One can brush up on their French by reading the recent decision of the Florida 3rd District Court of Appeals in the case of Klein vs. Joel Robbins, 32 FLW 237 (3rd DCA 2007). At issue was whether the home involved was “substantially completed” on the January 1st of the year and thereby taxable per Fla. Stat. 192.042 (1). The Trial Court entered a summary judgment in favor of the Property Appraiser. The 3rd DCA reversed on the Mc Queen case’s standard for denial of a summary judgment which denies a summary judgment were “even the slightest doubt exists regarding the existence of material issues.”
In arguing for the upholding its victory by summary judgment at the Trial Court level, the Property Appraiser’s Counsel suggested that a more “modern” standard for summary judgment should be adopted and cited his own Florida Bar Journal article for the proposition!
For this faux pas, the Court stated it was “a bit audacious to cite oneself” but mused that Frederick the Great* recommended “L’audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace” (Audacity, audacity, always audacity.)
*Frederick the Great (1712-1786) a/k/a Frederick II of Prussian a/k/a Freidrich der Grosse
