Anand v. JEB Hotel Assocs., Ltd.
988 So. 2d 652 (Fla. 3d DCA 2008)
Counsel for a hotel violated the court's order when, during closing argument, he stated that the accident diagram shown to the jury had come from police report related to the incident being litigated. The adverse parties argued that both their motion for directed verdict and motion for new trial should have been granted as a result of the improper reference. The appellate court disagreed. The trial court found that counsel's improper reference to the police diagram as coming from the accident report was inadvertent and unintentional and also found that the single reference during closing argument did not rise to the level of affecting the outcome of the case. As a result, the court held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motions. As to the cross-appeal, the trial court had imposed the sanction for the hotel's violation of its order. The hotel failed to preserve the issue so the sanction was affirmed.