Gregory Lattimer v. Eric Babcock

FIFTH DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
                STATE OF FLORIDA
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                     Case No. 5D2025-0160
                 LT Case No. 2022-13300-CODL
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GREGORY LATTIMER,

    Appellant,

    v.

ERIC BABCOCK,

    Appellee.
                 _____________________________


On appeal from the County Court for Volusia County.
Rachel D. Myers, Judge.

Gregory Lattimer, Deltona, pro se.

Douglas G. Rawnsley, of Rawnsley Law, Daytona Beach, for
Appellee.

                          May 1, 2026


EDWARDS, J.

     During a homeowners’ association (“HOA”) meeting,
Appellant Gregory Lattimer, along with another HOA member
were introduced as two (2) new members of the HOA’s board of
directors. At that point, Lattimer’s neighbor, Appellee Eric
Babcock, told other HOA members at the meeting that they should
not allow Lattimer to serve as a board member. Babcock told those
present at the meeting, both in person and by virtual connection,
that Lattimer had harassed him, threatened to shoot him, and was
being investigated for committing a hate crime against him.
Babcock also told those at the HOA meeting that he was selling his
house and moving due to Lattimer’s conduct. Lattimer has sworn
that Babcock’s accusations are false and alleges in the underlying
suit that in his effort to prevent Lattimer from serving on the HOA
board, Babcock defamed him among friends, colleagues, and the
community.

     Initially, Babcock claimed the statements he made about
Lattimer were true, but he later admitted he had no personal
knowledge about the alleged shooting threat or hate crime. There
is nothing in the record suggesting Babcock’s accusations are true.

     Babcock’s opposed motion for summary judgment was granted
based on the trial court’s conclusion that he lacked actual
knowledge of falsity and could not be found negligent in defaming
Lattimer. The trial court reasoned that because Babcock claims
that an unnamed code enforcement officer told him about the
alleged shooting threat, while an unnamed, unidentified deputy
sheriff allegedly told him that the supposed shooting threat was
supposedly being investigated as a hate crime, as a matter of law,
he acted reasonably in believing what he was told. As there were
disputed issues of material fact and jury questions about whether
Babcock could be found negligent, we reverse and remand for
further proceedings.

                        Background Facts

     On appeal from grant of summary judgment, the court of
appeal reviews the evidence and all reasonable factual inferences
in the light most favorable to the non-moving party; we also must
resolve any reasonable doubts in the non-movant’s favor. Brevard
County v. Waters Mark Dev. Enters., LC, 350 So. 3d 395, 398 (Fla.
5th DCA 2022).

     Lattimer asserts that this all started when his neighbor,
Babcock, left his trashcans out on the sidewalk for more than a
month. According to Lattimer, when he went to Babcock’s house
to ask him about the trashcans, he was met with a barrage of foul
language and was told to leave. Lattimer swore in court


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documents that was the first and only communication he ever had
with Babcock before the HOA meeting. Getting no relief there,
Lattimer contacted someone from city code enforcement about the
trashcans, who in turn contacted Babcock. Before long, Babcock
moved the containers from the sidewalk up next to his own house.
However, Babcock then parked his pickup truck and trailer in such
a way as to block off Lattimer’s mailbox for several days,
preventing delivery of mail to his house.

     Next, the HOA meeting described above took place. Lattimer
alleged in his complaint and affidavits that Babcock made those
false statements about him during the meeting in an attempt to
prevent Lattimer from being a board member of the HOA. In his
deposition, Babcock denied mentioning Lattimer by name during
the meeting, claiming that he only referred to what a “neighbor”
had done. Elsewhere in his deposition, Babcock testified that he
wasn’t sure or couldn’t remember whether he had said those things
at the HOA meeting about Lattimer but finally said that he
possibly could have made those statements.

     Babcock admitted that he never heard Lattimer threaten to
shoot him. In his counterclaim, Babcock alleged that Lattimer’s
so-called threat about shooting him was made to the Volusia
County Sheriff’s Department but later claimed in his deposition
that a city code enforcement officer heard it from Lattimer. He
testified in his deposition that it was the Volusia County Sheriff’s
Department that told him about a hate crime investigation
supposedly based on Lattimer’s alleged shooting threat. When
pressed on who specifically said that, Babcock admitted he didn’t
know the officer’s name and didn’t get a card from him. He couldn’t
recall what he looked like, other than he believed that maybe one
of the deputies was Hispanic; although he then quickly said he
didn’t remember his race. Lattimer then questioned him further:

      Q. You don’t remember his name? You don’t
         remember the race? You don’t remember anything
         about him?

      A. No.




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Babcock agreed that he did not receive any follow-up from the
sheriff’s office. When asked in an interrogatory to identify those
at the sheriff’s office who made such statements, Babcock’s answer
was “unknown.”

    Lattimer swore in affidavits filed in the underlying case that
he had never threatened Babcock. Lattimer swore that he never
made a threat or told anybody that he was going to shoot Babcock.
According to Lattimer, his only discussions with code enforcement
were to initially report the trashcan problem, following which a
code enforcement officer told him in person that the problem had
been resolved. Lattimer swore that he had never engaged in, been
accused of, or been investigated for any hate crime. As for his
plans to sell his house and move, Babcock admitted in discovery
that his house was already in pre-foreclosure due to being behind
on his mortgage payments.

