THESE ARE NOT ALL OF THE CASES RELEASED BY THE COURTS FOR THE WEEK.
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Civil rights -- Sexual harassment -- Settlement agreement -- Arbitration -- Enforceability of arbitration clause -- Action in which both parties allege that the other breached the parties' agreement settling sexual harassment claims asserted in charge of discrimination filed with Equal Employment Opportunity Commission -- Trial court did not err by compelling arbitration pursuant to provision of settlement agreement stating that any claim, action or proceeding relating to or arising out of the agreement shall be exclusively brought, addressed and resolved via binding arbitration -- Arbitration provision was not unenforceable under the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act as a “predispute arbitration agreement” -- In determining when a “dispute” arises under the EFAA, the relevant question is when the parties became adverse to one another -- Dispute in instant action arose no later than date plaintiff filed her EEOC claim, which occurred almost a year before settlement agreement was executed -- Claim that defendants' alleged post-settlement breach of agreement was retaliatory does not transform a postdispute settlement agreement into a predispute one under the EFAA -- Interpreting the EFAA otherwise would allow parties to evade valid arbitration clauses in settlement agreements simply by characterizing any dispute arising out of the settlement as a new or retaliatory dispute that “relates to” the original sexual harassment -- Defendants' alleged material breach of agreement did not discharge plaintiff's obligations under the agreement where arbitration clause was severable from remainder of agreement -- Arbitration clause does not violate EFAA or any other public policy
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Florida Bar -- Rules -- Amendment -- Substance abuse terminology
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Jurisdiction -- Non-residents -- Contracts -- Guaranty -- Trial court erred in denying motion to dismiss complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction where plaintiff failed to allege sufficient jurisdictional facts to bring action within ambit of Florida's long-arm statute -- Further, defendant's unrebutted affidavit attached to motion to dismiss was legally sufficient to shift to plaintiff the burden of proving by affidavit or other sworn proof a valid basis for personal jurisdiction over defendant, and plaintiff failed to meet this burden -- Presumption that payment was due in Florida where plaintiff resided was not sufficient to bring defendant's failure to perform within reach of Florida's long-arm statute where complaint was silent as to whether breaching conduct occurred in Florida or whether performance was required in Florida and agreement itself did not require any acts to be performed in Florida -- Agreement's Florida choice of law and venue provision was not, standing alone, sufficient to subject non-resident defendant to personal jurisdiction where there were no allegations in complaint directly stating that Florida court had jurisdiction over defendant
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Landlord-tenant -- Attorney's fees -- Amount -- Fees for fees -- Trial court erred by awarding tenants fees for legal services rendered to advocate for the amount of fees to be awarded -- Contractual language of lease provision authorizing attorney's fees and section 83.48 were not broad enough to encompass an award of fees for fees where both the lease and statute limit fees to enforcement of the agreement and statutes incorporated into the agreement -- Section 83.89(3)(c) is not broad enough to support fees for fees because section 83.49(3)(c) limits fees to the adjudication of the party's right to the security deposit -- Record does not support contention that fees for fees were awarded as sanction for landlord's litigation conduct
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Mobile home parks -- Eviction -- Challenge -- Standing -- Action by mobile home owners whose mobile homes were located on land they leased from park owners alleging park owners violated Florida Mobile Home Act and seeking injunctive and declaratory relief -- Trial court did not err in dismissing, for lack of standing, plaintiffs' claim that defendants violated Act by issuing eviction notices without providing statutorily-required notice to homeowners association of association's right under statute to purchase the mobile home park -- Trial court properly concluded that homeowners association was necessary party for standing purposes -- Plaintiffs failed to preserve for appeal their claim that trial court erred in dismissing with prejudice their additional claim that defendants violated Act by improperly noticing a rent increase within six months of eviction notice because owners were entitled to amend their complaint to allege with more particularity how defendants' notice violated the statute -- Argument was not properly preserved where it was not raised until motion for rehearing -- Further, plaintiffs failed to proffer any facts in trial court to establish that amendment would not be futile -- Injunctions -- Trial court did not err in dismissing claims for injunctive relief -- Although plaintiffs contend that Florida law recognizes cause of action for injunctive relief provided it is ancillary and dependent upon another cause of action seeking relief, owners' injunctive relief counts were not ancillary or dependent upon any causes of action entitling them to relief
