THESE ARE NOT ALL OF THE CASES RELEASED BY THE COURTS FOR THE WEEK.
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Contracts -- Account agreement -- Overdraft fees -- Trial court did not err by dismissing complaint alleging that overdraft fees charged to plaintiff's checking account were not authorized by account agreement because, although her available balance was insufficient at time defendant bank received actual payment requests from merchants, the available balance was sufficient at time plaintiff presented her debit card to merchant and defendant authorized payment -- Account agreement's plain language provides that overdrafts are determined at time of payment, not at the time when payment is authorized -- Court rejects argument that account agreement is ambiguous because an account holder may read the undefined word “pay” to mean the moment when the account holder pays the merchant at authorization -- Even if argument was adequately briefed, agreement's surrounding provisions and overall context render plaintiff's interpretation of “pay” untenable -- Court rejects argument that agreement is ambiguous because agreement's reference to an “authorization hold” can be read to mean a debit card transaction authorized on sufficient funds cannot overdraw the account at settlement -- Nothing in the agreement states that an authorization hold sequesters funds, insulates them from intervening transactions, or requires that held amount be applied exclusively to the originating transaction -- Agreement merely provides that a hold reduces the available balance while transaction remains “not yet posted”
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Insurance -- Homeowners -- Assignment of benefits -- Validity -- Assignee's action against insurer -- Trial court erred by granting insurer's motion to dismiss for lack of standing based on finding that assignment of benefits was invalid because its inclusion of depreciation in the list of insured's responsibilities violated section 627.7152(7) -- Subsection (7)(b) does not prohibit an assignment agreement from containing language clarifying that the insured remains responsible for any depreciation and neither explicitly nor implicitly invalidates an assignment which contains such language
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Insurance -- Homeowners -- Coverage -- Replacement cost policy -- Payment splitting -- Damages -- Evidence -- Policy with payment-splitting provision which provided that insurer would initially pay actual cash value for loss and then pay any remaining amounts necessary for repairs as the work was performed -- Trial court did not err by allowing insureds to present evidence of replacement cost value of repairs despite fact that no repairs had been performed where insurer had denied insureds' claim -- Where a claim is wrongfully denied by an insurer, the insured is not limited to presenting evidence of actual cash value of loss -- Conflict certified
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Torts -- Hospitals -- Premises liability -- Duty of care -- Invitees/Trespassers -- Negligence action brought against hospital by individual who was attacked by a patient while visiting with her father at hospital -- Trial court erred by granting summary judgment in favor of defendant based on determination that, because attack occurred after visiting hours ended and plaintiff was asked to leave, plaintiff was a trespasser to whom defendant owed no duty -- Genuine issue of material fact remained as to whether plaintiff was an invitee or trespasser -- While an invitee may become a trespasser after the expiration of a “reasonable time” within which to accomplish the purpose for which he or she is invited to enter or to remain, trial court made no finding about “reasonable time,” and record does not disclose how much time elapsed between staff supposedly asking plaintiff to leave and the attack -- Trial court erred by granting summary judgment in favor of defendant based on its alternative finding that, even if plaintiff was an invitee, defendant had no duty to protect her from patient with undiagnosed mental illness and that prior violent incidents at hospital did not create a foreseeable zone of risk -- In focusing on patient's lack of diagnosis, trial court ignored the patient's increasingly erratic behavior and hospital's inability or unwillingness to control a situation it created -- Material facts are unresolved as to whether defendant owed a duty of care to control patient who experienced escalating behavioral problem
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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 -- Driving under influence causing property damage -- Argument -- Shifting burden of proof -- Prosecutor harmfully shifted burden of proof to defendant by arguing in closing that defendant could have proven his innocence by submitting to a breath-alcohol test -- Discussion of distinction between proper and improper argument in this context -- Given nature of remaining evidence, court is not persuaded that there is no reasonable possibility that error contributed to conviction -- New trial required
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