KELSEY, J.
Appellant argues that the trial judge erred in vacating a predecessor judge's final order dissolving a domestic violence injunction against Appellant, and in thereafter pursuing indirect criminal contempt charges against Appellant for not attending a compliance hearing on the previously dissolved injunction. We agree with Appellant that once the injunction was dissolved — by final order entered on motion of the original petitioner, the mother of the unmarried couple's two children, after an evidentiary hearing at which the predecessor judge presided — Appellant was not required to comply with the injunction, and the successor judge was not authorized to reinstate it sua sponte or punish Appellant for not complying with it or attending compliance hearings related to it. Accordingly, we reverse.
The final order of dismissal divested the court of jurisdiction to reinstate the injunction absent motion by a party and proceedings thereon consistent with the parties' due process rights. As a general rule, "a successor judge may not correct
A petition for a domestic violence injunction is a civil cause of action. § 741.30(1), Fla. Stat. (2015) ("There is created a cause of action for an injunction for protection against domestic violence.").
The procedural status was complicated somewhat because Judge Colaw entered the original permanent injunction, and set a hearing on petitioner's motion to modify the injunction; but Judge Brasington presided over that evidentiary hearing and entered the final order dissolving the injunction. Before dissolving the injunction, Judge Brasington questioned the parties carefully to establish that the motion was not the product of coercion or fraud and would not result in further threatened or actual harm to the petitioner or the children. The petitioner demonstrated materially changed facts, which Appellant did not dispute. The testimony showed that the couple were no longer in a relationship, lived apart in two different cities, had no further problems involving domestic violence, and had amicably instituted arrangements for shared parenting of their two children. These were new and undisputed facts. There was no mistake or fraud with respect to whether Appellant
Judge Colaw then became the successor judge when, several weeks after Judge Brasington's rendition of the final order dissolving the injunction, he became aware that Appellant did not appear at compliance hearings previously set as to the original injunction, which were not cancelled after the injunction was dissolved. Judge Colaw was concerned with making sure Appellant completed the requirements of the original injunction including a batterers' intervention program and substance abuse evaluation, and he was concerned with protecting the children. While these issues are within the circuit court's general subject matter jurisdiction and are appropriate concerns when a motion for protection is pending or an injunction remains in effect, neither of those circumstances existed here after rendition of the final order dissolving the injunction.
The fact that one judge enters an injunction does not mean that judge retains exclusive authority over that injunction thereafter. There was no impropriety alleged or shown in Judge Brasington's presiding over and disposing of the motion to modify the injunction, and the record does not reflect that her ruling was the result of any fraud or any mistake of fact or law. Rather, Judge Colaw disagreed with Judge Brasington's order dissolving the injunction, which is not a circumstance that conferred jurisdiction on Judge Colaw to vacate that order. The trial court did not have jurisdiction to take any action on the injunction after it had been dissolved and in the absence of any new proceeding instituted by a party. Groover, 88 So.2d at 313; Hewlett, 661 So.2d at 115.
Accordingly, we vacate Judge Colaw's order vacating Judge Brasington's order dissolving the injunction. The injunction stands dissolved nunc pro tunc to October 2, 2014, without prejudice to any party's instituting a new proceeding if such is made necessary on new facts. All subsequent orders inconsistent with the dissolution of the injunction as of that date are vacated.
REVERSED and orders VACATED.
THOMAS and BILBREY, JJ., concur.