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Mobile home parks -- Eviction -- Default -- Trial court erred by setting aside default final judgment of possession and dismissing complaint after learning that defendants had paid missing ongoing rent obligation into court registry on the fifth of the month following the filing of plaintiff's motion for default the day prior -- Plaintiff was entitled to default judgment of possession under section 83.60 where defendants did not timely file a motion to determine rent after service of complaint or pay their ongoing rent obligations on the first of the month, which was when the complaint alleged rent was due -- Discussion of section 83.60(2) default provision -- Default provision, which imposes an absolute waiver of defenses and an immediate default judgment without notice upon failure to pay rent into the registry, applies equally to the failure to pay the alleged accrued rent and the failure to pay the alleged future rent when it becomes due -- Defendants' late payment on the fifth of the month did not affect plaintiff's right to the immediate default judgment he had already obtained -- Trial court further erred by allowing defendant to raise argument that their tenancy was governed by chapter 723 for first time in their emergency motion for rehearing -- By time of emergency motion, defendants had absolutely waived all defenses other than payment as a matter of law
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Real property -- Restrictive covenants -- Enforceability -- Marketable Record Title Act -- Muniments of title -- Current owner of property was not bound by use restriction contained in a 1973 deed addendum which required the subject property to be used as a golf course -- Plain language of section 712.03(1) requires use restrictions to be preserved through muniments of title -- Muniments of title are deeds, wills, and court judgments through which a particular land title passes and upon which its validity depends -- Affidavit executed during a prior conveyance which incorporated deed addendum was not a muniment of title because it did not pass or carry title, but merely denoted an agent's authority to execute the later recorded deed on behalf of the grantor -- Because there are no muniments of title since the root of title that preserves the use restriction, the use restriction is extinguished through MRTA
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Torts -- Automobile accident -- Damages -- Excessive award -- Trial court erred by denying defendant's motion for remittitur or new trial arguing that awards for future medical expenses, lost wages, and loss of future earning capacity were excessive -- Lost earnings -- Plaintiff failed to present competent evidence quantifying amount of past lost earnings caused by accident where plaintiff offered no proof that his reduced hours following accident or his subsequent termination from employment were related to his injuries and, although the plaintiff obviously needed time to recover from surgery before looking for a job, plaintiff offered no evidence that he would have been employed during this time but for the accident or surgery -- Past lost earnings award was also excessive on its face where, even if jury attributed entire period of unemployment from the plaintiff's firing through the time he returned to work to the accident, the amount awarded exceeded the salary plaintiff would have earned during that time -- Future medical expenses -- Jury's award of future medical expenses was excessive in light of the jury's finding that the plaintiff did not sustain a permanent injury where amount awarded necessarily envisioned substantial additional medical care for most or all of the plaintiff's remaining life expectancy -- Loss of earning capacity -- Given jury's finding that plaintiff did not suffer permanent injury, award for loss of future earning capacity was also excessive -- A finding of permanent injury was essential to establishing these damages with reasonable certainty -- Appropriate remedy is a new trial on damages -- New trial on damages shall encompass all damages issues, including permanency and past medical expenses, where jury's award was likely the result of a compromise verdict -- Furthermore, issues of permanency and past medical expenses are interrelated with and inseparable from the issue of future medical expenses in instant case
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Torts -- Automobile accident -- Vicarious liability -- Sheriffs -- Evidence -- Depositions -- Organizational representative -- Action brought against sheriff arising from injuries plaintiff suffered after a deputy in a patrol vehicle struck another car, causing the other car to crash into plaintiff -- Trial court erred by excluding the deposition testimony of sheriff's organizational representative stating that sheriff's office's traffic safety board's investigation of the collision determined that the collision was preventable and that it was the deputy's fault based on trial court's determination that investigation was protected by the accident report privilege and was a subsequent remedial measure, and that testimony was evidence of a traffic citation -- Accident report privilege -- Representative's testimony was not inadmissible under accident report privilege where neither the traffic safety board's investigation nor representative's testimony about the investigation was a crash report made pursuant to section 316.066, and neither the investigation nor representative's testimony was a statement made to a law enforcement officer for the purpose of completing such a crash report -- Traffic citation privilege -- It was error to exclude testimony under traffic citation privilege where none of the testimony plaintiff sought to introduce mentioned that deputy had been issued a citation -- While privilege makes traffic citations inadmissible, it does not make inadmissible the results of any investigation involving a person that received a traffic citation or the results of any investigation that relied in some part on a traffic citation -- Subsequent remedial measure -- Testimony was not inadmissible as evidence of a subsequent remedial measure where none of the testimony plaintiff sought to introduce mentioned any discipline imposed against deputy or any other remedial measure taken by the sheriff's office -- Evidence of investigations that were conducted to determine whether to take subsequent remedial measures or reports that resulted from such investigations are not inadmissible under section 90.407 -- Unfair prejudice -- Appeals -- Tipsy coachman -- Appellate court declines to affirm the exclusion of testimony under tipsy coachman doctrine based on assertion that evidence was unfairly prejudicial and, therefore, properly excludable under section 90.403 -- Where, as here, a trial court has not conducted a Rule 403 analysis, an appellate court cannot do so in the first instance in order to affirm under tipsy coachman doctrine -- Conflict certified
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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.
To see others not presented here, log in for more comprehensive weekly listings.

Criminal law -- Juveniles -- Carrying concealed firearm -- Officer's testimony that firearm possessed by juvenile was “concealed out of ordinary sight” until juvenile raised his hands and shirt and requested to be disarmed was sufficient to sustain trial court's denial of motion to dismiss concealed firearm charge and to support trial court's finding of delinquency
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Criminal law -- Public officials -- Unlawful compensation or reward -- Jurisdiction -- Statewide Grand Jury -- Charges alleging that chief financial officer of school district received gifts in Georgia in exchange for school district purchasing smart boards from a Georgia corporation -- Trial court did not err by dismissing SWGJ indictment charging defendant with unlawful compensation or reward for official behavior for lack of jurisdiction -- SWGJ's jurisdiction is limited to enumerated offenses which occur in two or more judicial circuits as part of a “related transaction” or when an enumerated offense is connected with an organized criminal conspiracy affecting two or more judicial circuits -- Because defendant was in Broward County when he awarded the purchase contract on behalf of the school district and all the unlawful compensation was delivered in Georgia, offense only occurred in one Florida judicial circuit -- Discussion of the meaning of “related transactions” as used in section 905.34 -- Court rejects argument that a “related transaction” under section 905.34 does not have to be criminal activity -- Statute does not authorize SWGJ jurisdiction for multi-county activities that are not criminal in nature and that took place before or after the commission of the enumerated offense -- As such, defendant's negotiations with agencies and individuals in other counties regarding the funding, purchasing, and storage of the smart boards did not constitute “related transactions” to accomplish the charged offense -- Because the transfer of state funds and defendant's negotiations with representatives in other counties were not elements of the charged offense, those facts also failed to support the existence of organized criminal activity affecting more than one circuit
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Criminal law -- Public trial -- Partial closure -- Sexual activity with child twelve years of age or older but less than eighteen by person in familial or custodial authority -- On narrow facts of instant case, trial court did not violate defendant's right to public trial by temporarily excluding defendant's biological daughter from courtroom while her half-sister, the victim, testified as to sexual abuse she suffered -- Discussion of four prerequisites for courtroom closure established by Supreme Court in seminal case of Waller v. Georgia -- Discussion of § 92.55, Florida Statutes, which grants trial courts broad discretion to protect sexual offense victims or minor witnesses from “severe emotional or mental harm due to the presence of the defendant if the victim or witness is required to testify in open court,” and § 918.16(2), which mandates a partial courtroom closure upon a testifying sex-offense victim's request, while permitting family members of parties, court personnel, jurors, and media to remain -- Contrary to defendant's argument, § 918.16(2) does not create bright-line rule requiring that victim's family members remain in courtroom regardless of case-specific concerns -- State's request on behalf of victim that defendant's daughter be excluded advanced compelling interest of protecting victim from further trauma, an overriding interest under Florida supreme court's holding in Kovaleski v. State; closure was narrowly tailored to serve that interest; and trial court properly balanced competing interests and conducted an individualized inquiry, thereby satisfying the heightened requirement imposed by Waller and its progeny
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Criminal law -- Murder -- Death penalty -- Counsel -- Ineffectiveness -- Claim that trial counsel provided ineffective assistance resulting in fundamental error by failing to realize the urgency of resetting a new trial in light of the then-potential change to the statute requiring juries to unanimously recommend the death penalty is not cognizable on direct appeal -- Argument -- No Caldwell violation occurred when, during jury selection, prosecutor consistently referred to jury's duty to make a “recommendation” and stated that sentence was ultimately determined by the court -- Comments did not diminish the jury's responsibility for its verdict and, under the plain text of death penalty statute, a sentencing “recommendation” is precisely what a penalty-phase jury provides -- Evidence -- Trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting hair DNA evidence linking defendant to victim's murder over defendant's objection arguing that missing portions of state's exhibit was evidence of tampering -- Defendant did not meet his burden of demonstrating probable tampering -- Additionally, any potential error in admitting hair evidence was harmless given other physical evidence in case -- Statement in sentencing order that jury found “no mitigating circumstances had been proven by a greater weight of the evidence” did not constitute reversible error where, when viewed in context, trial court was specifically discussing statutory mitigating circumstances, of which none were presented to the jury, and sentencing order states that the non-statutory mitigating factors defendant presented were considered -- Cruel and/or unusual punishment -- State's elimination of comparative proportionality review, the elimination of the statutory requirement that a jury unanimously recommend a death sentence, and a lack of a sufficient narrowing of the class of individuals subject to the death penalty does not render capital sentencing scheme unconstitutional -- Neither U.S. nor Florida constitution requires that a jury unanimously recommend death penalty -- Evidence was sufficient to support defendant's convictions
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Criminal law -- Murder -- Death penalty -- Post conviction relief -- Public records -- Appeals -- Non-final orders -- Appeal of orders denying pre- and post-death warrant public records requests filed under rule 3.852 treated as a petition seeking review of nonfinal discovery order pursuant to rule 9.142(c) -- Court lacks jurisdiction to review claim that trial court erred by denying defendant's motion for extension of time to file successive post conviction motion where issue is untethered to any claim for relief from his judgment or sentence -- Trial court did not depart from essential requirements of the law by denying pre-warrant public records request seeking records related to executions carried out over the last year and virtually every aspect of the lethal injection process, or by denying post-warrant records request seeking internal and interagency communications discussing defendant's pre-warrant records request, the scheduling of his execution, and his death warrant -- Requests were unrelated to any colorable claim for post conviction relief -- Court rejects argument that defendant should not be required to establish that the requested records relate to a colorable claim for post conviction relief because rule 3.852 does not expressly impose such a requirement -- Requiring records to relate to colorable claim for relief follows rule's mandate that requested records be relevant to a post conviction proceeding or reasonably calculated to lead to admissible evidence -- Denials of requests under rule 3.852 for public records regarding state's administration of lethal injection protocol or speculative interagency communications do not violate the right of access to courts, due process, or equal protection -- No error denying defendant's motion for rehearing and request to conduct in camera inspection of requested records that agencies objected to on the grounds that records were exempt and confidential -- Whether to grant in camera inspection is at the discretion of trial court in capital post conviction proceedings -- There is no abuse of discretion when, like here, a defendant merely speculates that a colorable claim might be uncovered -- Habeas corpus -- Petition alleging that denial of records requests violated defendant's constitutional rights is denied as orders denying public records requests are not cognizable in a petition for habeas corpus
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Criminal law -- Resisting officer without violence -- Information -- Dismissal -- Trial court erred by dismissing information charging defendant with obstructing and resisting without violence based on determination that the legal duty officers were engaged in was vague and uncertain -- Information was legally sufficient where it tracked statutory language -- Information did not need to allege the particular legal duty the officers were performing at the time defendant obstructed them because the specific nature of the officers' execution of a legal duty under the statute is the proper subject of the proof, not the charge
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