EARL RAYMOND CAMPOS,

Appellant,

v.

JOANA CAMPOS, 

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. 1D16-5857

_____________________________/

Opinion filed October 24, 2017. 

An appeal from an order of the Circuit Court for Leon County.

Charles A. Francis, Judge.

Emilian “Ian” Bucataru, Bucataru Law Firm, PLLC, Tallahassee, for Appellant.

James C. Banks, Banks and Sweeting, P.A., Tallahassee, for Appellee.

KELSEY, J.

Although the parties’ dissolution of marriage became final in 2005, they have 

continued to litigate timesharing and related issues since then in a manner that one 

of many circuit judges serially assigned to the case aptly described as “disastrous.”

At the center of the fray are former husband’s ongoing attempts to earn reunification 
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with the parties’ two children, who were preschoolers when this started. The order 

on appeal denies the former husband’s motion under Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 

1.540(b)(4)1 to vacate all orders and “proceedings” in this case from 2015 forward. 

For the reasons that follow, we reject the former husband’s arguments, and dismiss 

this appeal for lack of jurisdiction, without prejudice to new proceedings on remand.

Parenting Motions and Orders

The litigiousness and duration of this case become a feature because so many 

judges have presided over it through the years. The record reflects several cycles of 

orders limiting or eliminating the former husband’s parenting time, followed by 

motions for modification or reunification, all of which were denied. Relevant to this 

appeal, the former husband moved for reunification again in 2014. During the 2015 

evidentiary hearing, when a certain pediatrician’s name came up, the trial judge 

reminded the parties on the record that he had disclosed earlier—in a 2009 hearing 

when that judge was briefly assigned to the case—that the pediatrician also saw one 

of the judge’s children. The former wife’s counsel acknowledged the previous 

disclosure and stated there was no objection. Former husband did not object, either.

The trial court denied that motion without prejudice, and the former husband did not 

 1 Rule 1.540 provides in pertinent part that “[o]n motion and upon such terms as 

are just, the court may relieve a party or a party’s legal representative from a final 

judgment, decree, order, or proceeding for the following reasons: . . . (4) that the 

judgment or decree is void . . . .”
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appeal (although it was an appealable non-final order under Florida Rule of 

Appellate Procedure 9.130(a)(3)(C)(iii)b (allowing appeals in family law matters 

from non-final orders that determine “the rights or obligations of a party regarding 

child custody or time-sharing under a parenting plan”)).

The predecessor judge entered a separate order on child support and attorney’s 

fees, which recited that it was memorializing the parties’ stipulation. The former 

husband initially challenged that order, but upon being reminded through a motion 

for sanctions that he had stipulated to it, withdrew his challenge. 

In 2016, before a successor judge, the former husband again moved for 

reunification, or for reconsideration of previously imposed parenting restrictions. 

The parties engaged in motion practice and discovery on that new motion. The 

former husband did not object when the former wife filed transcripts of evidentiary 

hearings held before the predecessor judge in 2015. The successor judge held a new 

evidentiary hearing on the 2016 motion, and entered an order on July 20, 2016, 

denying the former husband’s motion for reunification—again without prejudice.

Again, the former husband did not appeal the order denying reunification, although 

he had appellate counsel and it was an appealable order under Rule 

9.130(a)(3)(C)(iii)b. 

Three weeks after the appeal deadline expired on that order, the former husband 

filed a motion to vacate under Rule 1.540(b)(4) (despite seeking to retain some 
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favorable aspects of the predecessor judge’s rulings). This motion noted that the 

predecessor judge sitting on the case in 2015 had done more in 2009 than merely 

disclose the involvement of his own child’s pediatrician: he had entered an order 

recusing himself from the case.2 Thus, the former husband argued, the predecessor 

judge’s 2015 orders were void, as was all record activity from that point forward

including the 2016 orders.

