Appeals in Brief
Florida Appeals Court Forfeiture Decision A Reflection of Changing Attitudes About Cannabis?
There's no denying that public opinion on the dangerousness of cannabis has changed dramatically in recent years. Florida has not taken the steps that some states have taken to legalize cannabis for medical purposes, let alone for general use. But there's evidence of...
Challenge to Blind Trusts Premature, Florida’s 1st DCA Rules
There's been considerable teeth gnashing about a 2013 Florida law allowing politicians to hold their assets in blind trusts, and withhold from public disclosure specification of the assets held in those trusts. But the debate is only theoretical at this point,...
U.S. Supreme Court to Hear Florida Commercial Fishing Cases — Part 2
The Supreme Court of the United States has agreed to step in to resolve a long-running dispute between Florida and Georgia. As noted in my previous post, it is the second Florida case on the Supreme Court's docket this term that involves Florida's commercial fishing...
U.S. Supreme Court to Hear Florida Commercial Fishing Cases — Part I
Florida commercial fishing industry, meet the Supreme Court of the United States. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear three cases from Florida in its current term, two of which involve commercial fishing. In the most recently granted case, the state of Florida is set...
Modern Technology Impacts Service of Process
Avenues of communication have dramatically expanded over the past few decades, with email, social media, the proliferation of mobile phones, and text messaging making it easier and easier to make contact with the vast majority of people. Whether they want to be in...
The Story Behind the 4th District Court of Appeal’s Relocation Plan, As Told By the Judges
The judges of Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeal can apply the same sharp analysis to solve financial quandaries as they use to parse complex legal issues. That's what attendees of yesterday's meeting of the Appellate Practice Section of the Broward...
How 2 Courts of Appeals Applied the Same Law to Reach Opposite Conclusions About the ACA
Last week, two federal courts of appeals--the 4th Circuit and D.C. Circuit--considered whether the IRS reasonably interpreted the Affordable Care Act as allowing the IRS to give tax credits to taxpayers that purchase health insurance through an exchange set up by the...
Florida Supreme Court Relies on All Writs Jurisdiction to Intervene in Redistricting Dispute
It is not easy to get the Supreme Court of Florida to hear a case. That is by design: the Florida Constitution was amended in 1980 to curtail the Supreme Court's jurisdiction so that it may only review a limited number of cases that fall into discrete...
Securities Fraud Class Actions Survive Thanks to Stare Decisis
The U.S. Supreme Court may not be willing to go as far some had hoped in overruling its precedents. That is the message from the Supreme Court's June 23, 2014 decision in Halliburton Co. v. Erica P. John Fund, Inc. Adherence to precedent won the day in Halliburton, as...