JOHN JAY LAWRENCE, APPELLANT,
v.
MELISSA R. WALKER, APPELLEE

Fla. 4th DCA | 1999-11-17
No. 99-0032
DELL, J., concurs., WARNER, C.J., concurs specially with opinion.
751 So. 2d 68 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fourth District (1999) Positive Treatment
Cited by 2 cases


Opinion of the Court
TAYLOR, J.

TAYLOR, J.

AFFIRMED. See Applegate v. Barnett Bank of Tallahassee, 377 So. 2d 1150 (Fla.1979)

DELL, J., concurs.

WARNER, C.J., concurs specially with opinion.

Concurrence
WARNER, C.J.,

WARNER, C.J.,

concurring specially.

I agree that we are compelled to affirm this appeal from a final judgment for protection against domestic violence, as we cannot evaluate the merits of the contentions raised by the appellant without a transcript of the hearing in which the evidence was presented. The appellant complains that he did not know that the hearing would not be recorded or reported. He assumed that this was a criminal proceeding and that all such proceedings are recorded. A petition for an injunction against domestic violence, however, is a civil proceeding, see Florida Family Law Rule of Procedure 12.610, and as yet there is no requirement that such matters be transcribed at public expense. See Fla. R. Jud. Admin. 2.070(b). Therefore, the party must arrange in advance for the reporting and transcription of the proceedings.

It is indeed unfortunate that parties frequently are unaware of this requirement until after the fact. With so much litigation being conducted pro se, it seems to me that in the notice for the final hearing on the injunction the parties should be alerted that if they want the hearing reported it is up to them to arrange for the services of a court reporter to transcribe the proceedings. Without a record, a party’s ability to exercise their appellate rights is, in most cases, lost before the final judgment is ever entered.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • …rary Injunction for Protection Against Domestic Violence forms in the “Notice of Hearing” section do not address transcription of the final hearing. This issue was recently discussed in Chief Judge Warner’s special concurrence in Lawrence v. Walker, 751 So. 2d 68 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999), wherein the Fourth District Court of Appeal per curiam affirmed in an appeal from a final judgment for protection against domestic violence. In her special concurrence, Chief Judge Warner agreed that affirmance was compelled, “a…

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw