1. Recently, in the case of a 14-year-old boy killed in an ATV racing accident, the Florida Supreme Court ruled 4 to 1 in favor of the boy's parents who sued the ATV Park operator for their child's death. Justice Harry Lee Anstead wrote in the majority opinion "Florida's children and parents need not worry, after today's decision, that careless commercial operators may be immunized from their carelessness by the presence of an exculpatory clause in a ticket for admission."



2. In September of 2008, a proposed constitutional amendment in Florida which could have resulted in a serious battle over taxing business services such as advertising was thrown off the November ballot by a unanimous decision of the Florida Supreme Court yesterday. In April, the Florida Taxation and Budget Reform Commission approved a proposed constitutional amendment to significantly overhaul the way the State pays for schools - Amendment 5. The proposed amendment directed the legislature to choose among one or more of four options for making up the lost revenue: “(1) repealing sales tax exemptions "which are determined not to advance or serve a public purpose;" (2) increasing the current sales tax rate by one percent; (3) spending cuts in other state programs; and (4) "other revenues identified or created by the legislature.”

3 In October 2008, the Florida Supreme Court announced its final ruling in Murray v. Mariners Health/ACE USA, reinstating hourly attorneys' fees in workers compensation cases.

4. In January, 2006, the Florida Supreme Court denied the state of Florida the ability to fund private schools with taxpayer money in their Decision on Opportunity Scholarships. "As the dissent and the First District Court of Appeal stated, ‘Nothing in Article IX, Section 1 clearly prohibits the Legislature from allowing the well-delineated use of public funds for private school education, particularly in circumstances where the Legislature finds such use is necessary.' It marks the first time the Florida Supreme Court has struck an educational program only because private schools participate equally in it.

5. In 2006, the Supreme Court struck down a law passed by the Florida legislature that had created the United States' first state-wide education voucher program.

6. In Engle v. Liggett Group, the Supreme Court of Florida ordered decertification of a class action lawsuit against big tobacco companies that effectively reversed the largest punitive damage jury award, $145 billion, in U.S. history.

7. In 2004, the court struck down a piece of legislation from the Florida legislature designed to reverse a lower court decision in the Terri Schiavo case.

8. In the 2000 presidential election controversy, the Supreme Court of the United States overturned the Florida Supreme Court after it had ordered a statewide recount.

9. In 1999, a dissenting opinion by one of the Justices sparked a world-wide debate over the use of Florida's electric chair, which may have led to events that caused the Florida Legislature to adopt lethal injection as the state's method of execution only a few months later.

These are just a few of the legal precedents state set in Florida. It will be interesting to see what future precedents will be set in Florida.