THESE ARE NOT ALL OF THE CASES RELEASED BY THE COURTS FOR THE WEEK.
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Administrative law -- Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission -- Licensing -- Hunting preserves -- Fencing -- Appeals -- Jurisdiction -- Petition arguing that Commission committed reversible error by refusing to grant licensee a formal administrative hearing on its objection to fencing condition placed on its hunting preserve license -- District court of appeal lacks jurisdiction over appeal -- When acting pursuant to its constitutional powers, the Commission is not an “agency” as defined by Administrative Procedure Act, and its actions, therefore, are not “agency action” -- Because Commission both adopted and enforced the fencing rule pursuant to its constitutional authority, it was not an agency for the purposes of the APA -- As such, a party adversely affected by the Commission's adoption or enforcement of its fencing rule is not adversely affected by “final agency action” under the APA and cannot seek judicial review in the appellate district where the agency maintains its headquarters -- Court rejects argument that, because Commission adopted portions of the APA to govern proceedings concerning the enforcement of rules adopted pursuant to its constitutional authority, including the administrative proceeding at issue, the Commission was acting pursuant to the APA when it denied licensee a formal hearing, when it conducted the informal hearing, and when it denied licensee's petition and entered its final order -- Even if Commission had the authority to and did “adopt the APA” to govern the administrative proceeding at issue such that the Commission was acting pursuant to the APA when it conducted the proceeding, the Commission still was not acting pursuant to power derived from the APA -- Proper remedy was for licensee to seek review of agency's order by petition for writ of certiorari in circuit court -- Appeal treated as petition for writ of certiorari and transferred to circuit court in the county where licensee's hunting preserve is located
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Arbitration -- Nonbinding arbitration -- Trial de novo -- Timeliness of request -- Extension of time -- Trial court erred by rejecting magistrate's recommendation to grant appellant an extension of time to file its motion for trial de novo based on finding that it lacked authority to extend the deadline under rule 1.090 -- Section 44.103(5) expressly defers to the rules promulgated by the supreme court for establishing deadline for filing request for trial de novo, which includes Rules of Civil Procedure -- As such, the procedure for requesting a trial de novo after nonbinding arbitration is subject to provisions of rule 1.090(b) -- Because extension was sought prior to expiration of twenty-day deadline, trial court was authorized to grant the extension under rule 1.090
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Civil procedure -- Amendments -- Answer -- Counterclaim -- Addition of claim for punitive damages -- Appeals -- Non-final orders -- Appeal of order denying defendant's motion seeking leave to file amended answer, counterclaim, and request for punitive damages is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction -- Order is a nonfinal, nonappealable order -- While orders that grant or deny a motion for leave to amend to assert a claim for punitive damages are among the categories of nonfinal orders subject to interlocutory review, defendant's request to add a request for punitive damages was necessarily conditioned on her request for leave to plead a counterclaim -- Because the denial of the request for leave to plead a counterclaim is not subject to interlocutory review, the unreached and unruled-upon request to include within that proposed-but-rejected counterclaim a claim for punitive damages is not subject to interlocutory review
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Creditors' rights -- Foreign judgment -- Enforcement -- Uniform Out-of-Country Foreign Money-Judgment Act -- Comity -- No error in dismissing action seeking to enforce Brazilian judgment based on determination that plaintiff failed to provide a foreign final judgment for purposes of the Uniform Out-of-Country Foreign Money-Judgment Act -- Order on which plaintiff relied was not a final judgment where order contains no indication that it was final, and record showed that judicial labor in Brazil continued well after order was entered -- Additionally, the order does not on its face grant or deny recovery of any sum of money -- Document entitled “Abstract of Record” which was prepared by foreign court and attached to complaint was not a court order -- Even if document were a court order, it was impossible to determine whether the amount specified included taxes, fines, or other penalties which are not enforceable under the Act -- Court rejects argument that alleged foreign judgment is enforceable under common law doctrine of comity -- Common law principles of comity have been replaced by the Act
