KIMBERLY SWOYER BRUSH, ESQUIRE, AS PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE ESTATE OF FREDERICK EUGENE SWOYER
v.
KELLY DIMARIA COPPELLI

Fla. 5th DCA | 2025-02-14
No. 5D2024-0642
2025 FL 1344 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fifth District (2025)

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.


Holding

An appeal of an attorney's fees award must be filed within the jurisdictional deadline, and failure to do so precludes appellate review even if the underlying dismissal is otherwise appealable.


Headnotes

[1] The filing deadline for a notice of appeal is jurisdictional, and an untimely appeal of an attorney's fees award must be dismissed regardless of the merits of the underly…

Previewing 1 of 1 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Key Quotes

“The filing deadline is jurisdictional, and the untimely filing of a notice of appeal precludes the court from exercising jurisdiction over the appeal.”

Court's discussion of jurisdictional requirements for appellate review

Facts & Procedural History

Appellant, as personal representative of an estate, brought a case in county court that was involuntarily dismissed. The trial court also awarded atto…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court

PER CURIAM.

Appellant challenges the involuntary dismissal of her case and the award of attorney's fees to Appellee. We affirm the involuntary dismissal. We dismiss the appeal of the fee award as untimely. See Fla. R. App. P. 9.110(b); Pennywell v. Dep't of Rev. ex rel. Woodard, 62 So. 3d 19, 20 (Fla. 1st DCA 2011) (“The filing

deadline is jurisdictional, and the untimely filing of a notice of appeal precludes the court from exercising jurisdiction over the appeal."); Scott ex rel. Scott v. Women's Med. Grp., P.A., 837 So. 2d 577, 577 (Fla. 1st DCA 2003) (“Final attorney's fees orders are appealable as separate final judgments."); Nielsen v. Joannou, 835 So. 2d 1219, 1220 n.1 (Fla. 5th DCA 2003) (“This order, while not disposing of the entire case, assesses attorney's fees and costs 'for which let execution issue.' Accordingly, the order is appealable as a final order."); Saye v. Pieschacon, 750 So. 2d 759, 761 (Fla. 1st DCA 2000) (holding that “despite the lack of a final judgment on the issue of liability," an appeal of a fee award could proceed since the award was final and “independently appealable").

AFFIRMED in part; DISMISSED in part.

JAY, MACIVER, and PRATT, JJ., concur.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw