Alford v. Walton County, Case No. 21-13999 (11th Cir. 2025).
A county ordinance temporarily barring all access to privately owned beaches and criminalizing owners' entry effected a per se physical taking under the Fifth Amendment, because the ordinance appropriated owners' rights to possess, use, and exclude and subjected the land to repeated governmental occupation, entitling owners to just compensation notwithstanding the COVID-19 context or the ordinance's limited duration.
Affordable Housing Group, Inc. v. Florida Housing Affordability, Inc., Case No. 23-14009 (11th Cir. 2025).
A 1994 affordable-housing agreement requiring 40 years of rent and occupancy restrictions remained enforceable by the FDIC and its monitoring agent notwithstanding later repeal of 12 U.S.C. § 1441a because the contract unambiguously fixed its own term, expressly authorized enforcement by the RTC's successor "Agency," and because 12 U.S.C. § 1831q(n)(4) independently continued the FDIC's statutory authority to carry out RTC responsibilities.
REACH Air Medical Services LLC v. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc., Case No. 24-10135 (11th Cir. 2025).
The No Surprises Act incorporates the FAA's narrow vacatur standards and does not require independent resolution entities to be named as defendants for judicial review, and accordingly, an independent dispute resolution award could not be vacated under 9 U.S.C. § .10(a) because the arbitrator did not exceed its authority in selecting the payer's "baseball" offer and the complaint did not plead fraud or undue means with Rule 9(b) particularity or allege conduct equivalent in gravity to corruption.
In re Amendments to Rules Regulating the Florida Bar – Rules 6-3.5 and 6-3.6, Case No. SC2025-0017 (Fla. 2025).
The Florida Supreme Court amended Rules 6-3.5 and 6-3.6 to grant the Board of Legal Specialization and Education authority to extend deadlines for board certification and recertification application requirements upon request by the Florida Bar Executive Director or Board of Governors for good cause shown, including national emergency, extreme weather, pandemic, war, civil unrest, or governmental mandate.
Weaver v. Hatfield, Case No. 1D2024-2423 (Fla. 1st DCA 2025).
A husband's warranty deed expressly conveying "any marital or homestead interest" and "all tenements, hereditaments and appurtenances" to his wife constituted a valid written waiver of his constitutional and statutory homestead rights under Florida Statutes section 732.7021, and permitted the wife to convey the property inter vivos to herself and her brother as joint tenants with right of survivorship without implicating section 732.7025's devise restrictions.
Lock Properties LLC v. Kelly Plantation Owners Association, Inc., Case No. 1D2024-0256 (Fla. 1st DCA 2025).
The court held that summary judgment on a homeowners association's claim that a roof containing a metal underlayment covered by stone tiles violated a covenant prohibiting "metal roofs" was an error because a genuine dispute of material fact existed as to whether the structure constituted a prohibited metal roof, and that mandatory injunctive relief requiring removal of the roof was improper where the association conceded such relief would be unreasonable if the roof were compliant.
West Villagers for Responsible Government, Inc. v. City of North Port, Case No. 2D2023-2425 (Fla. 2d DCA 2025).
A city commission's rejection of a municipal boundary contraction petition is a legislative act not subject to judicial review as Florida Statutes section 171.081(1) authorizes circuit court review only of enacted ordinances and not of a decision declining to enact a contraction ordinance, and likewise, common law certiorari jurisdiction does not apply to legislative decisions.
Belvant v. Cohen, Case No. 3D23-1707 (Fla. 3d DCA 2025).
A co-owner plaintiff asserting superior possessory rights against third parties wrongfully detaining jointly owned property need not join the other co-owner as a plaintiff or indispensable party as replevin is a possessory action in which the right to immediate possession, not ownership, is the determinative issue.
Zakharova v. Maya, Case No. 3D25-0559 (Fla. 3d DCA 2025).
The court held that absolute litigation immunity bars a claim for tortious interference with contract based on a defendant's entry into an agreed final judgment in a separate related fraud action, because the agreed judgment occurred during and bore some relation to a judicial proceeding, and that denial of a motion for judgment on the pleadings asserting such immunity departed from the essential requirements of law causing irreparable harm reviewable by certiorari.
