SOUTHERN TITLE & TRUST CO.
v.
BINGHAM & MALEY CO.
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The Florida Supreme Court vacated its consideration of an appeal and remanded the case to allow the appellant to file a properly formatted brief complying with Rule 20, which requires appellants to concisely state the controlling legal questions at issue. The court emphasized that briefs must clearly present the points of law for resolution without requiring the court to search the record to determine the nature of the controversy.
The court will not immediately affirm the judgment due to the deficient brief, but instead grants the appellant fifteen days to prepare a new brief in accordance with Rule 20. If the appellant fails to file a compliant brief within that period, the cause will be dismissed.
“Rule 20, amended November 5, 1930, and effective January 1, 1931, requires the brief of the plaintiff in error to concisely state in general terms the prime or controlling questions involved so that each question will be so phrased that the point of law intended for solution may appear.”
Establishes the procedural requirement that appellate briefs must clearly identify the controlling legal questions.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceThe appellant (plaintiff in error) filed a brief in the appeal purporting to set up nine questions involved in the controversy. However, none of these…
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Order.
Rule 20, amended November 5, 1930, and effective January 1, 1931, requires the brief of the plaintiff in error to concisely state in general terms the prime or controlling questions involved so that each question will be so phrased that the point of law intended for solution may appear. That requirement is made so that the Supreme Court may be able to obtain an immediate view of the nature of the controversy.
The rule provides that when no brief has been filed by the plaintiff in error in accordance with this rule the cause may be dismissed by the court in its own motion, or the judgment may be affirmed, unless for good cause shown the court sees fit to permit additional time for the amendment of the briefs filed or the filing of new briefs in compliance with the requirements of the rule.
The brief for plaintiff in error in this case purports to set up nine questions which it is said are involved in the con*29troversy. Not one of the questions stated is so phrased that this Court may have an immediate view of the nature of the controversy or the point of law intended for solution.
Where a question is so framed that it is impossible to ascertain from it the point of iaw involved, before examining the record to discover it, the assistance which an observance of the rule will afford to the court and which the rule was intended to secure is not obtained. It is just an unnecessary bit of labor involving useless expense to the parties and of no value whatsoever to the court to frame a question which presents no point of law and which requires the court to search the record to find it, if indeed it may be found in the record.
It is true that the rule requires a plaintiff in error, or his counsel, to carefully study the transcript of the record which he causes to be sent to this Court, separate the material from the immaterial matter, and reduce the controversy to the points of law which the pleadings and the evidence present, and state which of those points of law are deemed to be of sufficient importance to constitute a pivotal question. While that process requires some labor, the rule was adopted in the belief that the bar would lend its excellent assistance to the facilities for an expeditious and accurate determination of the cause which the rule was intended to supply.
■We will not affirm the judgment for the failure of counsel for plaintiff in error to prepare his brief in accordance with the rule, but we will allow fifteen days from this date to prepare a brief in accordance with the rule, in default of which the cause will stand dismissed. In case a new brief is prepared, a copy shall be served on opposite counsel who shall have ten days thereafter in which to reply.
Ellis, P. J., and Terrell and Buford, J. J., concur.
*30Whitfield, C. J., and Brown and Davis, J. J., concur in the opinion and judgment.
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State v. Hodges, 169 So. 2d 359 (Fla. 3d DCA 1963)…Fla. 707, 10 So. 2d 492; Rollins v. Rollins, 155 Fla. 83, 19 So. 2d 562. We will not, however, affirm the judgment for the failure of the appellant to prepare its brief in accordance with the rule (Southern Title & Trust Co. v. Bingham & Maley Co., 119 Fla. 28, 160 So. 480), but we will allow the appellant 15 days in which to amend the brief so as to contain an appropriate statement of the point or points involved as provided for in the Florida Appellate Rules; in default of which the appeal will stand di…