Men need parental leave, too. Miami-Dade judge shouldn’t have called it into question | Editorial

A Miami-Dade County circuit judge did the right thing on Tuesday when he agreed to allow a civil trial to be postponed because a male lawyer requested parental leave to be with his wife when their baby is born.

That shouldn’t make news — continuances are granted by judges for all sorts of things, including long-planned vacations, illnesses and conflicts with other trials — but it did in this case because Judge David Miller at first refused the request.

He refused it even though all of the attorneys on the case had agreed and even though a Florida Supreme Court rule on parental leave would seem to apply, one that requires judges to grant postponements in many cases for lead attorneys for the birth of a child.

Miller reversed course on Tuesday after the Miami Herald published a story about his decision.

The lawyer who asked for the continuance, Alexander Fumagali, is representing Hard Rock Stadium in a lawsuit that goes back to 2018. Lillian Welborn filed suit against the county and the company that owns and operates the stadium after she said she was struck by a county cop riding a golf cart at a Dolphins game. It was the first time the case had been set for trial, scheduled to begin Oct. 17.

Fumagali said he and his wife had been trying to have a baby for years, going through a miscarriage and several rounds of in vitro fertilization. Their child is due in mid-October, the same time as the case was set to begin.

The judge initially rejected the request for a continuance saying that someone else from Fumagali’s firm would have to handle the case. He said the case was “past the time” when the Supreme Court would consider it reasonable to conclude the case. He threatened “sanctions” if Fumagali asked again.

And yet, by late Tuesday, he was — apparently — fine with it, granting the continuance because of the lawyer’s “need for parental leave,” the Miami Herald reported.

Judges aren’t allowed to publicly talk about cases over which they are presiding, though we did reach out to Miller’s office.

This is the same judge who was reprimanded by the state Supreme Court in 2020 for stepping out of a trial to yell at people gathered in the courthouse lobby for being too loud during the investiture of a new judge. Miller also was involved in a scuffle with another judge over a fax machine in 2008.

We understand the idea of justice delayed being justice denied, but this isn’t a criminal case and the lawyers on all sides were OK with pushing the trial back. The pandemic also caused an enormous amount of disruption in the justice system, and judges feel pressured to clear their dockets. That’s understandable as well.

But we do wonder if there would have been as much pushback if a woman lawyer had been asking for the postponement. Parental leave has remained a contentious issue in the legal community. Plus, there is still a misguided perception in the world at large that men don’t need to parent as much as women.

And, even more than that, we wonder what would have happened if the Herald hadn’t reported the story. Judges have enormous power in their courtrooms. A free press that serves as a watchdog is one of the few ways society has to exert power in that setting.

This story was originally published September 7, 2022 at 2:29 PM.