Notable Florida Decisions

A writ of habeas corpus may not issue where the petitioner is not presently detained in custody, even if an unexecuted capias warrant has been issued. The statute's plain language requiring that a person be "detained in custody" applies only to present detention, not future restraints on liberty.

A petition for writ of certiorari challenging a trial court's order granting the State's motion to subpoena medical records is denied when the petitioner fails to establish the requisite elements for certiorari relief.

A sheriff seeking partial summary judgment on sovereign immunity for day-of-shooting claims must demonstrate that the challenged conduct falls within a planning-level or policy-level function, and the police emergency exception does not provide immunity from suit merely because police responded to an emergency.

A declaration stating that false communications about a non-compete agreement caused a prospective employer to withdraw a job offer creates a genuine issue of material fact precluding summary judgment, even when contradicted by deposition testimony.

A motion for summary judgment must be denied when a plaintiff's declaration creates a genuine issue of material fact regarding causation in a tortious interference claim, even when contradicted by deposition testimony.

An injunction for protection against stalking must be reversed where the petitioner failed to present evidence linking the respondent to fake online accounts and the respondent's admitted personal messages—four disparaging Facebook messages sent over two days—do not constitute stalking because they would not cause a reasonable person substantial emotional distress and do not constitute repeated harassment as required by statute.

A trial court's child support award must be supported by competent, substantial evidence identifying the evidentiary basis for the income determination. Where a trial court uses an income figure that cannot be reconciled with trial evidence or its own findings, the child support award is unsupported and must be reversed and remanded for recalculation.

The law of the case doctrine does not bar newly asserted claims in an amended complaint when those claims were not before the appellate court in the prior appeal and involve facts that did not exist when the earlier decision was rendered. The trial court must address the legal merits of the new claims rather than applying the law of the case doctrine.

A trial court may order production of claimed trade secret source code when there is reasonable necessity for the disclosure, but must impose narrowly tailored confidentiality restrictions limiting access to designated experts and attorneys rather than broadly distributing the code to the party itself.

A settlement agreement is enforceable where it provides multiple forms of consideration, including a cash payment and an easement, even if one contemplated transaction (a property purchase with an express termination right) does not occur, because the settlement agreement itself anticipated this possibility and provided that the other consideration would be retained.

The trial court's denial of the petition to terminate parental rights was clearly erroneous and unsupported by competent substantial evidence as to both parents. Mother engaged in egregious conduct under Fla. Stat. § 39.806(1)(f) by abandoning her children to strangers, and Father abandoned his children under § 39.806(1)(b) by intentionally ceasing all contact during incarceration and making no provision for their care.

A citizen's arrest requires observation of a felony or breach of the peace. Apparent intoxication, trespassing without a warning, and approaching an elderly woman without threats do not constitute breach of the peace, and contraband abandoned after a person has already complied with an order to stop is involuntarily abandoned and thus protected by the Fourth Amendment.

Revoking probation based partly on an unadmitted, unproven violation that the State expressly declined to pursue constitutes fundamental error, even if not preserved at trial. The State must clearly show the erroneous consideration played no part in the revocation and sentence; absent such a showing, the case must be remanded for reconsideration.

An initial trial court judge may determine only the legal sufficiency of a motion to disqualify and may not pass on the truth of the facts alleged therein; a successor judge under Rule 2.330(i) is one who succeeds a judge disqualified on motion, not one who succeeds a judge who recused sua sponte. When a predecessor judge recuses herself without ruling on a pending disqualification motion, the successor judge is not a successor judge within the meaning of Rule 2.330(i) and therefore cannot rule on the truth of the allegations. A trial court maintains authority to reduce an oral ruling to a wri

King Street Baptist lacked standing to bring its action for two independent reasons: first, the 1997 warranty deed transferring the property to Northwest Baptist Church contained no reverter clause providing for reversion to King Street Baptist, thereby divesting King Street Baptist of all ownership, possessory, and reversionary interests in the property. Second, even if King Street Baptist could establish standing through assignments from minority members of Northwest Baptist Church, the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine precludes secular courts from determining whether those assignors const

A breach of contract claim survives dismissal when the defendant fails to perform a core contractual obligation, even if the contract does not explicitly address the precise mechanism or manner of breach. The independent tort doctrine bars negligence claims between parties in contractual privity when the tort claim arises solely from deficient performance of contractual duties and lacks independence in duty, conduct, damages, or public policy considerations. Corporate officers and employees are shielded from tort liability by the independent tort doctrine when their liability arises solely fro

The design and creation of a state recreation area divided by a highway, and decisions regarding the provision or non-provision of traffic control devices, constitute planning-level governmental functions protected by sovereign immunity under Florida law. The complaint's allegations conclusively established that the claims arose from discretionary planning decisions rather than operational failures, barring liability.

