Florida civil procedure is the set of rules that governs how non-criminal lawsuits move through the state’s courts, from the moment a complaint is filed through discovery, trial, appeal, and collection. Each stage carries its own deadlines, and two of them are absolute: the statute of limitations that controls when you can file at all, and the 30-day window to appeal after a final judgment. Miss either, and the case is effectively over.
What follows walks through each phase in the order a real case moves.
Which Florida Court Hears Your Case
Before anything else, the case has to land in the right courthouse. Florida splits civil trial jurisdiction between county courts and circuit courts based on the amount in controversy. County courts hear cases where the disputed amount is $50,000 or less, a ceiling that rose from $30,000 for cases filed on or after January 1, 2023.1Florida Senate. 2025 Florida Statutes 34.01 – Jurisdiction of County Court Anything above that threshold goes to circuit court. Subject matter also routes cases: real property disputes, probate, family law, and injunctions go to circuit court regardless of dollar amount.
Venue is separate from jurisdiction. It sets the county where the case belongs. Under Florida law, a civil action should be filed in the county where the defendant lives, where the events giving rise to the claim occurred, or where the disputed property sits.2Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 47.011 (2025) – Where Actions May Be Begun Some contracts contain a forum selection clause naming a specific county. Filing in the wrong venue doesn’t necessarily kill the case, but the defendant can force a transfer, which costs time and money.
Deadlines That Can End a Case Before It Starts
Every civil claim in Florida has a filing deadline, and once it passes, the courthouse door closes. These clocks generally start on the date of the breach or injury, not the day you decide to act:
- Written contracts: five years from the date of the breach.3Florida Senate. 2024 Florida Statutes 95.11 – Limitations Other Than for the Recovery of Real Property
- Oral contracts: four years.
- Negligence, including most personal injury claims: two years from the date of injury.
- Intentional torts such as battery, false arrest, or malicious prosecution: four years.
- Property damage claims, whether to personal property or trespass on real property: four years.
Florida applies a discovery rule to certain claims, most notably medical malpractice. If the injury wasn’t apparent right away, the clock may start when the injured person knew, or reasonably should have known, about the harm and its cause. That’s not open-ended. Florida imposes an outer limit even under the discovery rule, and a court will expect proof of diligence once warning signs appeared.
A few circumstances can pause the clock. If a defendant leaves the state to avoid service, the absence may toll the deadline. The specifics turn on facts, and assuming you have more time than you actually do is one of the most expensive mistakes in civil litigation.
Filing the Complaint and Serving the Defendant
A civil case begins when the plaintiff files a complaint with the clerk of court. The complaint lays out the factual basis of the claim and the relief sought, with a short, plain statement of the facts. A filing fee accompanies it. For most circuit court cases with five or fewer defendants, that fee is up to $395.4Official Internet Site of the Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 28.241 – Filing Fees for Trial and Appellate Proceedings Family law filings run up to $295. Once filed, the clerk assigns a case number and issues a summons.
Then the defendant has to be formally notified through service of process. The preferred method is personal service, where a sheriff’s deputy or licensed process server hands the documents directly to the defendant. If that fails, Florida allows substitute service, such as leaving the papers with someone at least 15 years old who lives at the defendant’s usual residence.5Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 48.031 (2025) – Service of Process Generally When a defendant truly cannot be located, the court may authorize service by publication.
Once served, the defendant has 20 days to respond. The response is either an answer, which admits or denies each allegation and raises affirmative defenses, or a motion to dismiss, which argues that the complaint is legally insufficient even if everything in it were true. Do nothing in that 20-day window, and the plaintiff can ask for a default judgment.
Discovery
Discovery is where the substance of a case gets built. Both sides exchange information under rules designed to prevent trial-by-ambush. Four tools do most of the work.
Interrogatories and Requests for Admission
Interrogatories are written questions the other side answers under oath. Each party is limited to 30 unless the court allows more. Responses are due within 30 days. Evasive or missing answers can trigger a motion to compel, and the court can impose sanctions ranging from fines to striking claims or defenses.
