Robert Hinton Avery W v. Danielle Beauzil

DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA
FOURTH DISTRICT

ROBERT HINTON AVERY,
Petitioner,

v.

DANIELLE BEAUZIL,
Respondent.

Nos. 4D2026-0406 and 4D2026-0921

[May 27, 2026]

Consolidated petitions for writs of mandamus and certiorari to the Circuit
Court for the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, Broward County; Catalina Avalos,
Judge; L.T. Case No. 062024DR016304AXXXCE.

Robert Hinton Avery, Pembroke Pines, pro se.

No appearance for respondent.

PER CURIAM.

On Order to Show Cause

In these two consolidated cases, we ordered petitioner Robert Hinton Avery—
the husband in the underlying divorce case—to show cause why this Court
should not impose the sanction of no longer accepting his pro se filings. Having
considered his response, we conclude that sanctions are appropriate.

4D2026-0406

In case number 4D2026-0406, petitioner filed a pro se document titled:
“VERIFIED URGENT AND EXPEDITIED [sic] PETITION FOR WRIT OF
MANDAMUS AND ALTERNATIVE URGENT WRIT OF PROHIBITION WITH
INCORPORATED REQUEST FOR EMERGENCY STAY.” The 41-page, single-
spaced document was generated using artificial intelligence (AI) and includes a
“supplemental memorandum of law.” Among other things, the petition sought
to compel a ruling on more than 90 pro se motions that petitioner has filed below.
The petition also sought a writ of prohibition and asked us to disqualify the trial
court or find that the trial court lacks jurisdiction under the Uniform Child
Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA).
We initially dismissed the petition for non-payment of the filing fee, but when
the filing fee was paid about a month-and-a-half after the petition was filed, we
reinstated the petition.

Soon thereafter, petitioner filed a first supplement to the petition, adding 24
more single-spaced pages of AI-generated argument and advising that, a month
prior (about a week after the petition was filed), the trial court had ruled on 39
of his motions. Among other things, the supplement raised a frivolous argument
that the trial court lacked jurisdiction and that proceedings were automatically
stayed because petitioner had filed a motion to disqualify. 1 See Letterese v.
Brody, 985 So. 2d 597, 598 (Fla. 4th DCA 2008) (explaining that the filing of a
motion to disqualify and/or prohibition petition does not deprive the trial court
of jurisdiction). According to petitioner, his disqualification motion allegedly
excused his failure to appear for hearings in the trial court. The supplement
also attempted to argue the merits of the 39 motions.

Petitioner then filed a second-supplemental memorandum adding 19 more
single-spaced pages of AI-generated argument. These filings were accompanied
by more than 1,000 pages of documents, including many more AI-generated
documents and charts.

The petition in this case contains frivolous and misleading arguments. In the
underlying case, petitioner filed numerous unauthorized motions to vacate that
were directed at nonfinal orders. Guglielmi v. Guglielmi, 324 So. 3d 554, 557
(Fla. 1st DCA 2021) (holding that rule 1.540 motions directed at nonfinal orders
are unauthorized and not appealable). In those motions, and again in this
petition, petitioner contends that orders entered by a prior judge or before a
UCCJEA affidavit was filed are void. The petition states that “[o]rders entered by
a disqualified judge are voidable and must be vacated upon proper motion. See
Fischer v. Knuck, 497 So. 2d 240 (Fla. 1986); MacKenzie v. Super Kids Bargain
Store, Inc., 565 So. 2d 1332 (Fla. 1990).” (emphasis supplied).

This argument misstates the law, and the cited cases do not support the
argument. See Fla. R. Gen. Prac. & Jud. Admin. 2.330(j) (allowing a successor
judge to reconsider the rulings of a prior judge). The law does not support
petitioner’s argument at all.

These types of AI-hallucinated arguments are just as egregious as a citation
to non-existent law. See Clerk of Court & Comptroller for 13th Judicial Circuit,
Hillsborough Cnty. v. Rangel, 427 So. 3d 1069, 1071 (Fla. 2d DCA 2025)
(sanctioning counsel for filing a brief that, among other things, “misstated court
holdings”). Pro se litigants and attorneys are responsible for their AI-generated
filings and may be subject to sanctions for filings that contain fictitious authority
or “cite actual cases for inaccurate legal propositions.” Hessert v. Hessert, 51

1 This Court has seen this AI-hallucinated argument often. Seeing it at all is too often.
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Fla. L. Weekly D520 (Fla. 6th DCA March 20, 2026). Pro se litigants are not held
to a lesser standard. Goya v. Hayashida, 418 So. 3d 652, 655 (Fla. 4th DCA
2025).

