MIAMI (Legal Newsline) – Counsel for a defendant blamed for a man’s alleged 10-foot fall claimed he had not called the fire department – a mistake that will grant the plaintiff a new trial.
Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal on Oct. 28 ruled for Kendrick Stafford in his lawsuit against We The Best Music. It agreed with the Miami trial judge and called WTBM’s lawyer’s misstep intentional, improper and inflammatory.
Stafford sued after allegedly falling 10 feet at a job site leased by WTBM.
“There was no accident. He did not fall. That was made up… What evidence other than from his lying mouth is there that he really fell?” Alan Soven, counsel for WTBM, said during closing arguments.
Following an overruled objection, Soven told the jury that Stafford never called fire rescue, despite his claims that he did but told them to leave so his wife could take him to the hospital.
The sides approached the bench, who overruled an objection from Stafford’s lawyer that claimed the fire rescue report was in evidence.
“No it isn’t. There is no fire rescue report. There is no fire report. There never was one. There was never a fire report,” Soven told the judge, who overruled the objection.
After the jury ruled for WTBM, Stafford’s lawyers argued the fire rescue report was included in exhibits they produced that were reviewed by WTBM.
The trial judge had trusted Soven’s claim that the report wasn’t turned over and took it out of evidence during closing. Deciding that was a mistake, he ordered a new trial.
“Following our review of the record and the trial court’s detailed order outlining WTBM’s counsel’s intentional misrepresentations to the trial court and WTBM’s counsel’s improper and inflammatory arguments made during closing argument, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by granting Stafford’s motion for new trial,” Judge Eric Hendon wrote.