THESE ARE NOT ALL OF THE CASES RELEASED BY THE COURTS FOR THE WEEK.
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Attorney's fees -- Prevailing party -- Prejudgment interest -- Award following nearly two years of litigation over amount of fees -- Insurance -- Homeowners -- A prevailing insured may not recover both current market billing rates for its counsel and prejudgment interest on the fee award because each was designed to compensate for delay in payment -- Prejudgment interest awarded to lead counsel who was also compensated at current market billing rates reversed -- Awards to other legal professionals who were compensated below current market rates affirmed
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Contracts -- Construction -- Arbitration -- Enforceability of arbitration clause -- No error in denying motion to compel arbitration pursuant to clause in construction agreement where only evidence of alleged contract was an unsigned agreement which did not provide the scope of work to be performed or the construction price to be paid -- While attachment of unsigned contract to complaint is evidence that plaintiff had notice of arbitration provision, there is no evidence that plaintiff acquiesced to or accepted agreement -- Plaintiff's payment of over $800,000 to defendant cannot be treated as acceptance of the contract where, given contract's failure to list any price or scope of work, there is no connection to the amount remitted and the contract itself
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Insurance -- Homeowners -- Property damage -- Coverage -- Exclusions -- Earth movement and settlement -- Material shrinkage -- Post-loss obligations -- Failure to comply -- Declaratory judgments -- Monetary damages -- Trial court did not err in denying insurer's motion for summary judgment in action brought by insured claiming coverage for cracking and related damage to floors, walls, and ceiling caused by vibrations from nearby demolition activity where parties presented conflicting evidence, with insurer's expert indicating that damage was caused by material settlement or other preexisting conditions and insured's expert attesting that damages were caused solely by vibration -- Trial court did not err in granting insured's motion in limine to exclude all testimony relating to both post-loss obligations and to insurer's claim that vibration was excluded loss under the policy's earth movement and settlement provision -- Court's ruling that “vibration,” specifically, was not among policy exclusions did not preclude insurer from arguing the applicability of earth movement and settlement provisions or other policy exclusions -- Insurer's repudiation of coverage waived its right to insist upon insured's compliance with policy conditions -- Inclusion in denial letter of references to post-loss obligations and insurer's intention not to waive its rights under policy was not sufficient to avoid finding of waiver where the language specifically described the letter as a “declination of coverage” -- Damages -- Trial court was not precluded from awarding monetary damages as supplemental relief in declaratory action where complaint claimed that insurer improperly denied coverage and requested money damages “attributable to the Loss, if covered” -- Money judgment may be obtained for damages sought as incidental or supplemental relief pursuant to a declaratory decree -- Affirmed
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Landlord-tenant -- Attorney's fees -- Timeliness of motion -- Judgment -- Amendment -- Jurisdiction -- Trial court erred by denying landlord's motion for attorney's fees as untimely after sua sponte striking provision of final judgment which had allowed landlord extended time to file motion -- Trial court lacked authority under rules 1.530 and 1.540 to amend final judgment three months after it was entered based on a judicial error arising from trial court's mistaken view of the law -- Judgment's reservation of jurisdiction to decide attorney's fees and costs did not confer continuing authority to rewrite substantive terms of final judgment
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Real property -- Contracts -- Easements -- Real/personal covenants -- Attorney's fees -- Prevailing-party attorney's fee provision contained in an easement agreement is not a real covenant that runs with the land because fee provision is too attenuated from the use, enjoyment, or occupation of the land to touch and concern it
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Torts -- Premises liability -- Immunity -- Statutory -- Agritourism operator or owner of underlying land -- Plaintiff sustaining fractured ankle when her feet hit the ground after going down slide in the children's playground area -- Trial court erred in entering summary judgment in favor of defendant based on immunity provided by section 570.88(1), which immunizes an agritourism operator, his or her employer or employee, or owner of underlying land for injury to participant resulting from inherent risks of agritourism activities, where there remained a triable issue of fact as to whether notice of risk required by section 570.89 was posted on day of incident
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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 -- Jurors -- Challenges -- Peremptory -- Racial discrimination -- Race-neutral explanation -- Genuineness -- Similarly situated jurors -- Trial court abused its discretion by permitting state to strike African American female juror based on state's asserted reason that prospective juror had previously served on a jury that reached a decision in a criminal case -- Scenario at issue warrants a finding of pretext where proffered reason applied equally to another non-African American who was seated on the jury, state did not attempt to distinguish the similarly situated jurors, the asserted reason for strike had nothing to do with facts of case, and stricken juror was only asked a single question on a topic unrelated to her prior jury service -- If prior jury service troubled state, one would expect questioning on the topic or the similarly situated juror to have been stricken as well
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Criminal law -- Sexual battery -- Lewd or lascivious molestation -- Promoting sexual performance of child -- Evidence -- Evidence was insufficient to convict defendant of count alleging promotion of sexual performance of child based on a cached image from a shared cellphone that was in another third party's possession where record showed only that image was last viewed on date of defendant's arrest -- Too many inferences had to be stacked for jury to find that defendant produced, directed, or promoted the charged performance where phone contained information associated with multiple individuals' social media accounts and state failed to establish who operated phone when image was last viewed, who initially created image, and whether person depicted in the photo was the named victim -- Evidence was insufficient to convict defendant of count alleging promotion of sexual performance of child based on a screenshot of a video call created on the same shared cellphone -- Jury had to infer from defendant's general access to phone that defendant, rather than third party depicted in the screenshot, was the one using the cellphone at the time screenshot was created where defendant was not depicted in the photo and nothing in record indicates defendant was a party to the video call -- Evidence was sufficient to support conviction for count based on a third image where image was uploaded to defendant's Google account, showed victim being sexually abused, had GPS data associated with defendant's residence, and contained specific features that correlated to other pictures linked to defendant -- Double jeopardy -- Discussion of supreme court's decision in Lee v. State and the “charging-document rule” -- Charging-document rule, which confines review of constitutional double jeopardy determinations to the four corners of the charging document, does not apply when a double jeopardy claim concerns multiple convictions under same criminal statute, the same victim, and the same timeframe -- Conflict certified -- Defendant's multiple convictions under same statute based on identically worded counts and timeframes did not violate prohibition against double jeopardy because record established, through separately identified exhibits, that each pairing or tripling rested on distinct conduct
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