Tania Medina v. Casino Miami, LLC, Etc.

• Court: District Court of Appeal of Florida
• Decided: January 7, 2026
• Docket: 3D2024-1317
• Status: Published

Opinion

Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida

Opinion filed January 7, 2026. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

________________

No. 3D24-1317 Lower Tribunal No. 20-24860-CA-01 ________________

Tania Medina, Appellant,

vs.

Casino Miami, LLC, etc., Appellee.

An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Mavel Ruiz, Judge.

Law Offices of Geoffrey B. Marks, and Geoffrey B. Marks (Vero Beach), for appellant.

Kubicki Draper, and Barbara E. Fox, for appellee.

Before MILLER, LOBREE, and BOKOR, JJ.

PER CURIAM. Affirmed. See Emmons v. Baptist Hosp., 478 So. 2d 440, 442 (Fla. 1st

DCA 1985) (“[I]t is fundamental that the mere occurrence of an accident does

not give rise to an inference of negligence and that the plaintiff must show

that the condition complained of was an unreasonable hazard.”); Harvey

Bldg., Inc. v. Haley, 175 So. 2d 780, 782 (Fla. 1965) (“To defeat a motion

which is supported by evidence which reveals no genuine issue, it is not

sufficient for the opposing party merely to assert that an issue does exist.”);

McFadden v. Fiori, 488 So. 2d 92, 93 (Fla. 5th DCA 1986) (reversing

judgment and ordering a directed verdict to be entered in defendant’s favor

due to plaintiff’s failure to present any evidence to establish that the throw

rug constituted a dangerous condition); Powell v. Riverside Hosp. Inc., 702

So. 2d 308, 308 (Fla. 5th DCA 1997) (affirming defense motion for directed

verdict because plaintiff failed to establish a dangerous condition existed as

she “repeatedly stated that she did not know what happened” and provided

no evidence to show that the “surface was unreasonably dangerous or that

any condition on the stairs caused [her] to fall”); Gomez v. Plasencia, 522

So. 2d 423, 423 (Fla. 3d DCA 1998) (affirming final summary judgment for

defendants as plaintiff fell solely because she did not notice the difference in

floor levels of a home she was inspecting as an invitee rather than

defendants’ negligence); Wilson-Greene v. City of Miami, 208 So. 3d 1271,

2 1275 (Fla. 3d DCA 2017) (“Although it is true that a non-moving party to a

summary judgment motion may set forth a genuine issue of material fact

through ‘justifiable inferences from facts presented to the trial court,’ the

stacking of inferences is not permitted.” (citation omitted)); Nielsen v. City of

Sarasota, 117 So. 2d 731, 733 (Fla. 1960) (“[I]f a party to a civil action

depends upon the inferences to be drawn from circumstantial evidence as

proof of one fact, it cannot construct a further inference upon the initial

inference in order to establish a further fact unless it can be found that the

original, basic inference was established to the exclusion of all other

reasonable inferences.”); Publix Super Markets, Inc. v. Bellaiche, 245 So. 3d

873, 876 (Fla. 3d DCA 2018) (noting that a trier of fact may not stack

inferences to determine that a party had actual knowledge of a dangerous

condition, nor is the mere possibility of causation sufficient to establish

liability); Gisela Invs., N.V. v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 452 So. 2d 1056, 1057

(Fla. 3d DCA 1984) (“We will not affirm the summary judgment entered

herein on an alternative factual ground which was not specifically asserted

by motion or argued to the trial court, and which was not supported by any

evidence at the time of the hearing on the motion for summary judgment.”).