TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Legal Newsline) – Because of a case involving a fatal rear-end collision, Florida is changing its summary judgment standards to stay in line with U.S. Supreme Court rulings from more than 30 years ago.
But the Florida Supreme Court, on Dec. 30, declined to adopt a special mention for video evidence that directly contradicts one litigant’s arguments. In the lawsuit against Wilsonart LLC, video showed that its driver did not act in the manner alleged by the plaintiff.
“(W)e do not see a principled basis for engrafting onto Florida’s existing summary judgment standard a special interpretive rule for cases involving video evidence,” Justice Carlos Muniz wrote.
“To the extent that the Fifth District’s question points to a deeper flaw in Florida’s existing summary judgment standard—specifically, its unreasonable definition of what constitutes a ‘genuine issue’ in need of resolution by a jury—this problem is better addressed through our prospective rule amendment (issued the next day after the decision).
“In any event, we see no reason to adopt an ad hoc video evidence exception to the existing summary judgment standard on the eve of that amendment.”
Essentially, Florida’s standard for granting summary judgment was when there is no genuine “issue” that the moving party was entitled to it. Non-moving parties can now be granted summary judgment when the moving party has an absence of evidence to prove its case.
“Issue” has been changed to “dispute” in the court’s proposed rule, which it deemed a more appropriate way to change the standard rather than through a decision in the Wilsonart case.
The new standard, established in 1986 by the U.S. Supreme Court, is in line with 38 other states’ standards too. The Wilsonart case will be remanded to be judged with the new standard, without the old standard that denied summary judgment because the record raised “the slightest doubt” that material issues could be present.
“(T)he federal summary judgment standard is more rational, more fair and more consistent with the structure and purpose of our rules of civil procedure,” the rule says, though Justice Jorge Labarga disagreed.
He claims the new rule, by giving judges more authority to grant summary judgment, will take power out of the hands of juries.