The delay in filing a UCCJEA affidavit does not deprive the trial court of
jurisdiction or void the orders entered before the affidavit was filed. Holub v.
Holub, 54 So. 3d 585, 588 (Fla. 1st DCA 2011). When viewed in this case’s
context, this argument is frivolous. The wife filed a UCCJEA affidavit in her
domestic violence case against petitioner in September 2024. In October 2025,
petitioner filed an emergency motion in this divorce case to correct the affidavit.
He filed a corrected affidavit and alleged that the wife had failed to include his
eldest child with another woman in the affidavit. He argued that Florida has
jurisdiction over all three of his children. Despite this, petitioner now claims the
trial court lacks jurisdiction, and the orders which the trial court had entered
before the wife filed an affidavit in this case are void.

Florida clearly has jurisdiction over the two children of this marriage, which
is all that is relevant. The trial court’s orders are not void. These arguments are
frivolous and present no basis for prohibition relief.

Finally, prohibition cannot be used to seek disqualification of a trial judge in
the first instance. Letterese, 985 So. 2d at 598 (explaining that “a district court
errs in entering an order of prohibition without permitting the trial judge to
ascertain whether to disqualify him or herself”) (citations omitted). Petitioner’s
request that this Court disqualify the successor trial judge is frivolous. See Fla.
R. Gen. Prac. & Jud. Admin. 2.330(i) (“[A] successor judge cannot be disqualified
based on a successive motion by the same party unless the successor judge rules
that he or she is in fact not fair or impartial in the case.”).

4D2026-0921

In case number 4D2026-0921, petitioner filed an AI-generated certiorari
petition seeking review of a March 2, 2026, order that denied his motion to vacate
an April 2, 2025, agreed order referring the parties to a parenting program for
petitioner to begin therapeutic supervised timesharing with the parties’ two
children.

Petitioner, however, has refused to exercise this timesharing. In the March
2026 order, the trial court granted petitioner’s motion to stay the April 2025
agreed timesharing order. The court lifted the stay and allowed petitioner to
commence timesharing. The court also granted his request for an evidentiary
hearing on temporary timesharing and ordered the parties to schedule the
hearing with the judicial assistant. The court noted that it had twice tried to
conduct hearings, but petitioner failed to appear. The court cautioned him that

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failure to appear at future hearings may result in sanctions, including striking
his pleadings.

The March 2026 nonfinal order denying the motion to vacate is not appealable
or subject to certiorari review. Guglielmi, 324 So. 3d at 557. The motion to
vacate was an untimely and unauthorized request for rehearing from the April
2025 agreed order. The ruling on the motion to vacate did not restart the time
for seeking review and is not independently subject to review.

Despite this, petitioner’s AI-generated certiorari petition argues 19 alleged
errors. Among other frivolous arguments, the petition claims that Virginia court
rulings concerning petitioner’s eldest child with another woman control as to the
two children of this marriage. He also raises a frivolous argument that the trial
court in this divorce case could not restrict his contact with the children because
an order in his pending criminal case permitted contact.

Despite a prior warning, petitioner filed another frivolous request for
emergency treatment with the certiorari petition. See USAA Cas. Ins. Co. v.
Pembroke Pines MRI, Inc., 24 So. 3d 588, 589 (Fla. 4th DCA 2009) (“Pleadings
filed as emergencies disrupt court procedures and interrupt work on cases that
were already pending.”). The record shows that petitioner has abused emergency
filing procedures in the trial court as well.

Order to Show Cause

We consolidated the two cases for panel purposes and denied the mandamus
and prohibition petition in 4D2026-0406, as petitioner showed no basis for
discretionary writ relief. State ex rel. Haft v. Adams, 238 So. 2d 843, 844 (Fla.
1970) (“[M]andamus is a discretionary writ that is awarded, not as a matter of
right, but in the exercise of a sound judicial discretion and upon equitable
principles.”).

