An effective appeal begins in the lower court. In Florida, the general rule is that an issue must first be presented to the trial court before it can be raised on appeal. An appellate court is not going to cut your client a break because the stakes are high. As a result, it is important to know when and how to preserve errors on appeal.
Recently, the Florida Supreme Court amended Florida Family Law Rule 12.530(a) to provide: “[t]o preserve for appeal a challenge to the sufficiency of a trial court’s findings in the final judgment, a party must raise the issue in a motion for rehearing under this rule.” This rule is not retroactive. See McGill v. McGill,2023 Fla. App. Lexis 922 (Fla. 2d DCA 2023). It only applies to judgments entered after the amendment became effective. Id. The Fourth District Court of Appeal has begun to apply this new rule.
The Fourth District Court of Appeal has recognized that no longer may a party raise for the first time on appeal the failure to attach a child support guideline scoresheet to the final judgment. Hiatt v. Mathieu, 350 So. 3d 387, 388 (Fla. 4th DCA 2022). Rather, in light of Fla. Fam. L. R. Proc.12.530(a), such error must be raised in a motion for rehearing first. Hiatt v. Mathieu, 350 So. 3d 387, 388 (Fla. 4th DCA 2022).
More importantly, up until this new rule, the Fourth District Court of Appeal had advised that it was not going to require in family law cases a motion for rehearing to preserve the issue of the trial court’s failure to make statutorily required findings of fact regarding alimony, equitable distribution and child support unless a rule was put in place. Fox v. Fox, 262 So. 3d 789 (Fla. 4th DCA 2018). Now that this rule has been put in place, Fox v. Fox, may no longer be good law.
Moreover, the Fourth District Court of Appeal recently recognized based on this rule [or the identical civil rule] that a court’s failure to make findings of fact in a final judgment, cannot be raised on appeal unless preserved by a motion for rehearing challenging the trial court’s lack of findings of fact. See Hiatt v. Mathieu, 350 So. 3d 387, 388 (Fla. 4th DCA 2022)(“Based on the amended rule, when a trial court fails to make findings of fact or attach a child support guidelines scoresheet to the final judgment, the parties must bring this deficiency to the attention of the trial court through a motion for rehearing where it can be easily corrected before an appeal.”); Jackson v. City of S. Bay, Fla., 358 So. 3d 18 n.1 (Fla. 4th DCA 2023)(Noted based on Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.530(a) that the issue was “not preserved because it was not addressed in the final judgment and Jackson did not move for rehearing challenging the trial court’s lack of findings concerning the handwritten notes.”). As a result, when reviewing the final judgment, if the court has failed to make required findings of fact or failed to attach a child support guideline scoresheet then you should file a motion for rehearing to preserve the issue for appeal. Otherwise, the appellate court may not address the merits of the issue on appeal.