Is Good Friday a Court Holiday? (2019 Edition)

West front of the
Church of Notre Dame
Drawn by A. Pugin ;
engraved by J. Tingle.

You’ve calculated a deadline for a filing for Friday, April 19, 2019. That happens to be Good Friday. Is your filing due? It depends on if you’re in federal or state court.

Are you in a Florida state court? Then yes!

Good Friday is not one of the enumerated holidays in Florida Rule of Judicial Procedure 2.514(a)(6)(A) (.pdf) (defining “Legal Holiday”), but the rules also allow each clerk’s office or court’s chief judge to separately designate additional holidays. See Fla. R. Jud. P. 2.514(a)(6)(B) (defining a holiday as “any day observed as a holiday by the clerk’s office or as designated by the chief judge”). Using that latter rule, every Florida court has independently recognized Friday, April 19 as a Holiday in 2019 (and has historically closed on Good Friday, though you should check every year to be sure). So Happy Easter to those who celebrate!

Don’t just take our word for it, though. Here’s a handy list of links to each court’s holiday page:

Florida Appellate Courts

Florida Circuit Courts

Are you in federal court? Sorry to be the bearer of bad news…

Neither the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals nor the federal district courts of Florida close on Good Friday.

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This post is an update and expansion to our previous post,
https://floridaappellate.com/2014/04/18/is-good-friday-a-holiday-it-depends/.

If you want to get updates on court holidays and other appellate happenings, subscribe to this blog under the “FLORIDA APPELLATE PROCEDURE UPDATES BY EMAIL” in the right-hand column on this screen.

1 reply
  1. Thomasina
    Thomasina says:

    Having gone to each DCA’s website earlier this week to see if Good Friday was a Court holiday I can tell you for a fact the links in this post are really helpful. Thanks for sharing!

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