Third District Court of Appeal
State of Florida
Opinion filed September 8, 2021.
Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.
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No. 3D20-640
Lower Tribunal No. 13-25846
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Tasha Marie Santos Alvarez, etc.,
Appellant,
vs.
Miriam Acosta, et al.,
Appellees.
An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, David C.
Miller, Judge.
Law Offices of Oscar Syger, P.A., and Oscar Syger (Boca Raton), for
appellant.
Boyd & Jenerette, P.A., and Kansas R. Gooden and Allison C. Heim
(Orlando), for appellee Miriam Acosta.
Before EMAS, SCALES and LOBREE, JJ.
PER CURIAM.
We affirm the trial court’s order denying appellant Tasha Marie Santos
Alvarez’s motion for a new trial. The jury was presented with conflicting
evidence as to whether appellee Miriam Acosta, the driver of a car that
collided with a motorcycle, caused the fatal crash. This conflicting evidence
included certain admissions made by Acosta in her deposition that was read
to the jury at trial. Notwithstanding that evidence, the jury returned a verdict
for Acosta, finding that she was not the cause of the accident. Alvarez argues
that the jury was “bound” by Acosta’s admissions and that the jury’s verdict
for Acosta was contrary to the evidence.
We review an order denying a motion for new trial for abuse of
discretion. Weatherly v. Louis,
31 So. 3d 803, 805 (Fla. 3d DCA 2009). We
cannot reweigh the evidence or determine that the verdict was against the
manifest weight of the evidence. Graham Cos. v. Amado,
305 So. 3d 572,
578 (Fla. 3d DCA 2020). A trial court does not abuse its discretion by denying
a new trial motion if there was conflicting evidence presented at trial and the
jury’s verdict was the product of its weighing that evidence to resolve the
conflicts. Weatherly,
31 So. 3d at 805-06; Rosario-Paredes v. J.C. Wrecker
Serv.,
975 So. 2d 1205, 1207 (Fla. 5th DCA 2008) (“We conclude that the
trial judge did not abuse his discretion in denying the motion for new trial.
When the evidence is in conflict, as it was in this case, it is the function of
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the jury to weigh the evidence and resolve those conflicts. . . . Reversal of a
jury verdict is appropriate only in the absence of conflicting evidence, when
there is no rational basis in the evidence to support the verdict.”).
Affirmed.
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