissolution of marriage and awarding attorney’s fees to Angela M. 

Schneider, the former wife, under a reservation of jurisdiction on this issue in the 

final judgment. The former husband challenges both the finding of contempt and 

the award of fees. For the reasons explained below, we reverse the finding of 
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contempt, but we affirm the award of fees due to lack of preservation or transcripts 

of the relevant proceedings.

The final judgment required the former husband to pay $343.64 in child 

support and $200 from his military retirement pay each month, beginning on 

December 1, 2014. On December 4, 2014, the former husband gave the former 

wife a check in the amount of $343.64 and told her he did not intend to pay the

remaining $200. The former wife filed a motion for contempt the next day, and the 

former husband paid the remaining $200 on December 22, 2014. At the time of the 

hearing on the former wife’s motion for contempt, the former husband remained 

current on all payments due under the judgment. The trial court found that the 

former wife had “elected” to consider the first December payment “as payment for 

the property settlement, and the remainder as child support.” Ratifying this 

decision by the former wife, the court found the former husband in contempt for 

his “refusal to timely pay the $543.64.”

A finding of civil contempt is reviewed for abuse of discretion. Kea v. Kea, 

839 So. 2d 903, 904 (Fla. 1st DCA 2003). However, a finding of contempt for 

unpaid debt is proper only if the debt is alimony or child support. Kea, 839 So. 2d 

at 904. Therefore, it is an abuse of discretion to hold a person in contempt for 

failure to comply with a property-settlement provision of a final judgment of 

dissolution of marriage. Kea, 839 So. 2d at 904. 
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Here, the former husband paid the former wife the exact amount due for 

December child support three days after it was due and a day before she filed her 

motion for contempt. The only reasonable interpretation of the check is that it was 

a payment of child support. By ratifying the former wife’s decision to treat it as 

something else, the court essentially found the former husband in contempt for 

failing to make a property-settlement payment on time.1

As for the fee issue, the order suggests that the court unduly focused on a 

single large-sum check the former husband received just before the trial, without 

taking into consideration the entire picture of each party’s financial circumstances.

Because the fee determination was necessarily based on evidence presented at the 

final hearing leading to the final judgment of dissolution of marriage, we have 

taken judicial notice, on our own motion, of the portion of the record filed in the 

prior appeal from the final judgment, hoping that it would shed light on the trial 

court’s decision. See Ellsworth v. Ins. Co. of N. Am., 508 So. 2d 395, 398 (Fla. 1st 

DCA 1987) (recognizing that “in appropriate circumstances an appellate court may 

take judicial notice of its own records”). The documents in the record give the 

 

1 We do not read the trial court’s order as finding the former husband in contempt 

for making his first post-judgment child support payment three days late, but for 

allegedly failing to make the full child support payment until later in the month. To 

the extent the order might be read as finding the former husband in contempt for 

his late payment, it is still not salvageable under the unique facts of this case. The 

purpose of contempt proceedings is to obtain compliance with a court order, not to 

punish. Bowen v. Bowen, 471 So. 2d 1274, 1278 (Fla. 1985).
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impression that the final judgment left the parties on roughly equal financial 

footing, or even that the former wife was in a better financial position, which 

would make the fee award improper. Hutchinson v. Hutchinson, 2015 WL 

5779387, at *1 (Fla. 1st DCA Oct. 2, 2015). However, this observation is only an 

impression, as no transcripts of the evidentiary hearings at which the parties’ 

financial circumstances were litigated are available, and the trial court’s orders do 

not contain findings sufficient to resolve our questions on this matter one way or 

the other.

2 Although the former husband argues error in the lack of sufficient 

findings, he did not preserve this challenge to the lack of sufficient findings as 

required by our precedent. See Burkett v. Burkett, 155 So. 3d 478, 478 (Fla. 1st 

DCA 2015). Under these circumstances, we affirm, not knowing if evidence and 

arguments presented at the hearing would clarify the basis for the fee award and 

the fee order’s focus on one aspect of the parties’ circumstances. See Applegate v. 

Barnett Bank of Tallahassee, 377 So. 2d 1150, 1152 (Fla. 1979); Burkett, 155 So. 

3d at 478; Furr v. Furr, 57 So. 3d 914, 914 (Fla. 1st DCA 2011).

AFFIRMED in part and REVERSED in part.

OSTERHAUS and WINOKUR, JJ., CONCUR.

 

2 Appellant obtained an approved statement of the evidence presented at one of the 

relevant hearings under Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.200(b)(4). 

However, this statement did not sufficiently illuminate the state of the evidence on 

the parties’ respective financial circumstances to allow for meaningful review of 

the fee issue.