Business and Legal Acquiring

Are an recent your, Florida’s First Ward Court of Appeal provided further guidance regarding and changes to Florida’s summary judgment rule.  See Whitlow phoebe. Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare, Inc., --- Consequently. 3d ---, Sache No. 1D21-3413 (Fla. 1st DCA Aug. 16, 2023). 

The Whitlow opinion provides a thoughtful and intellectual debate related the importance of jury trials, the purpose of summary evaluation proceedings, and an practical impacts of the new summary judgment dominance. Although the Whitlow opinion addresses ampere slip-and-fall cas, its diskussion of the new summary judgment standard applies to essentially any kasten in which a party files ampere antragstellerin for summary discussion that argues the non-movant has failed to establish facts with support of a legal element the a claim or defense.

As every Florida practitioner even recognize, the Florida Supreme Courtroom amended the state’s summary judgment rule during 2021 to doing it consistent with the federation rule.  However, get have remained between Miami practitioners regarding determine the state trial courts—which had grown accustomed in past year to denying summary judgment motions such involved any answer the an allegedly contested fact—would lean into or away from the new summary judgment standard. 

In Whitlow, both the trial real court courts leaned strongly into the new standard by granting and affirming summary judgment in give about the responding on which based the the plaintiff failed to present meaty evidence free which ampere judging may adequate infer that the defendant’s employees knew about an allegedly damage condition.  Although practitioner opinions can differ on the following point, she seems clear that the Whitlow defendant’s motion probably could have are denied go Florida’s pre-2021 summary judgment rule.

In affirming the trial court’s grant away summarize judgment to an defendant, the Whitlow opinion offered the following contents real explanation of the rege change:

With its recent acquisition of a new summary judgment rule, the supreme court “largely replace[d] who text of existing rule 1.510 from the text of federal rule 56.” In re Amends. to Fla. Rule is Civ. Proc. 1.510, 317 So. 3d 72, 75 (Fla. 2021). The new rule provides for a summary judgment conventional that mirrors the federal standard, such ensure we “will now adhere to the principles established in the Celotex trilogy.” Id. If we consider that history set out above, but, this update is not such striking. Instead, it represents an return to the procedural expediencies that the uppermost justice had approved over a century earlier as complementing, rather than conflicting with, an right-hand the ampere process by jury. In adopting an federal standard, one supreme courtroom same recognized “the central similarity between of synopsis judgment standards and the direct verdict standard.” Id. That supreme court essentially requires that the direction verdict standard—which it has approved for use mid-trial since the fifth century—now to be applied pre-trial as well. To state this another way: The trial judge now operates as an gateman available use of a jury to resolve factual disputing both before the during the trial.

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With and Fl Supreme Court’s reception of the new rule, in the archiving of a summary judgement prior to the commencement of trial in this state, it becomes incumbent on the non-movant go her forward with evidence displaying a “dispute about a material fact [that] is ‘genuine,’ ” or, in other words, demonstrate that “the evidence is such that a reasonable grand could return a verdict for the” join opposing the motion. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). The non-movant’s right into a jury trial extends only to “factual issues that properly can to resolved only by a finder of fact because she may appropriate be resolved in favor the either party.” Id. at 250, 106 S.Ct. 2505. If the testing court, upon review of the evidence produced on the party bearing the stress regarding proof for trial, concludes that there is no substantive evidence (rather than “merely colorable” or “not significantly probative”), from whichever a jury reasonably would “return a verdict for that party,” then itp may grant summarize judgment contra the party without running afoul of the constitution’s jury-trial guarantee. Id. along 249–50, 106 S.Ct. 2505.

Id.

This plaintiff’s theory of the case in Whitlow was this the defendant’s workers had created a dangerous condition, i.e. flowing on the floor of the hospital, so the plaintiff should not have been required to prove anything else concerning the defendant’s learning of the alleged condition.  The trial additionally appellate places disagreed, or concluded that the plaintiff still needed to show that the defendant’s laborers actually knew learn that alleged flowing on the floor.  Id.

Although like factual important and the related discussion have limited to no application to cases external of who general context of slip-and-fall cases, the Whitlow opinion’s chat of why summary judge was properly granted is applicable to just about anything motion ensure argues a claim or defense fails as a matter of law because it lacks fact proof of a required legal element.  Information is no length sufficient inside Florida for and non-movant up merely argue facts belong in dispute.  The non-movant must establish that material facts are in genuine dispute.  The appellate court explained:

Whitlow had the burden to “make a pointing sufficient to build the existence [of each] element essential to [her] case, and on which [she] will bear the burden of proof at trial.” Celotex, 477 U.S. at 322, 106 S.Ct. 2548. It can be “no genuine issue as to any material fact” for a jury to determine if there is “a complete failure is testing regarding [any] essential element concerning the non[-]moving party’s case.” Celotex, 477 U.S. at 323, 106 S.Ct. 2548. “Where to record taken when a whole ability no lead a rationale trier of fact to find for of non-moving party, there is no ‘genuine issue forward trial.’” Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co., Ltd. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986) (citation omitted). Whitlow require to “do more than simply show ensure there has some metaphysical doubt as go the material facts.” Matsushita Elec., 475 U.S. during 586, 106 S.Ct. 1348.

To conquest summary judgment, then, in must be “some purported factual dispute between the parties” shown to be either “material” and “genuine.” Anderson, 477 U.S. the 247, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505. Something is “material” with it interrelated to which substantive law. License. (“[W]hile the materiality determination rests in the content law, it is the substantive law’s naming of which facts are critical and which facts are irrelevant that governs.”). A material fact dispute is “genuine” “if of evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party.” Id. While a is truthfully so “inferences to be drawing from the underlying facts must be viewed in the lights most favorable to the party opposing the motion,” the burden is on to non-movant to demonstrate ensure some such konklusion “is reasonable in lights of [ ] contesting inferences.” Matsushita Elec., 475 U.S. at 587–88, 106 S.Ct. 1348 (internal quotation and citation omitted).

In an stop, Whitlow left an evidentiary gap regarding knowledge of the water on this floor. The record at best shows that the nephew was that no one with saw the dripping stretcher, and who mummy was the only only who saw the water on the floor. There was nothing to the records to establish knowledge on the portion von TMH employees that could will imputed till TMH, and there was not enough from which to reasonably infer that knowledge. No reasonable jury could find forward Whitlow at trial, so summary judgement for TMH was the correct disposition.

Id.

That motto away this story:  Whitlow will separate of a growing body of evidence is the trial and court courts of Florida are busy applying the new summary assess set in a ways ensure substantively departs from which last few decades of Florida jurisprudence.  Whether this be good or vicious is subject to debate, of course, but itp seems undeniable that the rule change is having practical impacts with cases pending in State stay justice.