Sixth DCA readies for January 1 launch
As the calendar turns to 2023, the newly formed Sixth District Court of Appeal is hard at work gearing up for its January 1 implementation date.
In June, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB 7027, which established the new appellate court by realigning the boundaries of the First, Second, and Fifth DCAs.
The realignment calls for:
- The First DCA is to be composed of the First, Second, Third, Eighth, and 14th circuits.
- The Second DCA is to be composed of the Sixth, 12th, and 13th circuits.
- The Fifth DCA is to be composed of the Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, and 18th circuits.
- The Sixth DCA is to be composed of the Ninth, 10th, and 20th circuits.
The legislation also authorized seven new appellate court judgeships.
On November 1, the Florida Supreme Court issued Administrative Order AOSC22-81, which gave the blueprint for how cases will be transferred to the newly formed Sixth DCA.
Beginning January 1, here are the transfer protocols:
- The First DCA will transfer any pending appeals from the Fourth Judicial Circuit to the Fifth DCA.
- The Second DCA will transfer any pending appeals from the 10th and 20th judicial circuits over to the Sixth DCA.
- The Fifth DCA will transfer any pending appeals from the Ninth Judicial Circuit to the Sixth DCA.
With each transferred case, the clerk of the DCA receiving a transferred case will serve on the parties and on the clerk of the lower tribunal, while subsequent filings in a case that has been transferred must be filed with the clerk of the receiving court using the new case number identified.
Back in September, the Sixth DCA hired Stacey Pectol as its clerk of court. Pectol had served as the clerk for the Arkansas Supreme Court since 2014 and relishes the challenge of starting a court from the ground up.
“The opportunity to work on a brand-new court seemed very exciting to me,” Pectol said. “It was a rare opportunity that doesn’t come around very often.”
As clerk of Arkansas’s high court, Pectol implemented many changes in that office, notably its transition from the age of paper to electronic filing. She has served on the Arkansas Access to Justice Commission Foundation board and on the Executive Committee of the National Conference of Appellate Court Clerks.
Pectol says she has many key personnel for the clerk’s office in place as implementation looms and says her biggest challenge has been learning Florida’s case management system.
“Florida has been great and has a great case management system,” Pectol said. “The basic bare bones are the same here as in Arkansas, but the details are different and that is a challenge.”
Pectol says she and her staff are dedicated to public service and meeting her deputy clerks has been a joy. She also encourages Florida Bar members to reach out to her during the transition.
“I want Florida attorneys to know that I welcome their phone calls and emails,” Pectol said. “I recognize that this is a difficult time and there is a lot of angst that comes with that. If you have questions, I welcome them.”
Beginning January 1, attorneys and self-represented litigants can use the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal to file documentation with the new Sixth DCA. E-filers will begin to see an alert on the Portal’s main page in late December with a subsequent alert sent out on January 1. E-filers will also receive a new case number that will be identified in the acknowledgment letter and should reference the new case number moving forward.
The eDCA case docket system will be up and running in the Sixth DCA beginning January 1. The eDCA allows attorneys and self-represented litigants to access case information, and each of the six DCAs has its own independent eDCA system.
Existing eDCA users will have their sign-on credentials transferred to the new Sixth eDCA. If they already have an eDCA account at the recipient court, they will continue to use that pre-existing account login credentials to access the transferred case.
An alert about the upcoming change will be posted on the eDCA login page for each affected DCA.
Judge Meredith Sasso was appointed in June by then-Chief Justice Charles Canady to become the chief administrative officer of the new DCA. Since that time, Sasso chaired the Workgroup on the Implementation of an Additional District Court of Appeal to help ensure all operational, fiscal, and other relevant matters are addressed and the court is fully operational by the January 1 date.
Sasso says most of the staff for the new DCA is in place ahead of implementation.
“I think we are fully staffed in both the clerk’s office and the DCA itself. The date of the transfer is technically January 1, however, January 3 is the first working day of the court,” Sasso said.
Sasso says she is monitoring the numbers that the new court is drawing from the Fifth and Second DCAs and estimates the new Sixth DCA will receive about 1,500 cases.
Sasso says Florida Bar members should regularly check the Sixth DCA’s website for updates on their cases.
“I would encourage attorneys to check our website for updates on administrative orders and internal operating procedures that would keep them informed on their cases being transferred to the Sixth DCA,” Sasso said.
The Sixth DCA launched its new website on December 14, and it can be found here.
