Remote hearings would be presumed acceptable for civil matters under a permanent rule change that the Supreme Court’s COVID-19 Workgroup will recommend to the Florida Supreme Court.

The proposal is one of many designed to deal with the backlog of cases that has accrued since the pandemic halted jury trials in March, 20th Circuit Chief Judge Michael McHugh told an October 19 meeting of the Bar’s COVID-19 Pandemic Recovery Task Force.

“One of the things that we felt very strongly about is that we needed to move family and civil [cases] forward,” said McHugh, discussing the court’s civil subgroup’s proposed requirements and evaluation criteria for the jury trial project. “So, one of the first things that we recommended is the fact that we could swear people in remotely, also, a presumption that remote hearings are acceptable, so that parties can’t simply opt out.”