FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL

STATE OF FLORIDA

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No. 1D17-1490

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MARY WILLIAMS, Former Wife,

Appellant,

v.

RONALD H. SAPP, Former 

Husband,

Appellee.

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On appeal from the Circuit Court for Baker County.

Stanley H. Griffis, III, Judge.

May 31, 2018

M.K. THOMAS, J.

Appellant, the former wife, appeals a Consent Final Judgment 

for Dissolution of Marriage and the denial of her Motion for 

Rehearing. She asserts reversible error claiming the trial court,

through its sua sponte modification of the parties’ mediation 

settlement agreement without providing her notice and the 

opportunity to be heard, violated her due process rights. We agree 

and reverse and remand for further proceedings. 

Following years of protracted litigation in this family law 

matter, the parties attended court-ordered mediation on January 

11, 2017. After mediating for nine hours, the parties reached a 

successful resolution of all issues and generated a sixteen-page 

document setting forth the negotiated terms, including, but not 
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limited to, time-sharing, parental responsibility, child support, 

asset distribution, insurance, tax exemptions, and attorney’s fees 

and costs. The parties meticulously initialed and executed all 

pages of the agreement. The court-appointed mediator and parties 

filed the executed settlement agreement, entitled “Consent Final 

Judgment for Dissolution of Marriage,” with the trial court. The 

mediator also filed a notice advising the trial court of an agreement 

reached for “total resolution.”

The trial court had previously scheduled and noticed a “[f]iveminute” status conference to occur the day after mediation. 

Following mediation and before the status conference, the former 

wife filed a waiver in which she: (1) stated that the parties had 

reached a complete resolution and requested the trial court to 

enter a final order in conformance with the Consent Final 

Judgment as executed by the parties the previous day; (2) 

“waive[d] notice of any and all hearings, waive[d] the formal 

setting of this cause for final hearing, and waive[d] the necessity 

of the Court entering an order Setting the Cause for Trial”; and (3) 

requested to be provided “Notice of the Final Hearing.”

Neither the former wife nor her attorney attended the status 

conference. Counsel for the former husband appeared and 

purportedly presented the executed mediation agreement to the 

trial court (in the form of a Consent Final Judgment for 

Dissolution of Marriage) and requested approval. Scheduled as a 

status conference, the event was not recorded. The trial judge did 

not approve the executed settlement agreement reached at 

mediation, but instead initiated a sua sponte reworking of the 

agreement – striking through provisions, inserting handwritten 

amendments, and initialing the edits. The modifications directly 

contradicted the parties’ mediation agreement by granting shared 

parental responsibility, rather than sole parental responsibility to 

the former wife, and providing the former husband a tax 

exemption for one of the minor children, instead of tax exemptions 

to the former wife for both children. The trial court then entered 

the final order approving its altered version of the Consent Final 

Judgment.

Upon receipt of the Final Judgment and realization that it no 

longer reflected the terms negotiated and memorialized by the
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parties at mediation, the former wife timely filed a Motion for 

Rehearing. She asserted the trial court erred in modifying the 

agreement without notice and consent of the parties and requested 

a hearing on the matter. The trial court denied the motion on the 

sole basis that “[t]he wife and counsel failed to attend the trial.”

On appeal, the former wife claims reversible error as a result 

of the trial court’s sua sponte modification of the Consent Final 

Judgment without notice and an opportunity to be heard, a 

violation of procedural due process. Furthermore, she argues the 

trial court abused its discretion by denying her Motion for 

Rehearing on the basis that she failed to attend trial when no trial 

had been set or noticed for that day. Both arguments are 

meritorious. 

Appellate courts review possible due process violations in 

family law cases de novo. Dep’t of Revenue ex rel. Thorman v. 

Holley, 86 So. 3d 1199, 1204 (Fla. 1st DCA 2012). Denials of 

motions for rehearing are reviewed for abuse of discretion. 

Trammell v. Ward, 667 So. 2d 223, 226 (Fla. 1st DCA 1995).

Upon the trial court’s determination that it would not approve

(without acquisition or contemplation of additional evidence) the 

settlement agreement as presented by the parties, the trial court 

should have terminated the status conference and noticed the 

cause for an evidentiary hearing. “Blindsiding a party by 

announcing on the day of the hearing that the court will entertain 

evidence at a hearing not noticed as an evidentiary hearing is the 

epitome of a due process violation.” Messing v. Nieradka, 230 So. 

3d 962, (Fla. 2d DCA 2017) (citing Jackson v. Leon Cty. Elections 

Canvassing Bd., 204 So. 3d 571, 578 (Fla. 1st DCA 2016)). “‘[T]he 

opportunity to be heard at an evidentiary hearing requires time to 

secure the attendance of witnesses and to prepare for the 

presentation of evidence and argument.’” Jackson, 204 So. 3d at 

578 (quoting Crepage v. City of Lauderhill, 774 So. 2d 61, 65 (Fla. 

4th DCA 2000)). Here, the trial court not only failed to provide the 

former wife with requisite notice of an evidentiary hearing, but 

then proceeded, in her absence, to perform an unsolicited redraft 

of the executed mediation settlement agreement.
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In asserting the trial court erred by not honoring the 

mediation agreement of the parties, the former wife does not 

contest the general rule in Florida that settlement provisions 

concerning child support, custody, and visitation must be reviewed 

and approved by the trial court as being in the best interest of the 

children. Griffith v. Griffith, 860 So. 2d 1069, 1071 (Fla. 1st DCA 

2003) (citing Feliciano v. Feliciano, 674 So. 2d 937 (Fla. 4th DCA 

1996)). Instead, she correctly claims such discretion does not 

provide a trial judge with “virtually free hand to set aside the 

settlement agreement because the parties had minor children . . .” 

Id. at 1073. 

We do not address the sufficiency of evidence to support the 

trial court’s rejection and modification of the mediation agreement;

we note only that the rejection and sua sponte modification by the 

trial court of the parties’ mediation agreement in this case should 

not have occurred in the absence of the former wife being given 

appropriate notice and an opportunity to be heard at a properly 

scheduled evidentiary hearing. The trial court’s denial of the 

former wife’s request for rehearing, on the basis she “failed to 

attend” a trial that was never scheduled or noticed, constitutes an 

abuse of discretion. 

On remand, the trial court must either approve the marital 

settlement agreement as negotiated by the parties or, if unable or 

unwilling to do so, conduct a properly noticed evidentiary hearing. 

The remaining claims of Appellant are hereby denied without 

further comment. 

For the aforementioned reasons, the Consent Final Judgment 

for Dissolution of Marriage is reversed, and the cause remanded to 

the trial court for further action as described herein.

JAY and WINSOR, JJ., concur.

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Not final until disposition of any timely and 

authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or 

9.331.

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Michael M. Giel of Giel Family Law, P.A., Jacksonville, for 

Appellant.

Ronald H. Sapp, pro se, Appellee.