Court Opinion

ID: 9838420
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-06 14:05:03.322538+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:09.278409
License: Public Domain

DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDA
                        SECOND DISTRICT

                     JONATHAN KIERNAN GODWIN,

                                 Petitioner,

                                     v.

           STEPHEN MICHELINI; JOHN DOE; and JANE DOE,

                               Respondents.

                              No. 2D22-4048

                            September 6, 2023

Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the Circuit Court for Hillsborough
County; Cheryl Thomas, Judge.

Ryan D. Barack and Michell Erin Nadeau of Kwall Barack Nadeau PLLC,
Clearwater, for Petitioner.

Ethan J. Loeb, Allison C. Doucette, Steven Gieseler, Nicholas M. Gieseler,
and Elliot P. Haney of Bartlett, Loeb, Hinds & Thompson, PLLC, Tampa,
for Respondent Stephen Michelini.

No appearance for remaining Respondents.

BLACK, Judge.

     Jonathan Kiernan Godwin seeks a writ of certiorari quashing the
trial court's order denying his motion to dismiss or for summary
judgment filed pursuant to section 768.295, Florida Statutes (2021),
Florida's Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (Anti-SLAPP)
statute. Because the trial court departed from the essential
requirements of law by applying an incorrect motion-to-dismiss
standard, we grant Mr. Godwin's petition and quash the order on review.
     Stephen Michelini filed a two-count defamation complaint against
Mr. Godwin premised upon comments made by Mr. Godwin on
Facebook. The Facebook comments were made in response to a January
2022 Tampa Bay Times article posted by the Times on its Facebook page.
The article concerned a lawsuit between Mr. Michelini and former Tampa
City Councilman John Dingfelder, and Mr. Godwin's comments generally
alleged that Mr. Michelini was corrupt and that he had acted in violation
of Florida's Government in the Sunshine Law.1 In response to the
lawsuit, Mr. Godwin filed his motion to dismiss or for summary
judgment, alleging that the lawsuit violated Florida's Anti-SLAPP statute.
Following a hearing, the trial court denied the motion to dismiss. As
relevant to our resolution of this case, the court's findings included that
it needed only to accept the allegations of the complaint as true and to
determine whether they stated a cause of action and that although the
Anti-SLAPP statute "permits a court to look beyond the four-corners of a
complaint, that does not apply to a motion to dismiss."
     Relying on this court's opinions in Gundel v. AV Homes, Inc., 264
So. 3d 304, 310 (Fla. 2d DCA 2019), and Davis v. Mishiyev, 339 So. 3d
449, 452-53 (Fla. 2d DCA 2022), Mr. Godwin seeks certiorari review of

     1 Section 286.011, Florida Statutes, is "commonly known as the

Government in the Sunshine Law." Sarasota Citizens For Responsible
Gov't v. City of Sarasota, 48 So. 3d 755, 762 (Fla. 2010).

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the order, contending that the trial court applied an incorrect standard
in denying the motion to dismiss.2
     This court has explained that "because a postjudgment appeal
cannot remedy the very harm that the Anti-SLAPP statute seeks to
prevent—unnecessary litigation—a petitioner clearly establishes
irreparable harm when seeking review of an order denying a motion to
dismiss under the Anti-SLAPP statute." Davis, 339 So. 3d at 452 (first
citing Baird v. Mason Classical Acad., Inc., 317 So. 3d 264, 267-68 (Fla.
2d DCA 2021); and then citing Gundel, 264 So. 3d at 311). Thus, in
accordance with this district's case law, we conclude that the
jurisdictional prongs of the certiorari standard have been met.
     We next turn to whether the trial court departed from the essential
requirements of law in denying Mr. Godwin's motion. Gundel and Davis
directly address the standard under which a trial court must consider a
motion to dismiss filed pursuant to the Anti-SLAPP statute. In Gundel,
we agreed with the petitioners that "the Anti-SLAPP statute requires the
trial court to do more than accept as true the factual allegations in the
four corners of the complaint and draw all reasonable inferences
therefrom in favor of the claimant." 264 So. 3d at 314. The trial court
must employ a burden-shifting analysis whereby the initial burden is on
the SLAPP defendant to establish that the Anti-SLAPP statute applies,
and once the defendant has done so, the burden shifts "to the claimant
to demonstrate that the claims are not 'primarily' based on First

     2 The trial court treated the motion only as a motion to dismiss,

finding that summary judgment was "inappropriate, as [Mr. Godwin]
ha[d] submitted no supporting evidence." Although Mr. Godwin has
argued that the court departed from the essential requirements of law in
making that finding, we decline to address his argument.

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Amendment rights in connection with a public issue and not 'without
merit.' " Id. And in Davis, we recognized the burden-shifting analysis
established in Gundel and granted the petition for writ of certiorari,
concluding that "the unelaborated order of dismissal suggests that the
trial court denied the motion utilizing an incorrect motion-to-dismiss
standard." 339 So. 3d at 453.
     The trial court's findings in this case demonstrate that it did not
utilize this court's precedent addressing the language of section 768.295
and setting forth the analysis to be utilized when reviewing motions to
dismiss filed pursuant to Florida's Anti-SLAPP statute. Mr. Godwin has
established that in applying an incorrect motion-to-dismiss standard, the
trial court departed from the essential requirements of law.
     Petition granted; order quashed.

MORRIS and SMITH, JJ., Concur.

Opinion subject to revision prior to official publication.

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