FLORIDA SUPREME COURT GREENLIGHTS PREJUDGMENT INTEREST IN MARITAL ASSET SPLITS

In a major ruling that settles a split across Florida’s legal landscape, the Florida Supreme Court decided Thursday that judges can award prejudgment interest to ensure the fair division of marital property during a divorce.

The high court’s 4-1 decision establishes that while these awards are not a guaranteed right, trial courts do have the statutory power to use them when one spouse is unfairly kept away from shared wealth while a divorce drags through the legal system.

The case, Scott Aron Stewart v. Mishelle Addys Perdomo Vindel, began back in 2018 when Stewart filed to end the marriage. While the marriage itself was dissolved quickly, the battle over splitting up their property took four years to resolve, finally wrapping up in 2022. Because the property value was locked in at the 2018 filing date, Vindel asked for prejudgment interest on her share of the assets to cover the four-year gap.

The trial judge initially denied her request, stating it would be unfair to penalize the husband for delays mostly caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. When Vindel appealed, the Third District Court of Appeal in Miami sided with her, pointing out that one spouse can easily lock the other out of joint funds during a long legal battle.

However, that ruling ran directly into a conflicting decision from the First District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee, which had previously ruled that prejudgment interest was completely illegal in divorce property splits.

Justice Jamie Grosshans, writing for the majority, wiped away that total ban. The Supreme Court looked closely at Florida law, noting that divorce courts are deeply rooted in equity—the legal concept of fundamental fairness.

“Does a trial court have statutory authority to achieve an equitable division of marital property by awarding prejudgment interest? In short, our answer is yes,” Grosshans wrote. “Such awards, though, are not a matter of entitlement. Instead, the decision to grant prejudgment interest is a discretionary one, depending on the particular facts of a given case.”

The majority reasoned that even though Florida’s division laws do not explicitly use the words “prejudgment interest,” the statutes give judges broad power to use any remedy necessary to reach a just outcome. Grosshans noted that this aligns with the state’s legal philosophy of making an injured party whole.

The opinion noted that the practical reality of divorce contradicts the idea that joint property means no one suffers. The court highlighted the Third District’s observation that “even if jointly owned, it may well be that one spouse had taken steps to secure sole access to and use of those marital assets, to the exclusion of the other spouse.”

Chief Justice Carlos G. Muñiz and Justices John D. Couriel, Renatha Francis, and Meredith Sasso joined Grosshans in the majority opinion.

Justice Jorge Labarga was the lone dissenter. He argued that because the Florida Legislature explicitly wrote postjudgment interest—interest paid on payment plans after a final divorce decree—into the law, the omission of prejudgment interest was intentional.

“The courts cannot and should not undertake to supply words purposely omitted,” Labarga wrote, quoting state precedent. “If the Legislature intended to give trial courts the discretion to award prejudgment interest, it could have done so.”

The Supreme Court sent the case back down to the trial court in Miami-Dade County. The local judge must now take a second look at the facts of the case, ignore the old pandemic excuse, and decide whether giving Vindel interest on her assets is the fairest way to close out the asset split.

READ: Caught On Camera: Florida Supreme Court Wipes Out Publix ‘Slip-And-Fall’ Lawsuit Over Lies

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