Summary Judgment Must be Based on Admissible Evidence
A party moving for summary judgment must rely on admissible evidence in the record. Arlen Realty, Inc. v. Penn Mut. Life Ins. Co., 386 So.2d 886 (Fla. 1st DCA 1980).
Parties oftentimes submit an affidavit in support of a motion for summary judgment in order to get certain testimony or documentary evidence into the record. When a party submits an affidavit to get a document into the record, the party still needs to authenticate the document and lay its foundation in the affidavit. See Alavi v. Garcia, 140 So.3d 1141 (Fla. 5th DCA 2014) (party required to lay foundation for promissory note in summary judgment affidavit); Bryson v. Branch Banking and Trust Co., 75 So.3d 783 (Fla. 2d DCA 2011) (unauthenticated default letters were insufficient for summary judgment consideration); Southern Developers & Earthmoving, Inc. v. Caterpillar Financial Services Corp., 56 So.3d 56 (Fla. 2d DCA 2011) (trial court properly disallowed letter on summary judgment that was not authenticated); Mitchell Bros., Inc. v. Westfield Ins. Co., 24 So.3d 1269 (Fla. 1st DCA 2009) (affidavit with schedule of payments to support damages was insufficient for consideration on summary judgment as the schedule of payments was hearsay and the business records exception to the hearsay rule was not established); Dutilly v. Department of Health & Rehabilitative Services, 450 So.2d 1195 (Fla. 5th DCA 1984) (party relying on blood tests should have submitted affidavit (i) of record custodian of blood tests to support business records exception to the hearsay rule or (ii) of the technician that performed the blood tests).
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