Rule 3.932.Motions or applications to be heard by the court

A reference does not hand a referee unlimited authority over every question the case might raise. Rule 3.932 reserves two kinds of motions for the court itself, regardless of whether the reference arose by stipulation under section 638 or by court order under section 639. A motion or application to seal records in a case pending before a referee has to be filed with the court and served on every party that has appeared and on the referee, and it gets heard by the trial court judge assigned to the case or, if none has been assigned, by the presiding judge or a designee. Rules 2.550 and 2.551, the rules governing sealed records generally, apply to that motion just as they would in front of a judge.

A motion for leave to file a complaint in intervention gets the same filing, service, and hearing treatment. But the consequence of granting it reaches further: if intervention is allowed, the case goes back onto the regular trial court docket, breaking out of the reference entirely, unless all the parties stipulate under rule 3.901 to keep proceeding before the referee. Both carve-outs reflect the same underlying idea. Sealing records affects public access to the court's own files, and letting a new party into the case changes who is even bound by the reference, so both decisions stay with a judge rather than a referee.