We reject the former husband’s argument that these circumstances created 

jurisdiction for this appeal. We also write to reject the former husband’s argument

that because the predecessor judge had recused himself in 2009, we should rewrite 

history by striking from the record everything that occurred after the predecessor 

judge was reassigned to the case in 2015, including evidentiary hearings and their 

sworn testimony, the successor judge’s July 20, 2016 order denying reunification 

without prejudice, and the December 22, 2016 order denying the motion to vacate.

Appellate Jurisdiction

It is true that orders entered by a recused judge are void. Davis v. State, 849 So. 

2d 1137, 1138 (Fla. 1st DCA 2003). But that is not the issue. The issue is whether 

the order denying the former husband’s motion to vacate is appealable, and thus 

whether we have jurisdiction. 

 2 It would seem prudent for clerks of court to document recusals conspicuously 

within court files to protect against inadvertent reassignments to recused judges.
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The former husband relies on the timesharing provision of the non-final appeal 

rule, Rule 9.130(a)(3)(C)(iii)b, to challenge the part of the December 22, 2016 order 

on appeal reaffirming that reunification was denied without prejudice. As already 

noted, former husband could have appealed the July 20, 2016 order denying 

reunification if he had done so timely; but the trial court’s repeating the same ruling 

in the later order denying the motion to vacate cannot revive an appeal period.

Caldwell v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 980 So. 2d 1226, 1229 (Fla. 1st DCA 2008).

The former husband relies on Rule 1.540(b)(4) as creating jurisdiction over the 

recusal-related issues, asserting that his motion to vacate was a “timely and 

authorized motion for relief from judgment” under Florida Rule of Appellate 

Procedure 9.130(a)(5). Perhaps it was timely, since Rule 1.540(b)(4) is not subject 

to a specific time limit; but it was not authorized.

Rule 1.540(b)(4) applies only to final judgments, decrees, and orders. Fla. R. Civ. 

P. 1.540, comment (“Moreover, as in the Federal Rule [60], Rule 1.540(b) does not 

extend to interlocutory judgments.”); Bennett’s Leasing, Inc. v. First St. Mortg. 

Corp., 870 So.2d 93, 98 (Fla. 1st DCA 2003) (“An order entered on a motion to 

vacate a non-final order, even where the motion mislabels the non-final order as 

final, is not reviewable under Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.130(a)(5).”);

see Capone v. Philip Morris USA, Inc., 116 So. 3d 363, 372 (Fla. 2013) (construing 

companion rule 1.530 as authorizing rehearings of “orders and judgments which are 
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final in nature”); Laytner v. Humble Oil & Ref. Co., 262 So. 2d 675, 677 (Fla. 1972) 

(construing rule 1.530 as applying to final judgments and orders “directed to an 

otherwise appealable final judgment”); De La Osa v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 208 

So. 3d 259, 262-64 (Fla. 3d DCA 2016) (On Rehearing En Banc) (construing Rule 

1.540(b)(4) as applying only to final judgments, decrees, and orders); see also Fla. 

R. Jud. Admin. 2.430(2) (equating “judgment” with “final order, final judgment, 

final docket entry, final dismissal, or nolle prosequi [that] has been entered as to all 

parties”) (quoted in De La Osa, 208 So. 3d at 262).

The predecessor judge’s 2015 orders and the successor judge’s 2016 orders were 

non-final orders. They differ materially from final judgments within the scope of 

Rule 1.540(b)(4), under which relief “is only available in extraordinary 

circumstances.” Pollock v. T & M Invs., Inc., 420 So. 2d 99, 103 (Fla. 3d DCA 1982). 