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Dissolution of marriage -- Marital settlement agreement -- Child support -- Tuition and expenses -- Contempt -- Trial court erred by finding former husband in contempt of final judgment which incorporated parties' MSA based on former husband's failure to pay half of the children's college tuition and expenses -- Provision of MSA entitled “Secondary School Expenses” and obligating former husband to pay half of children's “secondary education” tuition and expenses did not obligate former husband to pay half of children's college expenses because college is considered “postsecondary education” -- Portion of provision relieving former husband of his financial responsibility to pay expenses if the children did not attend a secondary educational institution prior to age 21 did not render provision ambiguous, and would not produce an absurd result if “secondary education” was not interpreted as encompassing college -- Contrary to trial court's finding, it would be perfectly reasonable for a child to incur tuition expenses by attending a private high school past the age of 18 or vocational school up to the age of 21 -- Because language of provision was not ambiguous, trial court erred by relying on parol evidence
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Mortgage foreclosure -- Sale -- Distribution of proceeds -- Reimbursement of plaintiff's post-judgment expenses from proceeds of sale -- Trial court properly authorized reimbursement where trial court retained jurisdiction to address such issues and reimbursement motion was filed mere days after sale and prior to clerk issuing certificate of distribution
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Real property -- Easements -- Settlement agreement -- Enforcement -- No error in granting plaintiff's motion to enforce mediated settlement agreement concerning the creation of an easement over defendant's property -- Agreement was binding and enforceable where agreement clearly and unambiguously set out the essential terms of the parties' agreement, such as the properties involved, the size and location of the easement, and the purpose and use of the easement -- Furthermore, details as to all that was necessary to give effect to the agreement were set out in the agreement itself -- Defendant's subsequent discovery of a tree on the easement which was beneficial to the servient estate did not create or otherwise constitute a mistake sufficient to void clear and unambiguous settlement agreement
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Rules of Appellate Procedure -- Amendment -- Procedures for review in death penalty cases -- Briefs
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Rules of Civil Procedure -- Forms -- Amendment -- Complaint to quiet title
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Torts -- Medical malpractice -- Damages -- Binding arbitration -- Evidence -- Reduced life expectancy unrelated to medical malpractice -- Action against hospital which admitted patient who had suffered a stroke and who died thirteen days after admission -- Hospital should have been allowed to present testimony of two experts who would have testified regarding nature of patient's stroke because testimony was relevant to patient's pre-negligence life expectancy -- Because arbitration panel was only permitted to consider economic scenarios in which patient had a normal life expectancy and retirement age without regard to his having suffered a debilitating stroke, order awarding damages, order on appeal is set aside, and matter remanded for further proceedings -- Reference to evidence not presented at trial
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Criminal Law Headnotes (Jump to Civil Law Headnotes)

THESE ARE NOT ALL OF THE CASES RELEASED BY THE COURTS FOR THE WEEK.
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Criminal law -- DUI manslaughter -- Driving under influence -- Blood alcohol level -- Opening statement -- Reference to evidence not presented at trial -- Sentencing -- Criminal Punishment Code -- Scoresheet -- Victim injury categories -- Constitutionality -- Multiple convictions and sentences for DUI manslaughter (impairment), DUI causing serious bodily injury (impairment), DUI causing injury, and DUI causing property damage arising out of accident in which truck driven by defendant collided with van carrying fifteen family members -- Trial court did not abuse discretion in denying motion for mistrial based on failure of state to offer retrograde extrapolation evidence that defendant's blood alcohol level was 0.17 at time of crash after prosecutor had commented in opening statement that witness from medical examiner's office had determined that this was the case -- Prosecutor had good faith basis to make this assertion in opening statement where witness had opined in his deposition that defendant's BAL would have been “at or around” 0.17 at time of crash, given various assumptions -- Although witness refused on direct examination to perform a retrograde extrapolation of defendant's BAL at time of crash, defendant pointed to no record evidence that prosecutor knew in advance that this would occur -- Further, witness's testimony made clear to jury what inferences could and could not be made about BAL at time of crash, jury was aware that witness was the source of prosecutor's opening statement, and witness's testimony was, overall, favorable to defense and became key theme of defense's closing argument -- Finally, any error on this issue was harmless, as jury acquitted defendant of all counts that required it to find as an element that defendant had a BAL of .08 or higher at time of accident, and it was not necessary for jury to rely on specific BAL to find that defendant was impaired at time of crash given other evidence presented at trial -- Portions of Criminal Punishment Code describing victim injury as “severe,” “moderate,” or “slight” are not unconstitutionally vague even though terms are not defined in statute -- Terms have plain and ordinary meaning that may be understood by person of ordinary intelligence, case law has provided additional guidance, and application of rule of lenity in close cases undermines contention that categories are too uncertain to be rationally and evenly applied -- Extensive discussion of “statutory vagueness”
