Antonio Scognamillo v. Tiffany Jamison, f/k/a Tiffany Scognamillo

• Court: District Court of Appeal of Florida
• Decided: November 15, 2023
• Docket: 2022-2054
• Status: Published

Opinion

Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida

Opinion filed November 15, 2023. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

________________

No. 3D22-2054 Lower Tribunal No. 18-25610 ________________

Antonio Scognamillo, Appellant,

vs.

Tiffany Jamison, f/k/a Tiffany Scognamillo, Appellee.

An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Jason E. Dimitris, Judge.

Antonio Scognamillo, in proper person.

Marti Goldstein, P.A., and Marti Goldstein, for appellee.

Before FERNANDEZ, HENDON and GORDO, JJ.

GORDO, J. Antonio Scognamillo (“the Father”) appeals a final judgment of

dissolution of marriage to his former wife, Tiffany Scognamillo (“the Mother”).

We have jurisdiction. Fla. R. App. P. 9.030(b)(1)(A). For the following

reasons, we affirm.

In October 2018, the Mother filed a petition for dissolution marriage. A

trial was held on the issues raised in the petition and the trial court entered

a final judgment in November 2022. The Father did not file a motion for

rehearing.

The Father alleges various errors on appeal all related to the trial

court’s factual findings. “[W]here an error by the court appears for the first

time on the face of a final order, a party must alert the court of the error via

a motion for rehearing or some other appropriate motion in order to preserve

it for appeal.” Williams v. Williams, 152 So. 3d 702, 704 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014).

Here, any arguments as to the trial court’s factual findings are not preserved

for appeal. The Father was required to alert the trial court of any alleged

error via a motion for rehearing or some other appropriate motion in order to

preserve his arguments for appellate review and did not do so. See Moody

v. Newton, 264 So. 3d 292, 294 (Fla. 5th DCA 2019) (“Because the alleged

error first appeared in the final judgment, [the] Former [spouse] was required

to bring this matter to the lower court’s attention in a motion for rehearing.”).

2 Equally fatal to the instant appeal is the lack of a transcript. “In the absence

of an adequate transcript on appeal, a judgment that is not fundamentally

erroneous must be affirmed.” Haddad v. Khan, 54 So. 3d 524, 525 (Fla. 3d

DCA 2010). Finding no fundamental error on the face of the trial court’s

order, we affirm as the Father failed to meet his burden to demonstrate

reversible error. See Applegate v. Barnett Bank of Tallahassee, 377 So. 2d

1150, 1152 (Fla. 1979) (“In appellate proceedings the decision of a trial court

has the presumption of correctness and the burden is on the appellant to

demonstrate error.”).

Affirmed.