In contrast to final judgments, interlocutory orders are subject to judges’ 

reconsideration sua sponte, even to the point of withdrawing them completely or 

reversing the initial ruling. Silvestrone v. Edell, 721 So. 2d 1173, 1175 (Fla. 1998) 

(recognizing inherent authority of trial judges to reconsider interlocutory orders); 

LoBello v. State Farm Fla. Ins. Co., 152 So. 3d 595, 560 (Fla. 2d DCA 2014) 

(quoting Oliver v. Stone, 940 So. 2d 526, 529 (Fla. 2d DCA 2006) (“It is well 

established that a trial court may reconsider and modify interlocutory orders at any 

time until final judgment is entered.”)). After a case is assigned to a different judge, 
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a successor judge has the inherent authority to reconsider prior interlocutory orders; 

and a party can invoke this inherent authority by motion, as the former husband did

here. See LoBello, 152 So. 3d at 600 (quoting Oliver, 940 So. 2d at 529). In the 

context of disqualification or recusal of a predecessor judge, the same inherent 

reconsideration authority is recognized by rule. See Fla. R. Jud. Admin. 2.330(h) 

(allowing successor judge to reconsider and vacate or amend prior factual or legal 

rulings by a disqualified judge on motion for reconsideration filed within twenty

days after the order of disqualification (or later upon good cause shown)). In 

addition, the former husband could have taken an interlocutory appeal from the 

orders denying him resumed parenting, but he did not. See Fla. R. App. P.

9.130(a)(3)(C)(iii)b. 

All of these authorized methods of addressing interlocutory orders further 

demonstrate why such orders are not reviewable under Rule 1.540(b)(4). Because 

the orders challenged in the former husband’s motion under Rule 1.540(b)(4) were 

not final, the former husband’s motion was not “authorized” within the meaning of 

Rule 9.130(a)(5). We do not have jurisdiction, and dismiss the appeal. We note that, 

as provided in the trial court’s orders denying the former husband timesharing, this 

ruling is without prejudice to the former husband’s seeking timesharing before the 

trial court upon proper pleading and sufficient evidence. § 61.13(3), Fla. Stat. (2016) 

(requiring “a showing of a substantial, material, and unanticipated change in 
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circumstances and a determination that the modification is in the best interests of the 

child”).

Voiding “Proceedings”

Finally, even assuming we had jurisdiction over the merits, we would be required 

to reject as meritless the former husband’s argument that all papers, procedural 

orders, transcripts, and other record contents must be stricken and rendered nullities 

after a previously recused judge enters an order. The only legal authority offered for 

this proposition is a sentence in the Florida Jurisprudence section on “Judgments and 

Decrees.” 19 Fla. Jur., Judgments & Decrees § 254. This makes the point that if a 

final judgment, decree, or order is void, then all proceedings based on that void order 

are themselves void and nullities. That principle is true, but the former husband 

misapplies it. Correctly applied, the principle means that judicial action by a recused 

judge is void, with the exception of the judge’s memorializing in writing a ruling 

already rendered orally. Fischer v. Knuck, 497 So. 2d 240, 243 (Fla. 1986) (“When 

a [recused] judge has heard the testimony and arguments and rendered an oral ruling 

in a proceeding, the judge retains the authority to perform the ministerial act of 

reducing that ruling to writing.”). The “proceedings” subject to being voided are 

limited to judicial acts. See Overcash v. Overcash, 135 So. 3d 575, 576 (Fla. 5th 

DCA 2014) (mem.) (reversing order of contempt based on a void order); Fisher v. 

State, 840 So. 2d 325, 330-31 (Fla. 5th DCA 2003) (invalidating as void an order 
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entered after proceeding for which no notice was given); Wells v. State, 495 So. 2d

1221, 1222 (Fla. 1st DCA 1986) (determining order of violation of probation was 

void where underlying probation order was void). The principle of voiding 

“proceedings” based on earlier void judgments or orders does not mean what the 

former husband says it means.

DISMISSED.

WINOKUR, J., CONCURS; WINSOR, J., CONCURS IN SUBSTANTIAL PART 

WITH OPINION.
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WINSOR, J., concurring in substantial part. 

I concur in all but the last section. Because we lack jurisdiction to consider 

this appeal, I would not address the merits of appellant’s claims.