Schindler, Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network v. Schiavo

DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDA
SECOND DISTRICT
In re Guardianship of Theresa Marie Schiavo,
MARY SCHINDLER; BOBBY SCHINDLER;
and TERRI SCHIAVO LIFE & HOPE NETWORK,
Appellants,
v.
MICHAEL SCHIAVO,
Appellee.
No. 2D2025-0671
April 8, 2026
Appeal from the Circuit Court for Pinellas County; Sherwood Coleman,
Judge.
Jeremy D. Bailie of Weber, Crabb & Wein, P.A., Saint Petersburg,
for Appellants.
Hamden H. Baskin, III, and Jeffrey A. Eisel of Baskin Eisel Rightmyer,
Clearwater, for Appellee.
LUCAS, Chief Judge.
We need not recount the facts that gave rise to the guardianship of
Theresa Schiavo decades ago or the publicity that ensued in the dispute
between her husband, Michael Schiavo, and Ms. Schiavo's parents, Mary
and Robert Schindler, over whether to terminate life prolonging

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procedures for Ms. Schiavo. See generally In re Guardianship of Schiavo,
780 So. 2d 176 (Fla. 2d DCA 2001) (summarizing the events that led up
to the appointment of Mr. Schiavo as Ms. Schiavo's guardian and
affirming the circuit court's decision to withdraw life support under
chapter 765, Florida Statutes); see also In re Guardianship of Schiavo,
916 So. 2d 814 (Fla. 2d DCA 2005) (summarizing postjudgment
legislation and litigation following the circuit court's decision). Ms.
Schiavo died in 2005 after her feeding tube was removed. All these years
later, it remains a sad and tragic case.
The present appeal concerns the confidentiality of guardianship
records that were filed during the course of that case. A public advocacy
group formed in the wake of Ms. Schiavo's passing, the Terri Schiavo Life
& Hope Network, along with Ms. Schiavo's brother, Bobby Schindler, filed
a motion to intervene in Pinellas County Court case number 1990-0298,
the long since closed guardianship proceeding. They wished to intervene
in order to present a motion to unseal records that had been deemed
confidential pursuant to section 744.3701, Florida Statutes (2005). Later
on, Mary Schindler, Ms. Schiavo's mother, who had been a party to the
original guardianship proceedings and intervened in a related case
challenging the constitutionality of "Terri's Law," see Schindler v. Schiavo,
866 So. 2d 140 (Fla. 2d DCA 2004), joined in the motion to unseal.
The circuit court convened a hearing and issued an order denying
both motions.1 In its order, the court noted that intervention was a
1 We should note here, the forty-three-page appendix the appellants
have filed as a record for their appeal is quite limited. We do not have a
copy of the transcript of the hearing below, nor the notice of hearing that
precipitated it, nor any part of the docket from any of the prior
guardianship proceedings. Cf. Jackson v. Jackson, 177 So. 3d 639, 641
(Fla. 2d DCA 2015) ("It is the appellant's burden to provide an adequate
record."); Ahmed v. Travelers Indem. Co., 516 So. 2d 40, 40 (Fla. 3d DCA

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matter left to the court's discretion and that "intervention after final
judgment is 'extraordinary and disfavored.' " (quoting PS Cap., LLC v.
Palm Springs Town Homes, LLC, 9 So. 3d 643, 645 (Fla. 3d DCA 2009)).
Although postjudgment intervention can be permitted if the "ends of
justice" require it, the court found that the movants failed to meet that
threshold. The "research and advocacy efforts" the movants wished to
pursue did not justify intervention in a case that had concluded some
twenty years earlier. The circuit court then denied the motion to unseal
as moot. This appeal followed.
"This court reviews an order denying a motion to intervene for an
abuse of discretion." Hous. Specialty Co. v. Vaughn, 261 So. 3d 607, 610
(Fla. 2d DCA 2018) (quoting Harbor Specialty Ins. Co. v. Schwartz, 932
So. 2d 383, 386 (Fla. 2d DCA 2006)). Similarly, showings of "good cause"
are ordinarily reviewed for abuse of discretion. See, e.g., Weiss v. Est. of
Courshon, 990 So. 2d 611, 613 (Fla. 3d DCA 2008) ("We review the trial
court's determinations regarding the state of the record . . . and any
purported showing of 'good cause' under the abuse of discretion
standard." (citing Swait v. Swait, 958 So. 2 552, 553 (Fla. 4th DCA
2007))). "[Judicial] discretion 'is abused when the judicial action is
arbitrary, fanciful, or unreasonable, which is another way of saying that
discretion is abused only where no reasonable man would take the view
adopted by the trial court.' " Johnson v. State, 397 So. 3d 626, 639 (Fla.
2024) (quoting Canakaris v. Canakaris, 382 So. 2d 1197, 1203 (Fla.
1980)).
1987) ("An appellant has the burden to present a record that will
overcome the presumption of the correctness of the trial court's findings."
(citing Dade Cnty. Bd. of Pub. Instruction v. Foster, 307 So. 2d 502 (Fla.
3d DCA 1975))).