The trial court has ruled on many of the motions, and the delay in ruling on
the other motions is not unreasonable. The court directed petitioner to schedule
an evidentiary hearing on the timesharing issue, and no equitable basis exists
for us to grant discretionary mandamus relief.

We observed that petitioner has abused judicial process through his excessive
filing of more than 90 AI-generated motions in the trial court.

We denied petitioner’s frivolous certiorari petition and request for emergency
treatment in case number 4D2026-0921, explaining that no basis for
extraordinary writ relief was shown, and that the AI-generated petition attempted
to raise 19 grounds for relief which were not properly before us.

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We noted that petitioner has previously filed frivolous documents and was
cautioned against frivolous filing in 4D2026-0544 for filing a request for
emergency treatment that cited a non-existent rule of procedure. He filed the
frivolous petitions and emergency request in these cases after the warning. In
less than a year, petitioner has initiated eight pro se proceedings in this court.
We dismissed three for non-payment of the filing fee, and three others remain
pending. The pending cases concern a final domestic violence injunction, and
his prosecution for a misdemeanor battery against the wife in a criminal case.
He has also appealed from the order denying his request for a restraining order.

The filings and records before us demonstrate petitioner’s ongoing abuse of
judicial process.

“[A] court may bar a litigant from appearing pro se when the litigant’s
‘frivolous or excessive filings interfere with timely administration of justice.’”
Gutierrez v. Gutierrez, 399 So. 3d 1185, 1188 (Fla. 3d DCA 2024) (citations
omitted). Accordingly, we ordered petitioner to show cause why we should not
impose the sanction of no longer accepting his pro se filings and why he should
not be required to retain counsel in his other pending cases in this court.

Petitioner’s Response

Petitioner’s 45-page AI-generated response to our order to show cause is
accompanied by an 863-page appendix that contains more AI-generated
arguments and fails to show why sanctions are not warranted.

First, the response makes a frivolous argument that we erred in denying the
mandamus and prohibition petition in 4D2026-0406, because petitioner believes
we were referring to his prohibition petition in 4D2026-0544, which we
dismissed for non-payment of the filing fee. He claims we cannot deny relief in
the wrong case number. But our order denied the request for prohibition relief
raised in this proceeding. We are aware of his other filings in this court.

Petitioner also contends we cannot consider his trial court filings, and we
have impermissibly considered extra-record facts, but his mandamus petition
sought a ruling on his 90 pending motions and many of these were provided in
his appendices. He brought his filings to our attention, and the gross abuse of
process is apparent from the records before us. Petitioner’s response
acknowledges that he has filed at least 145 motions in the trial court. The trial
court’s online docket suggests that he has filed many more motions and exhibits
since our order to show cause issued. His response to us, and his continued
filings, demonstrate that he intends to continue abusing the judicial process.

The response maintains that petitioner is a 100-percent disabled veteran, who
suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, and claims that he has a right to
use AI for legal assistance under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and
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under the United States Constitution. He argues that requiring him to retain
counsel will cost him between $83,000 and $231,000 in attorney’s fees, which
far exceeds the $20/month which he pays for his AI service. The response
repeats arguments that were raised in these frivolous petitions and in his other
pending cases. The response also sets out 12 AI-generated questions of great
public importance that he would us to certify to the Florida Supreme Court.

These arguments are meritless, and we reject the notion that the ADA grants
petitioner a license to abuse judicial process.

Conclusion

Petitioner’s response fails to show any cause why sanctions should not be
imposed and, instead, convinces us that sanctions are necessary. A court may
bar a litigant from appearing pro se when the litigant’s “‘frivolous or excessive
filings interfere with timely administration of justice.’” Clark v. Baney, 355 So.
3d 976, 978 (Fla. 1st DCA 2023) (quoting Ardis v. Pensacola State Coll., 128 So.
3d 260, 264 (Fla. 1st DCA 2013)).

Accordingly, the Clerk of this Court is directed to reject any future filings by
petitioner Robert Hinton Avery unless such filings are signed by a member in
good standing of the Florida Bar.

By separate order, we will require counsel to file a notice of appearance in
petitioner’s other pending cases, or these cases will be dismissed. See, e.g.,
Pflaum v. Pflaum, 974 So. 2d 579, 580 (Fla. 1st DCA 2008).

CIKLIN, KLINGENSMITH and LOTT, JJ., concur.

* * *

Not final until disposition of timely-filed motion for rehearing.

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