Florida High Court Adopts Federal Summary Judgment Standard with Amendment

The Florida Supreme Court issued a per curiam opinion last month further amending the federal summary judgment standard it officially adopted last year.

The move came as part of the court’s Dec. 31, 2020 opinion In Re: Amendments to Florida Rule of Civil Procedure (Case: SC20-1490), in which the justices were asked to answer a certified question from the Fifth District Court of Appeal in the case Wilsonart, LLC v. Lopez. In answering the question, the court ultimately opted to adopt the current federal summary judgment standard that dates back to a trilogy of United States Supreme Court cases from 1986 – Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp.

On April 29, 2021, the Florida Supreme Court further amended that summary judgment Rule 1.510, Fla.R.Civ.P. to align with Rule 56, Fed.R.Civ.P. These changes became effective May 1, 2021, and will significantly affect both pending and future litigation, particularly in first party property insurance.

Like the “old Rule 1.510,” “The Court shall grant summary judgment if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”

Moreover, the amended rule specifically provides that the new summary judgment standard shall be interpreted in accordance with the Federal Rule 56 standard and case law. Thus, insurance company attorneys have a broad base of decisional law giving the Florida Judges much broader discretion in ruling upon these critical dispositive motions.

The are several key points of this new rule. First, Florida courts must now focus on “whether the evidence presents a sufficient disagreement to require submission to a jury,” in accordance with Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc.

Second, the moving party that does not bear the burden of persuasion at trial can obtain summary judgment without disproving the nonmovant’s case. Thus, “[I]f the nonmoving party must prove X to prevail [at trial], the moving party at summary judgment can either produce evidence that X is not so or point out the nonmoving party lacks the evidence to prove X” (Bedford v. Doe).

And third, the new standard defines the correct test for the existence of genuine factual dispute as to whether “the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party,” per Anderson.

The new rule also modifies the procedure involved in such motions. Movants must now file the summary judgment motion at least 40 days before the hearing and the nonmovant must respond with its position at least 20 days before the hearing. Perhaps most importantly, the presiding judge must state on the record the reasons for granting or denying the motion.

The new standard applies to all summary judgment motions decided on or after May 1, 2021, and with respect to summary judgment motions denied under the old rule, the court should give the parties the opportunity to file a renewed summary judgment motion under this new rule.

This article was republished with permission from the newsletter of Lisa Miller & Associates.

Topics Florida