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There was no abuse of discretion here. Third-party intervention in
the postjudgment context is, as the circuit court correctly noted, rare
and disfavored. Indeed, the text of Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.230
("Anyone claiming an interest in pending litigation may at any time be
permitted to assert a right by intervention . . . ." (emphasis added)),
would not seem to allow it all. There is, however, a narrow exception. As
the Fourth District summarized in Boca Development Associates v.
Holiday City Civic Ass'n, 411 So. 2d 343, 344 (Fla. 4th DCA 1982):
With particular reference to attempts to intervene in the latter
stages of litigation, the Supreme Court of Florida has adopted
the almost universal rule that intervention will not be allowed
after final judgment. Dickinson v. Segal, 219 So. 2d 435 (Fla.
1969). The court referred to Wags Transportation System v.
City of Miami Beach, 88 So. 2d 751 (Fla. 1956), a case
establishing an exception where intervention was "in the
interests of justice," but declined "to extend it beyond the
facts involved there." Dickinson v. Segal, supra at 438.
More recently the Third District Court of Appeal has
applied the general rule and refused to extend the exception.
Wong v. von Wersebe, 365 So. 2d 429 (Fla. 3d DCA 1978).
We are strongly inclined to the view that adherence to
the rule rather than the exception will produce the best result
in the great majority of cases.
We agree. Although courts have occasionally permitted
postjudgment intervention, the "needs of justice" required for such
interventions have been narrowly construed, applying only to situations
where there is a clear and adverse impact against a readily discernible
interest belonging to the movant. See, e.g., Wags Transp. Sys. v. City of
Miami Beach, 88 So. 2d 751, 751–52 (Fla. 1956) (permitting nonparty
homeowner to intervene after a final judgment effectively rezoned the
residential area they lived in for hotel development); Lefkowitz v. Quality
Lab. Mgmt., LLC, 159 So. 3d 147, 148–50 (Fla. 5th DCA 2014) (holding

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secured creditor who alleged priority interest in collateral could intervene
in case where a different creditor had obtained a final judgment charging
order of the same collateral); Tech. Chems. & Prods., Inc. v. Porchester
Holdings, Inc., 748 So. 2d 1090, 1091–92 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000) ("The
general rule against post-judgment intervention is inapplicable to these
facts because TCPI was not attacking the merits of the judgment, but,
rather, was defending its proprietary and pecuniary interest in the
Porchester judgment in supplementary proceedings.").
Here, the only justification Life & Hope Network and Mr. Schindler
have offered is that they wish to see what is in the sealed guardianship
records so that they can, perhaps, use whatever they might find in their
public advocacy. We agree with the circuit court that that is an
insufficient basis to permit intervention in a case that ended more than
twenty years ago. The court was well within its discretion to deny their
motion to intervene. Having properly denied those two movants' motion
to intervene, their motion to unseal was likewise properly disposed of as
moot.
But as to Ms. Schindler, the circuit court's finding of mootness
would appear to be incorrect. Ms. Schindler had been a party to the
original guardianship proceedings, and as such, she did not need to seek
intervention. The denial of Life & Hope Network and Bobby Schindler's
motion to intervene would not appear to have mooted the relief she
sought, through joinder, in their motion to unseal. Nevertheless, the
circuit court reached the correct result. See Applegate v. Barnett Bank of
Tallahassee, 377 So. 2d 1150, 1152 (Fla. 1979) ("Even when based on
erroneous reasoning, a conclusion or decision of a trial court will
generally be affirmed if the evidence or an alternative theory supports
it.").

