Wade Clark Mulcahy LLP

Effective January 1, 2025, every civil case filed throughout Florida’s twenty judicial circuit courts must adhere to a new procedural framework that stresses strict compliance with deadlines and establishes exacting standards to be met by any party seeking to modify or extend them. 

Even before Florida’s courts were awash with cases filed on the eve of comprehensive tort reform legislation being enacted and the courts were backlogged with Covid-era cases, Chief Justice Canady established the Workgroup on Improved Resolution of Civil Cases in 2019, with the aim of “promot[ing] the fair and timely resolution of civil cases.” In Re: Amendments to Florida Rules of Civil Procedure (Fla. 2024).

Under the new amendments, within 120 days of a complaint being filed, the court will now assess the case to determine the amount of judicial attention expected to be required for its resolution and assign it to one of three case management tracks: streamlined, general or complex. The lion’s share of cases will be classified as “general.” The court will issue a case management order with a projected or actual trial period and establish deadlines for service, adding new parties, completing fact and expert discovery, resolving all objections to pleadings and pretrial motions and completing court-ordered alternative dispute resolution. The deadlines established by the case management order must be strictly enforced and are only able to be modified by court order. 

The court may set, either on its own notice or on proper notice by a party, case management conferences at any time. Attorneys appearing at such conference must be prepared to address all pending matters in the case, have authority to make representations to the court and enter into binding agreements concerning motions, issues and scheduling. The court may sanction any party for failing to appear at a case management conference by dismissing the action, striking the pleadings, limiting proof or witnesses or imposing any other sanction it deems appropriate.

To modify a deadline, amend a case management order or alter a projected trial period, a motion must specify the basis for the extension and the time at which the basis became known to the movant. The motion must also specify whether the extension is agreed by the parties, the specific date proposed for the extended deadline or projected trial period, and the action and timetable that will enable the movant to meet the proposed deadline or trial period.

Motions to continue trial “are disfavored and should rarely be granted and then only upon good cause shown.” Id.  A motion for continuance must be filed promptly upon the need arising for the continuance. Such a motion must certify that the movant made a reasonable effort to confer with opposing counsel. The failure to do so may form the basis for sanctions. The motion must be made in writing and state the basis for the continuance and the time at which the basis became known to the movant and whether the continuance is agreed by the parties. The motion must also identify the action and dates needed to be trial ready and include dates for third-party witnesses’ and/or expert witnesses’ availability; the specific date proposed for trial and whether that date is opposed. The motion must be signed by the named party requesting such relief.

This new rubric requires counsel to be even more vigilant in actively advancing the defense of their clients or risk sanctions from the court.