When a Florida divorce court awards attorney’s fees for bad-faith litigation conduct, it must provide the findings and reasoning behind the amount it awards. The Fifth District Court of Appeal applied that rule on October 23, 2026, in Garcia v. Garcia, No. 5D2024-2992, and reversed a $50,000 fee award for that reason alone. Judge Soud wrote the opinion. Judges Makar and MacIver concurred.
The case
The parties were married for twelve years. After a thirteen-day trial in Brevard County, the trial court entered a final judgment ending the marriage. The husband challenged parts of the equitable distribution and the $50,000 fee award to the wife. The court affirmed on equitable distribution and on the wife’s entitlement to fees, and reversed only on the amount.
How the trial court reached fees
The trial court found that the wife did not have a need for a fee award. It relied instead on Rosen v. Rosen, 696 So. 2d 697 (Fla. 1997), and awarded fees based on the husband’s actions during the case. The opinion describes the conduct: after considerable litigation and efforts to compel discovery, the husband provided certain discovery late or not at all, including financial information about substantial real property holdings that was not disclosed until the middle of trial. The trial court called his withholding of a notebook of rental income and expense records “egregious” and found that he acted “in bad faith.” It then awarded $50,000, and the appellate court noted that the trial judge “made no findings as to how she arrived at that figure.”
Attorney’s fees for bad-faith litigation conduct: entitlement. The Fifth District reviewed the award for abuse of discretion. It explained that although a court generally considers need and ability to pay under section 61.16, Florida Statutes (2023), that requirement does not necessarily preclude a court from ordering a spouse to pay fees based on bad faith conduct. Citing its own earlier decision in Johnson v. Johnson, the court held that the record supported the trial court’s findings about the husband’s conduct and that the conduct was sufficiently egregious to rise to the level of bad faith. Awarding the wife the fees occasioned by that conduct was, the court said, an appropriate sanction.
The amount
The court then applied Elliott v. Elliott, 867 So. 2d 1198 (Fla. 5th DCA 2004), which it described as requiring a trial judge to provide findings and reasoning underlying the amount of fees awarded when fees are awarded on this basis. It acknowledged that “the entirety” of the $50,000 appeared to come from the husband’s conduct, but the trial court “provided nothing to support its calculations.” The court reversed “on the narrow matter of the $50,000 awarded” and remanded for the trial court to make findings supporting the amount of fees it determines appropriate.
What this does and does not mean
The court did not hold that the $50,000 figure was too high or too low. It held only that the record contained no findings explaining it. The remand order says the trial court is to make findings supporting the amount it “determines appropriate,” and the opinion does not say whether that requires new evidence, a new hearing, or a different number. It also does not address what findings are sufficient beyond pointing to Elliott, which it cited for the need for findings on matters such as the hourly rate, the hours reasonably expended, and what portion of the fees was occasioned by the misconduct. The ruling applies to this record and this fee basis, which was the husband’s bad faith conduct rather than the parties’ need and ability to pay.
The opinion is not final until any timely and authorized motion under Florida Rules of Appellate Procedure 9.330 or 9.331 is disposed of.
Related decisions: Can a Florida Domestic Violence Injunction Rest on Incidents Over a Year Old? Yes on This Record, the Sixth DCA Held Can a Court Compel Sale of Marital Property After a Former Spouse Dies? Yes, on These Facts, Where the Judgment Already Ordered It, Says the Third DCA
Read the opinion (PDF): Download the opinion (PDF)
Source: Garcia v. Garcia, No. 5D2024-2992 (Fla. 5th DCA Oct. 23, 2026). This article is general information, not legal advice.