Requests for admission ask the other side to admit or deny specific facts. Responses are also due in 30 days. The teeth here: failing to respond at all means the facts are deemed admitted. If a party wrongfully denies something later proven at trial, the court can require that party to pay the cost of proving it.
Depositions
Depositions are live, under-oath questioning, usually in a lawyer’s office and recorded by a court reporter. Because the questioner can follow up in real time, depositions are far more effective than written questions at exposing inconsistencies. Reasonable notice is required. Non-party witnesses can be compelled to appear by subpoena, and a witness who refuses to answer can be brought back before the court for an order.
Document Requests and Electronic Evidence
Requests for production demand tangible evidence such as contracts, emails, photographs, and medical records. Responses are due within 30 days, and objections have to be well-founded because Florida courts favor broad discovery.
Electronic evidence dominates modern discovery. Text messages, social media posts, cloud-stored files, and metadata are all fair game. Once litigation is reasonably anticipated, both sides have a duty to preserve relevant electronic evidence, which means suspending routine deletion of emails and backups. Destroying evidence, known as spoliation, can trigger severe consequences, including a jury instruction that the missing evidence would have been unfavorable to the party that lost it.
Subpoenas to Non-Parties
Sometimes the useful evidence sits with a bank, a hospital, an employer, or a phone company. A subpoena to a non-party has to give reasonable time to comply and cannot impose an undue burden. The non-party can object, and if they do, the requesting party must return to the court for an order compelling production. Courts are required to protect non-parties from significant expense caused by someone else’s litigation.
Mediation and the Offer of Judgment
Florida courts have broad authority to send civil cases to mediation before trial.6Official Internet Site of the Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 44.102 – Court-Ordered Mediation In family cases involving custody or parental responsibility, mediation is mandatory when the court finds a dispute exists. In other civil cases, the judge has discretion to order it, and most circuit judges use that discretion freely. In practice, the vast majority of Florida civil cases pass through mediation.
Mediation is a structured negotiation with a neutral mediator who has no authority to decide anything. The mediator explores settlement options with each side, often in private caucus. A large share of cases settle at mediation or shortly after, because a neutral third party reality-testing each position often provides the push that direct negotiation couldn’t.
Offer of Judgment
Florida has a settlement mechanism that catches many litigants off guard. Either side can serve a formal offer of judgment on the opposing party, who then has 30 days to accept or reject.7Official Internet Site of the Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 768.79 – Offer of Judgment and Demand for Judgment If a defendant makes an offer and the plaintiff rejects it, then ultimately recovers at least 25 percent less than the offer, the defendant can recover attorney’s fees and costs incurred after the offer. Those fees are offset against the judgment, and when the fees exceed the recovery, a plaintiff who technically won can end up owing money to the defendant.
The rule runs the other direction too. A plaintiff can serve a demand for judgment, and if the defendant rejects it and the plaintiff recovers at least 25 percent more than the demand, the plaintiff collects fees from the defendant. That two-way risk is one of the main reasons Florida civil cases settle before trial.
Summary Judgment
Not every case needs a trial. If discovery shows no genuine factual dispute and one side wins as a matter of law, that party can file a motion for summary judgment under Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.510. Since May 2021, Florida has followed the federal summary judgment standard, which asks whether a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the opposing side. If the answer is no, the judge grants the motion and the case ends.
These motions come after discovery and force both sides to put their strongest evidence on the table. The moving party points to depositions, documents, and admissions showing there’s nothing for a jury to weigh. The opposing party has to answer with specific evidence, not just repeat allegations from the complaint. Judges deny the motion when credibility is in play, because evaluating witnesses is the jury’s job. When the facts are undisputed and the law clearly favors one side, summary judgment ends the case without trial.
Trial
Cases that survive discovery and pretrial motions proceed to trial. Florida civil trials can be decided by a jury or by the judge in a bench trial. The Florida Constitution guarantees the right to a jury trial, and the jury can be no fewer than six members.8FindLaw. Florida Constitution Art. I, Section 22 – Trial by Jury Both sides can waive a jury and let the judge decide. When a jury is requested, prospective jurors go through voir dire, where the attorneys question them and strike those who may not be impartial.
