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North St. Pete

If you are interested in the property tax reforms that the legislature approved Monday and on which Florida’s voters are scheduled to vote in January, then the next few months should have your attention. Whether you think the legislature’s proposal is good or bad for Florida, no one can reasonably deny that it is important and will directly affect most Floridians.

Today’s coverage is certainly

Where a plaintiff alleges that a blood bank negligently screened blood donors, resulting in the death of a recipient of donated blood, is that claim subject to the presuit notice requirements of chapter 766?

Yes, said the First District in this decision. The court explained that under the 2003 amendments to chapter 766, blood banks are considered health care providers and the negligent screening

Appellate attorneys may wish to keep this decision around as an example of how a precedentially insignificant decision by the state supreme court not to review a certified question of great public importance can be seen as, well, somewhat precedential.

This decision caught my attention. An injured plaintiff sued the defendant for negligence in failing to maintain a handrail. The plaintiff sought leave to add a request for punitive damages, and the trial court permitted that amendment and, later, denied the defendant’s motion for summary judgment on the punitive damages issue. The case then proceeded to trial, which resulted in a judgment for

This decision from the First District may stand for the broad proposition that where a contract supplies a mechanism to address some deficiency in one party’s performance, such a deficiency is not automatically deemed a breach of the agreement.

The First District’s decision in this case shows that forum selection clauses that require litigation to be brought in states other than Florida can be unenforceable under certain circumstances.

Yes, appellate courts can dismiss cross-appeals, as this decision from the First District shows.

Some second-tier certiorari cases apply the applicable review standards in a way that makes them seem almost insurmountable, as if the district court’s second look is so limited that all but the most patent legal errors may escape being quashed. Other cases seem to offer hope that second-tier review permits a broad look at the legal side of a case.

This decision would seem to fall in the second

Just a reminder here from the First District that, at least in some ways, parties to a marital settlement agreement can waive the fee-shifting that might otherwise occur under chapter 61.

In this decision, the First District reminds us, and state prisoners in particular, that where review of quasi-judicial action is sought in a circuit court (such as a Department of Corrections decision awarding gain-time), that court is governed by the Florida Rules of Appellate Procedure.