A strategy to speed foreclosure cases through Palm Beach Circuit Court could soon apply to most civil cases if Chief Judge Jeffrey Colbath succeeds in implementing a proposed abandonment rule.

The proposal, called Local Rule 9, would consider civil, family, probate and guardianship cases abandoned if not set for a hearing and heard within 90 days.

It would expand on an April order, rejected by the Florida Supreme Court Local Rules Advisory Committee, intended to sweep through a backlog of foreclosure cases clogging the court system after the housing crash devastated Florida's real estate market.