Rene A. Garcia v. City of Homestead

Third District Court of Appeal
State of Florida
Opinion filed December 10, 2025.
Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.
________________
No. 3D25-0250
Lower Tribunal No. 22-23125-CA-01
________________
Rene A. Garcia ,
Appellant,
vs.
City of Homestead,
Appellee.
An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Javier
Enriquez, Judge.
Rene A. Garcia, in proper person.
Weiss Serota Helfman Cole & Bierman, P.L., and Laura K. Wendell,
Eric l. Stettin and Aaron L. Graubert, for appellee.
Before LOGUE, GORDO and BOKOR, JJ.
PER CURIAM.

2
Affirmed. 	See Comm. Carrier Corp. v. Indian River Cnty., 371 So. 2d
1010, 1014–22 (Fla. 1979) (“As a condition precedent to instituting an action
on a claim against the state or one of its agencies or subdivisions, the
claimant is required to give written notice to the appropriate agency or
agencies and the action must be commenced within four years after such
claim accrues. . . . [W]e agree with the respondents that the third-party
complaints 	were 	deficient 	from 	the 	standpoint 	of 	properly 	alleging
compliance with the notice provisions of section 768.28(6), Florida Statutes
[]. 	Compliance with that subsection of the statute is clearly a condition
precedent to maintaining a suit.”) (footnote omitted); see also City of Miami
v. Sinquefield, 435 So. 2d 970, 970 (Fla. 3d DCA 1983) (“The trial court erred
in not directing a verdict for the defendant municipality . . . . It was never pled
nor proved that the plaintiff gave the municipality the required notice under
Section 768.28(6) Florida Statutes []. 	The final judgment under review is
reversed and the cause remanded to the trial court with directions to enter
judgment for the municipality.”); All Purpose Title, LLC v. Knobloch, 397
So. 3d 85, 88 (Fla. 4th DCA 2024) (“Summary judgment is appropriate where
‘there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled
to 	judgment 	as 	a matter 	of 	law.’” (quoting Fla. 	R. 	Civ. 	P. 	1.510(a)));
Chowdhury v. BankUnited, N.A., 366 So. 3d 1130, 1134 (Fla. 3d DCA 2023)

3
(“Our new summary judgment standard mirrors the standard for a directed
verdict such that the inquiry focuses on ‘whether the evidence presents a
sufficient disagreement to require submission to a jury or whether it is so
one-sided that one party must prevail as a matter of law.’” (quoting In re
Amends. to Fla. R. Civ. Proc. 1.510, 309 So. 3d 192, 192 (Fla. 2020))).