In state court, a declaration in support of summary judgment may not be equal to an affidavit.

The Third District recently held in King v. Zaslavskiy, 3D19-1921 (Fla. 3d DCA March 3, 2021), that while a sworn declaration is authorized and can create a genuine issue of material fact under the federal summary judgment rules, it was not clear whether a declaration instead of an affidavit was similarly permissible under Florida’s summary judgment rules. Nevertheless, a motion for continuance to correct the technical differences between a declaration and an affidavit should have been granted prior to entering summary judgment for the opposing party.  Full case information available below.