Florida courts are set to take on wide-ranging issues in 2017 like the expert witness standard, whether or not counties can approve gambling without the Legislature's consent, and a high-profile copyright dispute involving The Turtles.
Here are some key cases attorneys will be watching in 2017:
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Flo & Eddie v. Sirius
The Florida Supreme Court is set to tackle in 2017 the hotly contested issue of whether record labels and artists can collect royalties from their pre-1972 recordings, in a high-profile suit brought by the rock band The Turtles.
Last month in a similar case, the New York Court of Appeals ruled they could not, saying the state had “never recognized” the kind of “performance right” that would require payment. The ruling was a massive blow to the idea that performance royalties for pre-1972 — when sound recordings did not have federal copyright protection — will be an ongoing source of revenue for artists and labels, and the industry now looks to Florida to see if the Supreme Court there agrees.
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1972 is when sound recordings first got federal copyright protection
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“If Florida recognizes a common law copyright for public performances, other states might as well,” Elliot Scherker of Greenberg Traurig LLP said. “There's nothing unique in Florida law about it.”
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Altman Contractors v. Crum & Forster Specialty Insurance
In another case being briefed before the Supreme Court, Altman Contractors is seeking to reverse a Florida federal court's ruling that Crum & Forster Specialty Insurance doesn't have to cover its costs to defend against a slew of notices under Chapter 558 of the Florida Statutes, which provides for a presuit proceeding through which a property owner can assert a claim for construction defects against a contractor. The case came to the Florida Supreme Court in August via a certified question from an Eleventh Circuit panel.
Crum & Forster contends that a construction defect claim does not trigger its obligations under several commercial general liability policies.
David Coulson of Greenberg Traurig explained that property owners are required to go through a presuit process, but the question of whether that is covered by insurance is still open.