Stanley v. Marceaux

1 Analyses of this case by attorneys

  1. Comparison And Contrast: Differing Standards For Inferences In Federal And Florida State Courts

    Carlton Fields Jorden BurtJuly 9, 2013

    Florida courts also prohibit the stacking of inferences “‘unless it can be found that the original, basic inference was established to the exclusion of all other reasonable inferences.’” Stanley v. Marceaux, 991 So. 2d 938, 940 (Fla. 4th DCA 2008) (quoting Nielsen, 117 So. 2d at 733); Cohen v. Arvin, 878 So. 2d 403, 405 (Fla. 4th DCA 2004) (same); accord Food Fair Stores v. Trusell, 131 So. 2d 730, 733 (Fla. 1961) (stating that a party may not “indulg[e] in the prohibited mental gymnastics of constructing one inference upon another inference in a situation where . . . the initial inference was not justified to the exclusion of all other reasonable inferences”). Because civil litigants frequently rely on circumstantial evidence to prove their cases, an attorney should be cognizant in the earliest stages of litigation about the standards employed by the forum court regarding inferences.