On March 20, 2026, the Sixth District Court of Appeal cast doubt and disagreed with more than 60 years of Florida courts requiring an evidentiary hearing and expert testimony to award attorneys’ fees. Ruffenach v. Deutsche Bank Nat’l Trust Co., No. 6D2023-1482, 2026 WL 785140 (Fla. 6th DCA Mar. 20, 2026). In doing so, the Sixth District certified conflict with 37 other decisions across multiple sister district courts.
The underlying matter giving rise to this appeal was an award of attorneys’ fees without conducting an evidentiary hearing or receiving expert testimony. Although this argument was rejected, the fee award was reversed due to the failure to submit records documenting the work performed.
In examining the 60-year history of attorneys’ fee awards in Florida, the Sixth District found that there is no statute, rule, or Florida Supreme Court holding that mandates the prerequisite for an evidentiary hearing or expert testimony.
The origin of the expert testimony requirement is a Second District decision from 1964, Lyle v. Lyle, 167 So. 2d 256 (Fla. 2d DCA 1964). The Lyle decision similarly did not cite to any legal authority and justified its decision that the “value of personal services is proven by expert witnesses.” Id. at 257. Other districts followed the Lyle precedent without scrutiny, and the expert testimony requirement spread through Florida for decades to follow with little question as to its validity. In recent years, the Fourth and Fifth Districts began to express doubts over this practice, noting that trial judges are knowledgeable enough to determine the reasonableness of attorneys’ fees without the need for expert testimony. Decisions questioning the expert testimony requirement often note that this judicially created rule causes parties to expend additional fees unnecessarily for what is, in essence, a “a rubber stamp of the billing and time records submitted to the court by the party seeking fees.” Sea World of Fla., Inc. v. Ace Am. Ins. Cos., 28 So. 3d 158, 161 (Fla. 5th DCA 2010).
The Sixth District did not find any specific origin for the requirement to conduct an evidentiary hearing but noted that it flows naturally from the expert testimony requirement.
There is no binding Florida Supreme Court precedent that resolves whether an evidentiary hearing and expert testimony are required as a condition precedent for a trial court to award attorneys’ fees. The Sixth District noted that dicta and decisions on adjacent issues from the Florida Supreme Court do not provide guidance or binding precedent.
Having confirmed that there is no legal authority or binding precedent for these requirements, the Sixth District held that neither expert testimony nor an evidentiary hearing is always required before a trial court can award attorneys’ fees. If there is no material factual dispute beyond whether the hourly rates and number of hours are reasonable, an evidentiary hearing is not required. Trial courts are similarly not always required to receive expert testimony, as judges are inherently knowledgeable about the reasonableness about hourly rates and time expended by attorneys. The concurring opinion concluded with a call to counsel litigating in the Sixth District to draw its attention to adverse precedents from sister districts which appear to be correct so the Sixth District could endeavor to decide the issue correctly under the law.
The Sixth District acknowledged this opinion will be a sea change in Florida civil litigation, and it paves the way for resolution by the Florida Supreme Court.
Jennifer Nairn is a civil litigation attorney with Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, PC in Tampa, Florida. Her practice focuses on complex civil litigation matters in state and federal court. She graduated from Rutgers Law School – Camden, magna cum laude, and Order of the Coif.
