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After 12 years of marriage and a 13-day divorce trial, a Florida man was ordered to pay his former wife $50,000 in attorney’s fees after a judge found that he had withheld important financial records about rental properties. A state appeals court upheld the decision that he should pay fees as a sanction for his conduct, but ruled that the trial judge had not explained how the $50,000 figure was calculated.
The trial court found that Luis had provided some discovery documents late or failed to provide them despite considerable litigation and efforts to compel disclosure, according to the ruling. The trial judge said the notebook was not disclosed until the middle of the trial, even though Ruth had spent considerable time and effort trying to obtain the information. The judge described the withholding of the notebook as “egregious” and found that Luis had acted in bad faith. It said Luis’s failure to disclose pertinent information about multiple properties and rental income subject to equitable distribution was sufficiently serious to qualify as bad-faith conduct.
The dispute over attorney’s fees centred on financial information that Ruth had tried to obtain during the divorce proceedings. Among the missing records was a notebook containing information about rental income and expenses from the couple’s substantial real estate holdings. The appeals court agreed that the record supported those findings.
In a ruling issued on October 23, 2026, Florida’s Fifth District Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s decisions on the division of marital property and the former wife’s entitlement to attorney’s fees. The case involved Luis Garcia and Ruth Garcia, who were married for 12 years before Ruth petitioned for divorce. Their divorce proceedings included a 13-day trial, after which the circuit court entered a final judgment dissolving the marriage. Luis challenged parts of the distribution of marital property and the $50,000 award to Ruth, according to Law Justia .
However, it reversed the amount of the award and sent the case back to the lower court to provide findings that justify the sum. Luis also filed a counter-petition seeking to end the marriage.