Supreme Court adds parties’ availability to trial-setting considerations
The Supreme Court has agreed to amend a procedural rule that governs the resetting of trial dates after considering a comment by a 44-year South Florida lawyer who described anguishing for days over the potential of missing a planned surgery.
“Pre-planned vacations, family emergencies, health issues, etc., should not be causes for concern vis-à-vis getting a trial date reset,” Coral Springs attorney Dan Cytryn wrote in a public comment.
Justices on Thursday issued an opinion in In Re: Amendments to Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.200 (SC2025-1894)
In a petition to amend Rule 1.200 (Case Management; Pretrial Procedure), the Civil Procedure Rules Committee proposed revising a “rollover” provision in subdivision (h) to address what the committee called a “conflict” with a continuance rule.
Rule 1.460(f)(Motions to Continue Trial) states “when possible, continued trial dates must be set in collaboration with attorneys and self-represented litigants as opposed to the issuance of unilateral dates by the court.”
The rollover provision in Rule 1.200 lacks any reference to collaborating with litigants, the committee noted.
Subdivision (h) (If Trial is Not Reached During Trial Period) merely states “If a trial is not reached during the trial period set by court order, the court must enter an order setting a new trial period that is as soon as practicable, given the needs of the case and resources of the court….”
As a result, judges are being too inflexible and causing attorneys unnecessary anxiety, said Cytryn, a board-certified civil trial lawyer who was admitted to the Bar in 1981.
Cytryn said he stressed for days when it appeared he would have to cancel an appointment for surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota because his case had already been reset multiple times.
“I was experiencing extreme anxiety worrying that the court would not grant a continuance this time,” he wrote.
In the end, Cytryn says, the trial was reset. But Cytryn said he spent five hours preparing a motion that detailed his medical necessity, and the risk of forfeiting a $1,000 cancelation fee to the clinic. Another lawyer felt compelled to ask a chief judge for help when the assigned judge refused to reset a trial that conflicted with the lawyer’s long-planned, three-week, “vacation of lifetime” to New Zealand, Cytryn said.
In the petition, former Civil Procedure Rules Committee Chair Cosme Caballero cited other reasons for revising subdivision (h).
Cases “are being set for trial periods where parties’ witnesses and/or experts may not be available or the parties and their counsel are not available,” Caballero wrote. “It would be more just and fair for cases to be rolled over with coordination with counsel.”
The committee proposed adding the following sentence to the end of subdivision (h)(1): “When possible, the new trial period must be set in collaboration with attorneys and self-represented litigants as opposed to the issuance of unilateral dates by the court.”
The committee rejected Cytryn’s proposal to prohibit establishing a roll over trial date any earlier than 20 days of the previous date, unless all parties agree. Cytryn said the proposal would prevent lawyers from being “constantly on call for trial” every month.
“Trial lawyers need and deserve a life,” he wrote. “Being perennially on a trial docket without relief doesn’t provide that.”
The committee also rejected proposals by West Palm Beach attorney Michael Gelfand, a member of The Florida Bar Board of Governors.
Gelfand proposed that the committee’s collaboration requirement be applied to all continuances, and that the committee remove the words “when possible” to avoid the possibility of “increased litigation.”
In the end, the committee said it decided to propose language that tracks as closely as possible to the wording in the continuance rule, Rule 1.460(f).
The Supreme Court, however, chose a different path.
“We instead amend the rule to require courts to consider the ‘availability of the parties,’ along with the needs of the case and the resources of the court, in setting a new trial period in a case that does not reach trial during the period set by court order,” the opinion states.
The amended Rule 1.200 (Case Management; Pretrial Procedure) will read:
(h) If Trial is Not Reached During Trial Period.
- “If a trial is not reached during the trial period set by court order, the court must enter an order setting a new trial period that is as soon as practicable, given the needs of the case, the resources of the court, and the availability of the parties.”
The Supreme Court set a January 1, 2027, effective date.
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