The plaintiff presents first, calling witnesses and introducing evidence, with each witness subject to cross-examination. Expert witnesses (medical professionals, accident reconstruction specialists, forensic accountants) often carry decisive weight. After the plaintiff rests, the defense presents its case in the same format, and closing arguments follow.
In a jury trial, the judge instructs the jury on the applicable law before deliberations. Unlike criminal cases, Florida civil verdicts do not have to be unanimous. Once the jury returns a verdict, the judge enters it as a judgment. In bench trials, the judge issues a written ruling based on the evidence. Post-trial motions for a new trial or other relief may follow if a party believes a legal error occurred.
Appeals
A party who loses at trial can appeal to the appropriate District Court of Appeal. The notice of appeal must be filed within 30 days of the final judgment, and missing that deadline is fatal.9Rules for Florida Appellate Procedure. Rule 9.110 – Appeal Proceedings to Review Final Orders of Lower Tribunals The 30-day clock starts when the order is rendered, not when the losing party receives it, so tracking the rendition date matters.
An appeal is not a second trial. The appellate court reviews the trial court record, including transcripts and exhibits, and looks for legal errors that materially affected the outcome. The appellant files a brief identifying the alleged errors with supporting authority. The appellee files a response. Some cases include oral argument before a panel of appellate judges, but many are decided on the briefs alone.
The standard of review shapes outcomes more than most people realize. Pure legal questions are reviewed fresh, with no deference to the trial judge. Factual findings are overturned only if no competent evidence supports them. Discretionary rulings, such as evidentiary calls, are reversed only if the trial judge clearly went off the rails. Knowing which standard applies often separates a viable appeal from a waste of money.
Stopping Collection During the Appeal
Filing an appeal does not automatically stop the winning party from collecting. To halt enforcement while the appeal is pending, the losing party generally has to post a supersedeas bond. Florida caps the required bond at $50 million per appellant, regardless of the judgment amount, and that cap is adjusted annually for inflation.10Official Internet Site of the Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 45.045 – Supersedeas Bond The bond is typically set at the judgment amount plus anticipated interest and costs. Courts can reduce the bond for good cause, but not when the appellant has insurance or indemnification covering the case.
If the appeal fails, the appellate court may affirm, reverse, or send the case back for further proceedings. A party can petition the Florida Supreme Court for further review, but the Court accepts only a small fraction of cases, usually those involving conflicts among district courts or significant constitutional questions.
Collecting on a Judgment
Winning a judgment and collecting on it are two different things. A judgment does not put cash in anyone’s hand. It gives the winning party legal tools to pursue the loser’s assets.
The first step is usually recording the judgment as a lien. A Florida judgment becomes a lien on real property in any county where a certified copy is recorded in the official records.11Official Internet Site of the Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 55.10 – Judgments, Orders, and Decrees; Lien The judgment must include the address of the lien holder, or a separate affidavit with that address must be recorded at the same time. Once recorded, the lien attaches to any non-exempt real estate the debtor owns in that county. If the debtor tries to sell or refinance, the lien has to be satisfied first.
Beyond liens, a judgment creditor can seek a writ of execution directing the sheriff to levy on non-exempt assets. Florida also permits wage garnishment, though the state’s head-of-household exemption can shield earnings from garnishment entirely when the debtor provides more than half the support for a dependent. Federal law separately caps garnishment at 25 percent of disposable earnings for most consumer debts. These protections mean that collecting against someone with limited assets or strong exemptions can be slow and frustrating, which is another reason many cases settle rather than proceed to judgment.
Florida judgment liens on real property initially last 10 years from the recording date and can be extended by re-recording before they expire. The underlying judgment itself remains enforceable for 20 years. That’s a long runway, but the practical reality is that the sooner enforcement begins, the better the chances of recovery.