THESE ARE NOT ALL OF THE CASES RELEASED BY THE COURTS FOR THE WEEK.
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Attorney's fees -- Discharged attorney -- Referral attorney -- Quantum meruit -- Referral attorney who was discharged before final settlement and occurrence of contingency was not entitled to fees under parties' representation agreement, but was limited to quantum meruit -- Trial court erred as a matter of law by ruling that referral attorney was entitled to contractual fees because a client cannot discharge a referral attorney -- Under Florida Bar rules, client's authority to discharge counsel applies to referral attorney with same force as it does to lead counsel -- Nothing in rules requires that client expressly waive or discharge referral attorney from joint responsibility -- With respect to trial court's alternative ruling that quantum meruit supported its fee award, trial court did not meaningfully engage in required analysis and erred as matter of law by failing to consider totality of circumstances, including time spent by referral attorney on matters outside scope of representation agreement -- Remand for further proceedings
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Creditors' rights -- Proceedings supplementary -- Piercing corporate veil -- Alter ego -- Trial court erred by allowing judgment creditor to pierce corporate veil and implead limited liability company to collect default judgment against judgment debtor based on determination that LLC was debtor's alter ego -- While debtor and LLC were intertwined, they were not so intertwined that their separate corporate forms were disregarded -- Evidence established that debtor and LLC maintained independent existence where there was no overlapping ownership; debtor and LLC had entered into separate participation agreements with creditor; debtor independently held finance meetings and had a different general manager; and debtor maintained a separate bank account -- Although LLC provided “essential staff” to debtor, commonalities in officers, directors, employees, and facilities will not necessarily provide a basis to disregard the corporate form and pierce the corporate veil -- LLC's general manager's involvement in debtor's operations could not be imputed to separately-owned LLC based on general manager's indirect ownership of debtor through his interest in a separate third-party entity -- Mere continuation -- Trial court erred by finding that LLC was the mere continuation of debtor based on the registration of a fictitious name for LLC which operated out of one of debtor's former locations following debtor's closure where LLC and debtor had different owners and no evidence established that fictitious name utilized same staff or inventory as debtor
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Torts -- Workers' compensation immunity -- Statutory employee -- Action brought against contractor after employee of potential subcontractor fell to his death while at the project site for purposes of preparing subcontractor's bid pursuant to an open invitation -- No error in granting partial summary judgment in favor of plaintiff on defendant's affirmative defense of workers' compensation immunity -- Decedent was not defendant contractor's statutory employee where subcontractor merely accepted an invitation to bid and never had a contractual relationship with defendant -- Subcontractor did not contractually obligate itself to prepare a price proposal by accepting defendant's invitation to submit a bid -- Because submission of a bid alone does not create a contract, accepting an invitation to submit a bid cannot do so
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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 -- Aggravated assault with firearm -- Burglary with firearm -- Justifiable use of force -- Evidence -- State of mind -- Statements of public officials -- Charges stemming from incident in which defendant confronted a tow-truck driver with a firearm and removed keys from tow truck to prevent towing of defendant's vehicle -- Defendant claiming his actions were justified because he believed his car was being stolen and he was acting in defense of property -- Trial court did not err by excluding statements of public officials allegedly promoting the use of firearms for the protection of property against theft and looting, which defendant argued went directly to his state of mind at the time of the incident -- While evidence that tends to support the defendant's theory of defense is generally admissible, admissibility of that evidence must be gauged by the same principle of relevancy as any other evidence offered by the defendant -- Statements of public officials were not relevant to whether defendant had criminal intent to commit those offenses -- Tough talk by politicians about the Second Amendment or the war against crime does not tend to prove either the subjective state of mind of a given defendant or whether the defendant's belief was objectively reasonable -- Sentencing -- Trial court erred by imposing a single general sentence to cover both counts -- Jury trial -- Six-person jury was not unconstitutional
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Criminal law -- Probation revocation -- Sentencing -- Counsel -- Waiver -- Renewal of offer of counsel -- Trial court was not required to conduct another Faretta inquiry prior to evidentiary hearing on probation violation where trial court had conducted an adequate inquiry at initial plea hearing and there was no intervening crucial stage that occurred between the two hearings -- Fact that inquiry took place several weeks before evidentiary hearing was not dispositive -- Trial court erred by not renewing offer of counsel prior to sentencing defendant -- Sentencing is considered a critical stage of proceedings, and failure to renew offer of counsel constitutes fundamental error -- Although sentencing was within the guidelines and took place the same day as the brief probation hearing that began with a renewed offer of counsel rejected by defendant, error is not subject to harmless error review -- Conflict certified
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