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507 So. 2d 722

507 So.2d 722

12 Fla.L.Weekly 1284

Docket No. 86-1914.

Johnson v. Feeney

John Harvey JOHNSON, Appellant, v. Cynthia FEENEY, As Personal Representative of the Estate of Helen Mae Johnson, Appellee.

District Court of Appeal of Florida

Decided May 19, 1987.

Rehearing Denied June 23, 1987.

District Court of Appeal of Florida · decided 1987-05-19

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“death of a party to a marriage dissolution action before a final judgment is entered terminates the marriage relationship by operation of law and divests the trial court of jurisdiction to issue a final decree.”

quoted by 3 later decisions, including 764 So. 2d 578 - Gaines v. Sayne, 743 So. 2d 105 - Barnett v. Barnett

“void and should have been vacated below upon proper motion filed by the husband.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 743 So. 2d 105 - Barnett v. Barnett

Relies on Sahler v. Sahler · 437 So. 2d 768 - Pruitt v. Brock · 156 So. 2d 4 - State Ex Rel. Owens v. Pearson

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1987-05-19

How this case has been cited

Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently August 2000

10 state decisions

50198719902000decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1*723 Rassner, Rassner, Kramer & Gold and Alan Gold, South Miami, for appellant.

¶2Carl Di Bernardo and W. Dan Hanford, Miami, for appellee.

¶3Before HUBBART, NESBITT and BASKIN, JJ.

¶4PER CURIAM.

¶5This is an appeal by the husband John Harvey Johnson from a final judgment of marriage dissolution entered below, which, in addition to dissolving the marriage, affected the parties' property rights. It appears without dispute, that the wife Helen Mae Johnson died — and a suggestion of death was filed below to that effect — after the final judgment was entered, but before the trial court had ruled on a timely motion for rehearing filed by the husband. Under these circumstances, we conclude that the final judgment under review is void and should have been vacated below upon proper motion filed by the husband. We reach this result based on the following briefly stated legal analysis.

¶6First, the death of a party to a marriage dissolution action before a final judgment is entered terminates the marriage relationship by operation of law and divests the trial court of jurisdiction to issue a final decree. Sahler v. Sahler,154 Fla. 206, 17 So.2d 105 (1944); Price v. Price,114 Fla. 233, 153 So. 905 (1934); Jaris v. Tucker,414 So.2d 1164 (Fla. 3d DCA 1982) (en banc); McKendree v. McKendree,139 So.2d 173 (Fla. 1st DCA 1962). Second, a judgment entered by a trial court is not final while a timely motion for rehearing remains pending. State ex rel. Owens v. Pearson,156 So.2d 4, 7 (Fla. 1963); Pruitt v. Brock,437 So.2d 768, 772 (Fla. 1st DCA 1983); Dixon v. Dixon,184 So.2d 478, 482 (Fla. 2d DCA 1966), cert. discharged,194 So.2d 897 (Fla. 1967); Cocalis v. Cocalis,103 So.2d 230, 233 (Fla. 3d DCA 1958). Third, it therefore follows that the death of one of the parties to a marriage dissolution action after the entry of judgment, but before the trial court rules on a timely motion for rehearing and thereby terminates all judicial labor at the trial level, as here, terminates the marriage by operation of law and divests the trial court of jurisdiction to make the judgment final.

¶7The final judgment of marriage dissolution is reversed and the cause is remanded to the trial court with directions to dismiss the action below.

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