Justia Florida Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

A local government has the authority under Fla. Stat. 316.0083(1)(a) to contract with a private third-party vendor to review and sort information from red light cameras, in accordance with the local government’s written guidelines, before sending that information to a trained traffic enforcement officer, who determines whether probable cause exists and a citation should be issued.Petitioner received a traffic citation based on images from a red light camera. Petitioner argued that the City of Aventura’s red light camera enforcement program was illegal because it included the use of a third-party agent to review images from the City’s red light cameras before sending them to City police to determine whether a traffic citation should be issued. The court of appeal held that the City did not violate the Mark Wandall Traffic Safety Program, see Fla. Stat. 316.0083(1)(a), which grants local governments’ traffic enforcement officers the power to issue citations for traffic infractions captured by red light cameras. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the City did not exceed its statutory authority in contracting with a vendor to review the red light camera images and that the City’s use of its own standards for determining whether a traffic infraction has occurred did not violate the uniformity principle set forth in chapter 316. View "Jimenez v. State" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a professional artist, brought suit against the United Parcel Service (UPS) and other defendants, alleging that two of her paintings were unscrupulously removed from their packaging during the interstate shipment process and sold to a third party without her consent or knowledge. The trial court dismissed all of Plaintiff’s claims against UPS, concluding that they were preempted by the federal Carmack Amendment. The Court of Appeal affirmed. The Supreme Court quashed the Court of Appeal’s decision to the extent it was inconsistent with this opinion, holding that Plaintiff’s state law causes of action were not preempted because neither the Carmack Amendment nor public policy supports UPS’s attempt to evade liability arising from its intentional misconduct. View "Mlinar v. United Parcel Serv., Inc." on Justia Law