THESE ARE NOT ALL OF THE CASES RELEASED BY THE COURTS FOR THE WEEK.
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Attorney's fees -- Sanctions -- Justiciable issues -- Claim or defense not supported by material facts or applicable law -- Trial court erred by denying plaintiff's motion for attorney's fees under section 57.105(1) which contended that defendants' motion for attorney's fees related to a voluntarily dismissed count of complaint was not supported by necessary material facts or application of then-existing law -- Defendants' motion for attorney's fees regarding dismissed count was not supported by then-existing law because defendants never pled a claim for attorney's fees and there was no record support for assertion that plaintiff knew defendants were claiming entitlement to fees -- By failing to plead any claim for attorney's fees, defendants waived their claim -- Court rejects argument that defendants acted in good faith because trial court made equivocal statement in final judgment that defendants “may” be entitled to recover their attorney's fees and taxable costs -- Because defendants' motion was filed by counsel and unsupported by law, defendants' counsel knew or should have known that the fee motion was unsupported -- Remand for the trial court to determine the reasonable amount of attorney's fees to be awarded which should be assessed only against defendants' counsel
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Dependent children -- Termination of parental rights -- Extraordinary relief -- Newly discovered evidence -- Parental rights to infant twins and the father's parental rights to his biological son, the twins' half-brother who was residing with twins, were terminated after multiple unexplained injuries were discovered on twins -- Trial court did not abuse its discretion when it denied parents' motions for extraordinary relief based on newly discovered evidence in form of expert reports on bone fragility and genetics where parents did not exercise due diligence and the motions did not allege newly discovered evidence
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Injunctions -- Domestic violence -- Corporal discipline -- DV injunction entered against father to protect his minor daughter is reversed where record contained competent, substantial evidence that father used appropriate and lawful physical punishment to discipline his daughter, and that he did not engage in domestic violence -- Under established Florida law, reasonable and non-excessive parental corporal discipline is not domestic violence as a matter of law -- DV injunction was based solely on single physical incident of father trying to take daughter's cellphone as punishment for “stealing, lying, and possessing marijuana, and vape pen,” without any evidence of a history of domestic violence by father toward daughter or that father had engaged in behavior in past that would give daughter reason to objectively believe she was imminently about to be subjected to domestic violence -- Even if father's “wrenching” the cellphone away from daughter was corporal punishment, such was not excessive punishment because daughter refused to surrender the phone and because there was no evidence of disfigurement or significant bruising
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Insurance -- Homeowners -- All-risk policy -- Coverage -- Burden of proof -- Verdict forms -- Trial court abused its discretion by using special verdict form which asked whether insureds had proven by greater weight of the evidence that insureds requested confirmation of coverage and payment for damages, that insurer failed to confirm coverage within required time period, and that insurer had “refused to honor its obligations” under all-risks policy -- A plaintiff seeking to recover under an all-risks policy has burden of proving that a loss occurred to insured's property while policy was in effect -- Once a loss within policy period is established, the burden shifts to insurer to prove that loss was excluded from coverage
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Insurance -- Property -- Water damage -- Coverage -- Limits of liability -- Sewer line backup -- No error in granting summary judgment in favor of insurer based on finding that insurer had fulfilled its obligations under policy by paying insureds $10,000 -- Insurer was not required to pay for entirety of loss where plain language of the policy excluded any direct or indirect coverage for damage caused by “water, water-borne material, sewage or any other substance on or below the surface of the ground, regardless of its source,” and the limited water damage endorsement only extended $10,000 of coverage for such damage -- Court rejects argument that policy exclusion did not apply to damage insureds suffered from their plumbing system because source of water did not come from an outside source -- Policy language, which excludes water below the ground that seeps or leaks into property “regardless of its source,” made source of water irrelevant and necessarily included sewage water in ground coming from deteriorated plumbing system backup -- Insureds were not entitled to tear-out costs where plain reading of policy makes clear that tear-out coverage was only included as part of water damage that is not otherwise excluded
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Landlord-tenant -- Commercial lease -- Damages -- Lost profits -- Prejudgment interest -- Trial court erred by calculating prejudgment interest on tenant's lost profits from date lease was executed where lost profits were not sustained until tenant began operations almost two years later -- Prejudgment interest must be calculated from date actual pecuniary loss is sustained -- Rent -- Relief from obligation -- Trial court erred by relieving tenant of its rent obligations where no such relief was requested -- Because tenant elected to pursue damages rather than rescission of lease, tenant was bound by applicable provisions of the lease -- No authority allows for trial court's exercise of inherent “equitable powers” to forgive a party its rent obligations under circumstances of case at issue
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Torts -- Contracts -- Arbitration -- Enforceability of arbitration clause -- Non-signatory -- Web-based contracts -- Electronic tickets -- Negligence action stemming from injuries plaintiff suffered at a sporting event which she attended using an electronic ticket that was obtained, accessed, and possessed by her mother -- Trial court erred by denying defendants' motion to compel arbitration -- Plaintiff's mother assented to terms of use requiring arbitration of disputes where website on which mother accessed the tickets required her to agree to terms of use in order to log in, and a hyperlink to those terms of use was sufficiently conspicuous -- Agency -- Apparent agency -- Plaintiff was bound to arbitration agreement through agency principles -- Although plaintiff's mother may not have acted with plaintiff's authorization or control when she initially obtained the tickets, mother did act as plaintiff's agent once plaintiff allowed her to present the ticket on plaintiff's behalf to enter the stadium and attend event -- Furthermore, all entrants to stadium were required to agree to conditions of single-use license as set forth in terms of use, and defendants altered their position in reliance on that representation
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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 -- Forfeiture -- Notice -- Appellant, a day laborer who discovered gold coins secreted inside a wall when he was working on demolishing a condominium, was a person “in possession of the property subject to forfeiture” proceedings when coins were seized by sheriff's office -- Therefore, pursuant to section 932.701(2)(3), appellant was a person entitled to statutory notice of sheriff's forfeiture action seeking possession of gold coins, and was entitled to request a preliminary adversarial hearing at first stage of forfeiture proceedings pursuant to section 932.703(3)(a) -- A person entitled to notice need not demonstrate a proprietary interest in property at issue but only that he or she possessed the property when it was seized -- Default and final judgment entered after appellant moved to dismiss the action for lack of notice is reversed because sheriff failed to provide such notice
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Criminal law -- Petit theft -- Jury trial -- Waiver -- Voluntariness -- Inquiry -- Defendant is not entitled to a new trial based on fact defense counsel, rather than trial court, conducted the on-the-record inquiry for waiver of a jury trial -- Inquiry by counsel in trial court's presence showing that defendant understood her rights and the consequences of waiving those rights fails to establish fundamental error
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Rules of Criminal Procedure -- Amendments -- Discovery -- Collateral relief after death sentence has been imposed and affirmed on direct appeal -- Motions for postconviction DNA testing
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