Sharon Degnan, of our Orlando office, secured a per curium affirmance from Florida’s Sixth DCA, affirming a final summary judgment obtained in the trial court by her partner, Greg Prusak, in favor of a large sporting goods manufacturer in a products liability case.

The case involved a plaintiff, who claimed that the manufacturer’s golf club shaft snapped during a practice swing at a country club, causing permanent blindness in one eye. However, both the plaintiff’s and the third-party defendant, country club’s retained experts found no defect in the shaft and attributed the break to product misuse—either by a previous renter of the clubs or by the plaintiff himself. Both the plaintiff and the country club opposed summary judgment by attempting to invoke Florida’s Cassisi inference, which the trial court rejected since neither party presented any evidence that a product defect was a possible, let alone the most likely cause of the club fracture, and instead applied a product misuse defense.

Sharon’s appellate briefing on Florida’s complex products liability laws was outstanding, leading the court to issue the PCA. The sporting goods manufacturer is now entitled to recover trial and appellate costs.