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Criminal law -- Probation revocation -- Hearing -- Self-incrimination -- Order -- Conformance to oral pronouncement -- Trial court did not err by compelling defendant to testify against himself at probation violation hearing -- A probationer may not refuse to answer a question just because the answer would disclose a probation violation -- Probationers may only assert a qualified privilege against compulsory self-incrimination at a probation violation hearing, which is applicable to conduct and circumstances concerning a separate criminal offense -- While written revocation order does not conform to oral pronouncement, order cannot be reversed on appeal absent a contemporaneous objection or the filing of a rule 3.800(b) motion to correct sentence -- Order affirmed without prejudice to filing of appropriate post conviction motion
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Criminal law -- Murder -- Death penalty -- Evidence -- Opinions -- Videotaped interrogation -- Trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting portion of defendant's interrogation video which defendant claimed showed little more than officers' opinions that defendant was guilty -- Officers confronting defendant with evidence that contradicted his original story and asking him to explain it was routine interrogation, not improper opinion testimony -- Furthermore, jury was instructed not to consider the opinions and statements of officers as true prior to hearing any testimony -- Penalty phase -- New trial -- Defendant is not entitled to relief on claim that trial court's management of his brother's testimony during Spencer hearing, which defendant claims was influenced by the state's “threat” of perjury charges upon learning that brother sought to recant prior sworn testimony, deprived defendant of his rights under Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments -- Record does not support that brother would have testified differently, that state directly interfered in brother's testimony, or that trial court would have granted defendant a new penalty phase trial -- Mitigating circumstances -- Trial court did not abuse its discretion in its interpretation of “impaired capacity” mitigator when it considered the lack of examples of impaired capacity earlier in defendant's life as evidence that defendant's capacity to understand his criminality at time of the murder was not impaired -- Trial court erred by factoring defendant's contemporaneous conviction into the “no significant history” mitigator and assigning it moderate weight -- Error was harmless where, even if trial court had assigned great weight to mitigator, there was no reasonable possibility that trial court would not have imposed death penalty -- Mistrial -- No abuse of discretion in denying motion for mistrial based on officer's testimony that officer believed that money in defendant's wallet was counterfeit -- Argument -- Defendant's right to fair guilt phase trial was not violated when state commented that defendant had failed to prove diminished capacity during closing arguments -- Victim impact statements -- No abuse of discretion by allowing state to show victim impact video that included voice of victim's mother where video demonstrated victim's uniqueness and contained no characterizations or opinions about the crime, the defendant, or the appropriate sentence -- Statutory scheme for victim impact evidence is not facially unconstitutional -- Competent, substantial evidence supported jury's verdict that defendant committed first-degree murder
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Criminal law -- Murder -- Sentencing -- Death penalty -- Constitutionality of statute -- Mitigating circumstances -- Nonstatutory -- Trial court did not err in rejecting certain nonstatutory mitigators proposed by defendant, including assertion that defendant exhibited early signs of dementia, that he suffered from impulse deficits that negatively affected his behavior from childhood through adulthood, and that his behavior at time of crime was impacted by his withdrawal from anti-depressant medication that he had stopped taking 17 days before murder -- Argument -- Defendant not entitled to relief on claim that cumulative effect of prosecutor's allegedly improper comments during penalty phase closing argument was so prejudicial as to taint jury's recommended sentence -- Comments, which were focused on responsibility of jury to weigh relevant factors, were not preserved for appeal by contemporaneous objection and did not rise to level of fundamental error -- Challenges to constitutionality of Florida's death penalty scheme were not preserved for appeal and were foreclosed by established precedent
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