Published March 15th, 2021
Unless you’re a lawyer, you probably don’t think much about summary judgments. But for attorneys, and perhaps for your case, summary judgment is life or death.
It’s the procedure by which the judge–not a jury, just a judge–can rule that, assuming certain facts to be true, you still don’t have a case, you are not entitled to a jury trial, the decision is final, and if you don’t like it, appeal.
Until now, summary judgments have been most difficult to obtain. If there is the slightest doubt, the court should not enter a summary judgment. Instead, it should be left to a jury to decide the facts.
But that high bar just got lowered. The Florida Supreme Court has changed the summary judgment rule, adopting the more liberal “federal” standard, which empowers the judge to throw out your case if the judge believes that taking all the evidence as a whole, a jury could not find for you.
Proponents say this will help ferret out meritless cases. Critics say it invades the province of the jury by calling on the Court to judge not only the law of the case, but also to weigh the evidence–a province previously reserved to jurors only.
