Florida Supreme Court Declines to Revisit Century – Old Precedent and Rejects Attempt to Carve Away at Real Property Rules in Favorable Decision for Buchanan Client

Tampa, Fla. (August 2023) – Buchanan litigators Chance Lyman and Josh Smith prevailed on behalf of their client, an individual, after the Florida Supreme Court denied a petition for review filed by the plaintiff.

The plaintiff originally sued the client to recover over a million dollars’ worth of palm trees that the plaintiff alleged belonged to him based on an agreement with the client’s father. Buchanan obtained summary judgment in the client’s favor in the trial court based on longstanding Florida Supreme Court case law holding that trees planted in the ground are considered real property, not personal property, as the plaintiff had claimed.  This distinction was critical in the case because the purported agreement with the client’s father did not satisfy the Statute of Frauds.

The summary judgment was then affirmed on appeal in the Second District Court of Appeals, which authored a written opinion in our client’s favor (Lee Te Kim v. Galasso, 348 So. 3d 1183 (Fla. 2d DCA 2022).  Plaintiff sought review in the Florida Supreme Court, arguing that the Second District’s decision conflicted with other Florida Supreme Court precedent.

After consideration of Buchanan’s jurisdictional briefing, the court denied review. By declining to review the Second District’s written decision, the Florida Supreme Court left in place the Second District’s analysis of century-old Florida Supreme Court precedent regarding the real property status of trees planted in the ground in Florida. The plaintiff had argued for a change in the law, specifically, that the court should create exceptions to this longstanding principle for business partners engaged in a palm tree nursery farm. The Second District’s written rejection of that novel theory reiterated the century-old precedent and provided new precedent rejecting the attempt to carve away at the rule.