Nineteenth Judicial Circuit of Florida, Indian River, Martin, Okeechobee and St. Lucie Counties Filing Rules

Before dismissing an action or entering a default as a discovery sanction, the court must find that the violations were willful or deliberate.

Original motions and attachments must be filed with the clerk before setting the motions for hearing.

Each specific objection should be matched to the specific interrogatory it addresses.

The motion must include a certificate of conferral at its end, above the signature block, in substantially the stated form.

The motion must certify that the movant made a good-faith effort to obtain the discovery without court action.

Before seeking to cancel a hearing on the opposing party’s motion or petition, contact that party to determine whether they agree.

Emails must include all parties, including self-represented parties, and the case style or they will be discarded.

Send correspondence, motions, hearing materials, and trial materials to the Judicial Assistant by email as PDFs; hard copies may be delivered or mailed if email transmission is not possible, though discouraged.

If the hearing is not cancelled on the online calendar or the office does not receive a Notice of Cancellation, the attorney who set it may be treated as a no-show and lose online scheduling privileges.

Ex parte motions and orders must be emailed to the stated address with all parties included.

A Notice of Cancellation must be filed with the Clerk and emailed to the stated address immediately.

A motion to cancel a sale and its proposed order must be emailed to the specified address at least five business days before the sale date.

Within five calendar days after scheduling a hearing, email the Judicial Assistant the motion and notice of hearing, plus a proposed order for a UMC hearing.

Foreclosure motion packets must be submitted at least ten business days before the hearing; otherwise, the hearing may be cancelled.

UMC hearings must be cancelled online by 3:00 p.m. the preceding day; later cancellations require an emailed notice before the hearing, and failure to cancel online or provide notice may result in a no-show designation and loss of online scheduling privileges.

For documents not produced in native format, extracted text must reflect the full electronically extracted text, be provided in ASCII format, and be labeled and produced on Production Media as specified in paragraph II.H.

When native production is not possible or advisable, such as for redacted documents, convert the files to single-page TIFF images that reflect the source documents as they would appear when printed.

If Bates numbers per document are desired, a spreadsheet may provide the relationship between Bates numbers and hashes.

All courtesy materials other than proposed orders may be submitted in PDF format.

The summary judgment packet must include the proposed Final Judgment in Word format.

Counsel for the moving party must immediately serve the order on the listed parties and file a certificate of service.

Experts should be subpoenaed for trial because the Court cannot compel an unsubpoenaed witness to appear.

Counsel for the moving party must immediately serve the order on parties with only physical addresses and file a certificate of service.

Plaintiff must serve the order on defense counsel within 20 days of defense counsel’s first appearance and schedule a meet and confer within 60 days after service.

The notice of hearing must be served on opposing counsel at least five business days before the scheduled hearing.

Submit the proposed final judgment by email to the stated address.

A person unable to transmit documents by email may deliver or mail hard copies, although this is discouraged.

The proposed final judgment and notice of hearing should be emailed to both listed court addresses within five days after the hearing is scheduled.

Only the exhibit list should be e-filed in advance.

Do not email exhibits to the Clerk’s office for pre-marking.

A special set hearing may not be cancelled within five days of its scheduled date without court permission or an order, unless the matter is completely resolved and no further hearing time is needed.

Motions to modify the trial period or continue trial must comply with Rules 1.200(e) and 1.460.

A motion must be filed under the Court’s procedures when an amendment, extension, modification, or further judicial action concerning the case management plan is needed.

A motion to change the number of trial days must be filed and heard at least 60 days before the e-docket call.

A motion to continue must comply with Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.460 and be signed by the party requesting the continuance.

Should counsel, their staff, or pro se litigants fail to respond within 3 business days, or refuse to cooperate in obtaining or in setting a hearing, the difficulty should be set forth either in the motion or in the notice of hearing. After 3 business days, the requesting party may unilaterally set a hearing.

Any scheduled hearing will be cancelled.

Before filing a motion, the movant must make a good-faith effort to confer with the opposing party; failure to include the required certificate may result in the motion or hearing being stricken.

File a motion with the Clerk before scheduling it online or contacting the office for hearing time.

A motion must be filed before its hearing is scheduled.

Send copies of the listed pleadings and related documents, with proposed orders and sufficient copies and self-addressed stamped envelopes, to the Judge’s office for review.

Plaintiff’s counsel must provide the Court a trial notebook of pertinent filed pleadings five business days before trial.

The court will not accept or consider paper binders presented at a hearing, and binders must not be mailed to the judicial assistant.

Courtesy copies must be emailed to the Court at least three days before any evidentiary proceeding.

Courtesy copies must be delivered no later than two days before an evidentiary proceeding.

The examining committee fee for a psychologist is $250 when the ward has been found indigent.

The investigation fee is $57.50, payable to the Broward County Clerk of Court, unless waived by the Court.

The initial application checklist calls for a $50 check payable to the Broward County Clerk of Court for the court monitor investigation, unless waived by the Court.

Plaintiff’s counsel must ensure all sale and Clerk fees are paid.

Failure to publish, pay sale fees, or pursue loss mitigation after final judgment is not good cause; resetting the sale requires a hearing, Plaintiff consent or acknowledgment, and appropriate Clerk's fees.

When a hearing addresses multiple pleadings or motions, one proposed order must account for each in its title, body, and ordered section; separate orders for individual motions will be rejected.

The Court prefers that the parties submit one proposed order when possible.

The Court prefers, if possible, one proposed order in Microsoft Word format with redline or blackline annotations identifying disagreements and alternatives.

Additional motions may not be piggy-backed by cross-notice for hearings under one hour without the Judicial Assistant’s permission.

The e-docket call form must be submitted together with the required joint pre-trial statement.

The parties were directed to file all written responses to each other’s discovery requests under seal by the following day.

If necessary, counsel should seek to seal private or sensitive information before it becomes publicly available in the court record.

Materials provided to the Court will remain in camera until the case concludes and may be filed under seal for appellate review.

Memoranda should be no longer than five pages; brevity is encouraged.