THESE ARE NOT ALL OF THE CASES RELEASED BY THE COURTS FOR THE WEEK.
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Administrative law -- Agency for Persons with Disabilities -- Medicaid waiver program -- Re-enrollment -- Eligibility -- Autism -- Client who was previously enrolled in waiver program for autism support services before moving out of state for several years -- Agency erred by denying client's request for services upon his return to the state based on finding that applicant did not meet eligibility requirements because his autism was not severe enough to meet statutory definition -- Hearing officer impermissibly gave deference to agency's interpretation of administrative rule -- Discussion of Administrative Code Rule 65G-4.0215(7)(a) -- Rule clearly distinguishes between the re-establishment of “waiver eligibility” and a “client who has chosen” to disenroll and then re-enroll -- Contrary to agency's interpretation, rule does not require a client to reestablish eligibility after 365 days of disenrollment regardless of whether the client can rectify the reason for disenrollment -- A person who is disenrolled solely due to moving out of the state pursuant to the rule is not required to reestablish medical eligibility for the waiver program upon moving back into the state -- Such a person is entitled to be re-enrolled in services if domicile is reestablished within 365 days, or placed on the preenrollment waiting list if reestablishment of domicile occurs outside of the 365-day window -- Even if language of rule required client to “reestablish eligibility,” plain language of rule would require client only to reestablish his domicile in state as opposed to reestablishing his medical eligibility -- Based on the principle of administrative finality, there was no need for agency to disregard the original decision of the severity of client's autism in the absence of a significant change in circumstances that would have required him to reestablish his diagnosis -- Client's change in location and the passage of time alone did not constitute a change in circumstances sufficient to require reestablishment of client's medical eligibility
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Attorney's fees -- Sanctions -- Bad faith conduct -- Trial court abused its discretion by awarding attorney's fees as bad faith sanctions against all defendants based on one defendant's wrongful denial of certain allegations in complaint and the improper notarization of affidavits submitted in support of defendants' request for temporary injunction -- Entitlement order did not contain requisite findings of bad faith to support entitlement to attorney's fees and costs -- Even if order contained appropriate findings, conduct detailed was only attributable to certain defendants -- Amount -- Excessiveness -- Trial court exceeded scope of its authority to award fees when, instead of discerning the additional work plaintiff was required to undertake as a direct result of the underlying bad faith conduct, trial court awarded fees for legal work determined to be inextricably intertwined with defendants' conduct
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Contracts -- Attorney's fees -- Retainer agreement -- Limitation of actions -- Agreement for continuous services -- Where contract between law firm and client provided for continuous retention for legal services, and contract clearly provided that client was not obligated to pay fees and costs for collection matters until contract was terminated, contract was not breached until client refused to pay invoice submitted by law firm when it sent disengagement letter terminating the relationship -- Trial court erred in dismissing action on ground that it was barred by statute of limitations where breach occurred less than five years prior to date complaint was filed
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Contracts -- Service agreements -- Disaster mitigation -- Affirmative defenses -- Unlicensed contracting and mold remediation -- Action for breach of contract, open account, account stated, and unjust enrichment arising out of plaintiff's agreements with condominium associations to perform specific “Disaster Recovery Tasks” at association buildings -- Trial court erred in entering summary judgment in favor of association based upon its findings that agreements were unenforceable because all of the contracted-for scope of work and work completed by plaintiff involved “remodeling, repair, or improvement” and therefore required a building contractor's license, which plaintiff did not possess -- Scope of work specified by parties' agreements included water damage mitigation; general dehumidification; structural dehumidification; structural removal of affected substrates; disposal of removed materials off property location; anti-microbial application; and mold remediation, as necessary -- Discussion of statutory definitions of “contractor” in section 489.105(3) and “building contractor” in section 489.105(3)(b) and specific words within those statutes -- Trial court improperly relied on broad dictionary definitions of “remodel,” “repair,” and “improve” in isolation without considering context in which language was used and broader context of statutes as a whole -- Genuine issues of material fact existed as to whether scope of the work the parties labeled “structural removal of [a]ffected substrates” and removal of materials affixed to the buildings fall within scope of work performed by a “building contractor” -- Orders entering final summary judgment in favor of associations reversed and remanded for further proceedings -- In view of reversal and remand, court declines to address in the first instance whether unlicensed contractor is completely barred by statute from recovering under a contract even if only a portion of the work performed requires a contractor's license, and whether severability provisions of contracts at issue would permit portions of contract relating to services requiring a contractor's license to be severed
