Background
Danilo Martorano appealed a ruling entered by the Circuit Court for Orange County in a family-law case involving Barbara Alfano. Circuit Judge Craig A. McCarthy presided over the lower-court proceeding.
The appellate court’s brief per curiam opinion does not describe the underlying dispute or the specific ruling challenged. It indicates, however, that Martorano failed to provide a transcript or otherwise furnish a record sufficient to demonstrate reversible error.
The Court’s Holding
The Sixth District Court of Appeal affirmed the circuit court’s ruling. It explained that an appellant bears the burden of supplying a proper record and that failure to do so is usually fatal to the appellant’s claims.
Because trial-court rulings are presumed correct, the absence of a transcript required affirmance unless the judgment was fundamentally erroneous. The court identified no such fundamental error in the judgment before it.
Key Takeaways
- An appellant must provide an appellate record sufficient to establish the claimed error.
- Failure to supply a necessary transcript is ordinarily fatal when review depends on what occurred in the trial court.
- Without a transcript, a presumptively correct judgment will be affirmed unless it is fundamentally erroneous.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores a practical requirement of appellate litigation: arguments alone cannot establish reversible error when the reviewing court lacks the materials needed to evaluate them. Counsel challenging a trial-court ruling must ensure that relevant hearings and evidence are included in the appellate record.
For family-law appeals, where rulings often depend on testimony and factual findings, the failure to provide a transcript can prevent meaningful review and result in affirmance without consideration of the underlying merits.