Opinion
No. 4D06-96.
November 1, 2006.
Appeal from Circuit Court, Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, Palm Beach County, Art Wroble, J.
Richard G. Bartmon of the Law Offices of Bartmon Bartmon, P.A., Boca Raton, for appellant.
Jan Peter Weiss, Lake Worth, for appellee.
In a pretrial order allowing husband's lawyer to withdraw, the court gave husband 60 days to obtain new counsel. Exactly 28 days after that order, and within the 60-day period allowed for the appearance of new counsel, the trial judge inexplicably proceeded to try the case in the absence of the husband or his counsel, entering a final judgment of dissolution of marriage — essentially by default. We reverse the trial judge's denial of the husband's later motion to vacate the final judgment.
We deem it a denial of due process to grant a litigant a specific period of time to obtain new counsel and then proceed to try the case before the afforded time has lapsed. So fundamental is the right of a litigant to rely on orders of the court, the refusal to vacate the judgment is a manifest abuse of discretion.
Reversed for new trial.
STONE and POLEN, JJ., concur.