Florida courts have personal jurisdiction over a nonresident spouse properly served while voluntarily present in the state, and forum non conveniens dismissal is improper when the alternative forum is inadequate and the parties and children are Florida residents.

A trial court may grant leave to amend a complaint to plead punitive damages if the plaintiff proffers evidence that, viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, could reasonably support a finding of intentional misconduct or gross negligence as defined by statute. However, the defendant must be personally guilty of such conduct; spitting in someone's face twice does not constitute intentional misconduct or gross negligence warranting punitive damages.

A trial court does not abuse its discretion in admitting a witness's prior consistent statements under Florida Statute § 90.801(2)(b) when the defense's cross-examination implicitly charges the witness with recent fabrication motivated by a desire for a plea deal, and the prior statements were made before the witness met with the prosecutor and before any improper motive to fabricate existed.

A directed verdict is proper in a breach of contract action when the plaintiff fails to establish causation and the jury would be forced to stack inferences to reach a verdict, particularly where the evidence supports alternative reasonable inferences such as damage from common element pipes rather than the defendant's unit.

Medical marijuana does not qualify as a "Prescription or Nonprescription Medication" under the CBA because it is not obtained through the pharmacist-dispensing framework required by section 893.04 and is not authorized for general distribution and use without a prescription under federal or state law. The CBA's substance abuse prohibitions are not limited to on-duty conduct but extend to drug use "at any time while employed," and the definition of "Impaired" as a confirmed positive test does not require proof of contemporaneous on-duty impairment. Florida's medical marijuana constitutional ame

Jones failed to establish a prima facie case under Florida's public sector Whistle-blower's Act because she made no written and signed complaint to a specified recipient before her termination, and the statute does not recognize a cause of action for preemptive retaliation based on threatened or anticipated disclosures. Jones' public statements about the COVID-19 Dashboard were made as a government employee pursuant to her job responsibilities, not as a private citizen on a matter of public concern, and therefore were not protected by the First Amendment. Summary judgment was properly granted

Section 90.404(2)(c), Florida Statutes, by its express terms applies only to evidence of the defendant's own sexual offenses and does not permit a defendant to introduce evidence of sexual offenses committed by third parties under a 'reverse Williams rule.' Even if such evidence were admissible under section 90.404(2)(a), a defendant must proffer the victim's testimony to preserve a claim that exclusion of collateral offense evidence was error, and failure to do so precludes appellate review of the trial court's evidentiary ruling.

The trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting a photograph of the defendant posing with a 9mm handgun where multiple factors established a nexus between the photograph and the charged crimes, including the victims' fatal shooting with an unrecovered 9mm gun, 9mm ammunition found in defendant's room, the photograph's depiction of a 9mm gun consistent with the murder weapon, and the defendant's intentional deletion of the photograph the night after the crime.

A writ of habeas corpus may not issue where the petitioner is not presently detained in custody, even if an unexecuted capias warrant has been issued. The statute's plain language requiring that a person be "detained in custody" applies only to present detention, not future restraints on liberty.

The trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting DNA evidence where the analyst testified to standard procedures, peer review, and general acceptance in the scientific community, and the multiple counts did not violate double jeopardy because each count charged a distinct criminal sexual act resulting from successive impulses.

Municipal departments and individual town employees are not proper parties to a Public Records Act enforcement action under chapter 119, Florida Statutes, because the statute imposes disclosure obligations on the overarching governmental agency, and suits against officials in their official capacity are redundant when the agency itself is a defendant.

A default judgment is void when substituted service is improperly effectuated, particularly where the plaintiff fails to file the required affidavit of compliance under Florida Statutes section 48.161(1). The trial court must vacate a void judgment and has no discretion to do otherwise.

A jury verdict for economic damages must rest on evidence providing a reasonable basis for determining a definite amount and cannot be supported by speculation or guesswork. The trial court abused its discretion in denying remittitur when the jury's award of $335,000 in RCV or $305,000 in ACV bore no reasonable relation to the only admitted valuation evidence and could not be logically derived from the trial record.