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Forfeiture -- Public employees -- Pension benefits -- Felony conviction -- Breach of public trust -- City erred in ordering the forfeiture of retired police officer's pension benefits pursuant to forfeiture statute's “catch-all” provision after retiree's conviction for uttering forged documents based solely on retiree's uses of city's free notary service in notarizing forged documents -- Discussion of section 112.3173(2)(e)6. -- Statute must be strictly construed and requires a clear and close connection between the misuse of the employee's position or the employer's resources and the specified offense before concluding that a sufficiently egregious breach of public trust occurred -- De minimis act of using the city's free notarization service was too attenuated under the “catch-all” provision to be a misuse of a power, rights, privilege, duties, or position of employment that breached the public trust -- No legally sufficient nexus existed between retiree's use of free notarization service, which any city employee could have used, and a misuse of power, right, privilege, or duty in retiree's position as a police officer
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Mortgage foreclosure -- Judicial sale -- Surplus funds -- Disbursement -- Priority -- Trial court erred by granting lienholder's motion to disburse surplus funds following foreclosure because lienholder had a mortgage superior to that of the foreclosing plaintiff's mortgage -- Lienholder's mortgage was recorded before the foreclosing plaintiff's mortgage and bore a lower instrument number than the foreclosing plaintiff's mortgage, and thus lienholder's mortgage was superior to foreclosing plaintiff's mortgage -- Superior lienholder was not a subordinate lienholder entitled to surplus funds following judicial sale of property because its mortgage was not subordinate to foreclosing plaintiff -- Appellant, as the assignee of the owner of record on date of filing of lis pendens, is entitled to remaining surplus funds
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Public records -- Costs -- Prevailing party -- Entitlement -- Applicable statute -- Trial court erred by awarding costs to plaintiff pursuant to section 57.041 in an action to enforce Public Records Act -- Section 119.12 controls a complainant's entitlement to an award of costs in cases brought to enforce the Public Records Act because it is both the more recently enacted and more specific statute -- Plaintiff was not entitled to costs pursuant to section 119.12 where plaintiff failed to satisfy statutory notice requirement
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Rules of Juvenile Procedure -- Amendments -- Computation, extension, and enlargement of time -- Arraignments and prehearing conferences -- Advisory hearing and pretrial status conferences
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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 -- Counsel -- Self-representation -- Faretta inquiry -- Necessity -- Critical stage of proceedings -- Pretrial Stand Your Ground immunity hearing -- Trial court's failure to conduct an adequate Faretta inquiry prior to allowing defendant to represent himself at pretrial SYG immunity hearing was per se reversible error -- Remand for another SYG hearing and, if defendant is unsuccessful at the hearing, a new trial
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Criminal law -- Lewd or lascivious molestation on person less than 12 years of age -- Principal in first degree -- Trial court did not err in denying motion for judgment of acquittal which was based upon defendant's assertion that he could not be indicted for violating section 800.04(5) based on his having instigated a game coercing child victims to perform acts of lewd or lascivious molestation on each other -- Evidence was sufficient to convict defendant as a principal pursuant to section 777.011 -- Jury instructions -- Trial court did not abuse its discretion by reading state's modified jury instructions on counts charging lewd or lascivious molestation -- Modified instructions did not misstate the law, but accurately reflected the application of the principal theory whereby defendant was alleged to have utilized two child victims to commit lewd and lascivious acts upon one another
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Criminal law -- Perjury -- Jurisdiction -- Circuit court erred in dismissing, for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, a statewide grand jury's perjury indictment against a school district superintendent -- Section 905.34 empowers statewide grand jury to indict a person for perjury occurring “in two or more judicial circuits as part of a related transaction,” and indictment in this case satisfied statute's jurisdictional requirements -- Although superintendent was physically located in one circuit when he testified in a statewide grand jury proceeding, members of the grand jury were located in three different circuits during the remote proceedings and, accordingly, false communication from superintendent occurred simultaneously in all three circuits -- Superintendent's argument that, but for the COVID-19 pandemic, statewide grand jurors all would have been physically present with him in the same circuit is unavailing
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