Background
David and Joleen Sasser were divorced in 2004 pursuant to a Final Judgment requiring David to pay annual alimony payments and a percentage of his salary through January 2024. David defaulted on these payments, and in 2014 the trial court entered judgment against him for arrearages, ordering him to pay prejudgment interest “at the legal rate from the date each payment…was due” but without specifying the individual payment amounts or calculating the interest owed.
In 2024, Joleen sought a final calculation of amounts owed. At the evidentiary hearing, she testified about the annual payment amounts based solely on documents her CPA had prepared from the parties’ tax returns. Joleen explicitly testified she had no independent recollection of the amounts. David’s counsel moved to strike her testimony as improper “recollection refreshing” based on inadmissible hearsay. The trial court denied the motion to strike, refused to admit the CPA documents into evidence, but nevertheless based its prejudgment interest calculation on Joleen’s testimony, awarding $1,056,640.49.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeal reversed the prejudgment interest award, holding that the trial court abused its discretion by allowing Joleen to testify about payment amounts without personal knowledge. Under Florida evidence law, a document may refresh a witness’s recollection only if the witness had an independent recollection to refresh. Here, Joleen explicitly stated she had no independent memory of the amounts, so the CPA documents could not refresh a non-existent recollection. Her testimony therefore constituted inadmissible hearsay unsupported by personal knowledge.
The court emphasized that even though the trial court correctly excluded the CPA documents from evidence, it improperly relied on Joleen’s inadmissible testimony (derived from those same documents) as the basis for calculating prejudgment interest. The trial court’s concern about “unjust enrichment” did not permit it to disregard the requirement that factual findings supporting prejudgment interest awards must rest on competent, substantial evidence. The court further noted that as the moving party, Joleen bore the burden of proving the annual payment amounts; David had no duty to rebut calculations unsupported by admissible evidence.
Key Takeaways
- Prejudgment interest awards in alimony enforcement cases must be supported by competent, substantial evidence and cannot rest on inadmissible hearsay testimony.
- A witness cannot use a document to “refresh” recollection of facts she has no independent memory of; doing so violates the hearsay rule.
- Trial courts cannot override evidence rules based on equitable concerns about unjust enrichment; procedural requirements governing admissibility remain binding.
- The burden rests on the party seeking prejudgment interest (typically the judgment creditor) to prove the underlying amounts; the opposing party has no obligation to present rebuttal evidence to an unproven claim.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces strict evidentiary requirements in post-judgment alimony enforcement proceedings. While trial courts have discretion in admissibility rulings, that discretion is bounded by the Florida Evidence Code. The opinion clarifies that sympathy for a judgment creditor or concerns about defendant enrichment cannot substitute for competent proof of the amounts underlying a prejudgment interest calculation. The decision also provides important guidance on the limits of “recollection refreshing”—a tool that allows witnesses to testify about matters they once knew but have forgotten, not about matters they never knew.
For practitioners, the case underscores the importance of obtaining and properly authenticating documentary evidence of payment amounts before trial, rather than relying on witness testimony unsupported by personal knowledge. The reversal also demonstrates appellate courts’ willingness to vacate monetary awards lacking evidentiary foundation, even in family law contexts where equitable principles typically carry weight.
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