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The confidentiality afforded to the guardianship records in the
original proceedings arose under section 744.3701.2 Section
744.3701(1), Florida Statutes (2024), provides:
Unless otherwise ordered by the court, upon a showing of
good cause, an initial, annual, or final guardianship report or
amendment thereto, or a court record relating to the
settlement of a claim, is subject to inspection only by the
court, the clerk or the clerk's representative, the guardian
and the guardian's attorney, the guardian ad litem with
regard to the settlement of the claim, the ward if he or she is
at least 14 years of age and has not been determined to be
totally incapacitated, the ward's attorney, the minor if he or
she is at least 14 years of age, or the attorney representing
the minor with regard to the minor's claim, or as otherwise
provided by this chapter.
(Emphasis added.)
Ms. Schindler advanced no independent arguments apart from
those that were raised in the motion to unseal. And those arguments—
the lapse of time and the desire to do public advocacy on important
issues—were essentially indistinguishable from the arguments that were
made in the motion to intervene. The only real distinction between the
two motions is whether "the needs of justice" warranted postjudgment
intervention or whether "good cause" had been shown to override the
statutory confidentiality of these guardianship records.
Viewed either way, the appellants' argued bases fell short of the
mark. Certainly, the policy issues appellants wish to advocate are
important to the appellants and to some portion of the general public,
but that kind of inchoate, generalized public interest does not strike us
2 See also Fla. R. Gen. Prac. & Jud. Admin. 2.420(c)(7) ("The
following records of the judicial branch are confidential. . . . All records
made confidential under the Florida and United States Constitutions and
Florida and federal law . . . .").

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as the kind of good cause that would satisfy section 744.3701(1) or
justify disturbing the circuit court's discretionary decision. See Fla. W.
Realty Partners, LLC v. MDG Lake Trafford, LLC, 975 So. 2d 479, 481
(Fla. 2d DCA 2007) (defining "good cause" as "a substantial reason, one
that affords a legal excuse, or a cause moving the court to its conclusion,
not arbitrary or contrary to all the evidence, and not mere ignorance of
law, hardship on petitioner, and reliance on [another's] advice" (alteration
in original) (quoting State v. Boyd, 846 So. 2d 458, 460 (Fla. 2003))); see
also Williams v. State, 415 So. 3d 168, 173 (Fla. 2025) ("Abuse of
discretion is a 'highly deferential' standard of review, and 'we will not find
an abuse of discretion unless the trial court makes a ruling which no
reasonable judge would agree with.' " (quoting Wells v. State, 364 So. 3d
1005, 1013 (Fla. 2023))). To hold otherwise would invite the good cause
exception the legislature allowed to swallow the confidentiality rule the
legislature created.
Nor does the fact that Ms. Schiavo passed away many years ago
diminish the importance of the confidentiality the legislature afforded her
guardianship records. Cf. Swidler & Berlin v. United States, 524 U.S.
399, 407 (1998) (observing that posthumous disclosure of attorney-client
communications "may be as feared as disclosure during the client's
lifetime"); Weaver v. Myers, 229 So. 3d 1118, 1127 (Fla. 2017) ("[I]n all
litigation contexts, a decedent does not retroactively lose and can
maintain the constitutional right to privacy that may be invoked as a
shield in all contexts . . . ."). Finally, and perhaps most glaringly, none of
the appellants have ever explained why they waited nearly two decades
after Ms. Schiavo's death before filing a motion to unseal her
guardianship records. Their failure to address that pertinent question

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would seem fatal to their argument that good cause justified unsealing
these confidential documents.
In sum, the circuit court's decision was well within the bounds of
judicial discretion. We affirm the court's order accordingly.
Affirmed.
NORTHCUTT and VILLANTI, JJ., Concur.
Opinion subject to revision prior to official publication.