Judge, I cannot tell a lie

FLORIDA LAW WEEKLY

VOLUME 51 NUMBER 27

CASES FROM THE WEEK OF JULY 10, 2026

FLORIDA SUPREME COURT REAFFIRMS THAT FRAUD ON THE COURT MAY WARRANT DISMISSAL OF ENTIRE ACTION AND HOLDS THAT TRADITIONAL APPELLATE STANDARDS OF REVIEW APPLY

Publix Supermarkets, Inc. v. Goga, 51 Fla. L. Weekly S217 (Fla. July 9, 2026):

The plaintiff filed a premises liability action after slipping on spilled dish soap at a Publix. The surveillance video showed that the plaintiff continued shopping after the fall and even purchased a bottle of champagne before leaving the store. However, she later claimed that the incident caused serious injuries requiring months of medical treatment and sought damages for medical expenses, pain and suffering, and lost wages.

During discovery, the plaintiff repeatedly represented that she could no longer lift her young children, bend at the waist, lift groceries, play in a swimming pool, walk for extended periods, or engage in many ordinary daily activities because of her injuries. The surveillance Publix had done on her showed otherwise.

Publix moved to dismiss the plaintiff’s complaint for fraud on the court. After an evidentiary hearing at which the videos were introduced and the plaintiff testified, the trial court found by clear and convincing evidence that the plaintiff had intentionally lied about the extent of her physical limitations in an effort to increase the value of her case. Concluding that the plaintiff had perpetrated a fraud on the court that permeated the entire action, the trial court dismissed the complaint with prejudice.

The appellate court affirmed the finding of fraud. However, it concluded that dismissal of the entire action was too severe a sanction. It reinstated the plaintiff’s claim for medical expenses, reasoning that those damages rested upon objective medical evidence rather than the plaintiff’s subjective testimony, while ruling that the sanction was wrong, and that the court should have only dismissed the “subjective” complaints (i.e., the ones for pain and suffering and lost wages).

The Florida Supreme Court quashed that decision. It accepted the case to address the proper scope and standard of appellate review when a court dismisses an action for fraud on the court.

The Court held that appellate courts should not apply a special “more stringent” abuse of discretion standard when reviewing fraud-on-the-court dismissals. Instead, traditional standards of appellate review govern.

A trial court’s factual findings are reviewed for competent, substantial evidence; its legal conclusions are reviewed de novo; and its ultimate choice of sanction is reviewed under the ordinary abuse of discretion standard. In reaching that conclusion, the Court disapproved of the contrary district court decisions that had adopted a heightened review standard.

Applying those standards, the Court concluded that competent, substantial evidence supported the trial court’s finding that the plaintiff repeatedly and intentionally misrepresented the extent of her injuries. Those misrepresentations were not isolated inconsistencies but a deliberate scheme that infected the entire litigation by attempting to influence the trier of fact on the central issue of damages.

Because the plaintiff’s fraud permeated the entire proceeding, the trial court acted within its discretion in dismissing the complaint in its entirety rather than attempting to salvage individual elements of damages. The Supreme Court therefore quashed the Fourth District’s decision and reinstated the dismissal with prejudice.

Justice Labarga, the lone dissenter, wrote that the decision empowered trial courts “to subordinate the policy of favoring adjudication on the merits—an aspiration enshrined in the Florida Constitution—to competing interests aimed at safeguarding judicial integrity.” He stated he could not agree with that course of action or its potential consequences.