                        Standard of Review

    Our standard of review for summary judgment is de novo.
Volusia County v. Aberdeen at Ormond Beach, L.P., 760 So. 2d 126,
130 (Fla. 2000). As noted above, “we consider the record evidence
in the light most favorable to the non-movant, drawing all
reasonable inferences in support of the conclusion that [Appellant]
has raised a jury issue . . . .” Ahmed v. Mid Fla. Dev., LLC, 412 So.
3d 167, 178 (Fla. 5th DCA 2025) (quoting Kimbrel v. Clark, 385 So.
3d 1124, 1127 (Fla. 1st DCA 2024) (additional citation omitted)).

               Standards for Defamation Liability

     To prevail on his defamation claim, Lattimer must prove, inter
alia, that in making the subject statements, Babcock acted with
knowledge of, or reckless disregard for the falsity of the
statements, or at least acted negligently as those statements
concerned a private person, rather than a public figure or elected
official. Jews for Jesus, Inc. v. Rapp, 997 So. 2d 1098, 1106 (Fla.
2008). Negligence refers to whether Babcock published the
allegedly defamatory statements without exercising reasonable
care to determine whether the statements were actually true or
false. Miami Herald Pub. Co. v. Ane, 423 So. 2d 376, 378 (Fla. 3d
DCA 1982). A defendant’s failure to make reasonable attempts to


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verify the accuracy of defamatory hearsay information can support
a jury’s finding of defamation. Id. at 388.

                   Summary Judgment Standard

     Effective May 1, 2021, the Florida Supreme Court adopted
what we still refer to as the “new” summary judgment standard,
which is based upon Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56 and related
federal case law. In re Amends to Fla. R. Civ. Pro. 1.510, 309 So.
3d 192, 192 (Fla. 2020). “In adopting this amendment, [the
supreme court] reaffirm[ed] the bedrock principle that summary
judgment is not a substitute for the trial of disputed fact issues.”
Id. at 194. Summary judgment is to be granted only when the
moving party has demonstrated that there is no genuine disputed
issue of material fact, and the moving party is entitled to judgment
as a matter of law. Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.510. Summary judgment is
only available when the evidence “is so one-sided that one party
must prevail as a matter of law[;]” it is not available when “the
evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for
the nonmoving party.” In re Amends, 309 So. 3d at 192–93
(quoting Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 251–
52 (1986)). Even after adoption of the new summary judgment
standard, “the general rule remains intact: credibility
determinations and weighing the evidence are jury functions, not
those of a judge . . . .” Gracia v. Sec. First Ins. Co., 347 So. 3d 479,
482 (Fla. 5th DCA 2022) (internal quotation marks omitted).

     Thus, the evidence before the court needs to be examined in
order to decide whether granting summary judgment was
appropriate. One way to evaluate the evidence in the instant case
is by comparing it to the facts in a different case, Karp v. The
Miami Herald Publishing Co., 359 So. 2d 580 (Fla. 3d DCA 1978),
involving a similar claim of a defendant learning of the defamatory
statements from another person. The Karps sued the Miami
Herald for publishing a statement asserting that they faced
deportation after being charged with entering the country illegally.
Id. at 582. In fact, no charges had actually been filed. Id. The
undisputed evidence in Karp showed that an officer from the
Immigration and Naturalization Service (“INS”) called the
reporter from the Miami Herald, “that the officer was well known
to the reporter and had given the reporter accurate information in


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the past.” Id. at 581–82. It was pursuant to INS policy to
disseminate such information. Id. at 582. The INS officer was
identified, deposed, and testified that the newspaper article
accurately reflected what he told the reporter. Id. “It also appears
without conflict that the reporter made reasonable efforts to
contact the plaintiffs for their version of the circumstances prior to
publication.” Id. Given those circumstances, the Third District
affirmed the summary judgment granted in favor of the
newspaper, as “there was no genuine issue of material fact
concerning the absence of negligence.” Id.

      The evidence in the instant case concerning Babcock’s claim
that he was not negligent pales in comparison to the one-sided,
crystalized facts in Karp. Babcock hemmed and hawed about
whether he identified Lattimer by name, or even made the
statements at the HOA meeting. Then, in his counterclaim, he
asserted that Lattimer had made the threat about shooting him to
the sheriff’s department, only to later claim in his deposition that
a code enforcement officer was the one who received the threat and
told Babcock about it. Unlike the INS officer in Karp who was well
known to the reporter, Babcock had no name or physical
description for the deputy sheriff who supposedly told him about a
hate crime investigation. Further, unlike the INS officer in Karp,
Babcock testified that he received no follow up from the sheriff’s
department and basically recalled nothing about the deputy.
Finally, as Lattimer argues, no affidavits were provided by the
supposed declarants. Babcock offered no proof, other than his self-
serving statements, that any deputy or code enforcement officer
made the subject statements at all, much less in the manner he
passed them along to those present at the HOA meeting. Those
are credibility matters for a jury, given that neither declarant has
confirmed Babcock’s version.

     Based on the evidence presented, we must ask in accordance
with the new summary judgment standard, could a jury reach a
verdict for Lattimer if it questioned whether Babcock indeed was
ever told about a shooting threat passed on by a deputy that
Babcock remembers nothing about? Could a jury return a verdict
for Lattimer based on an evaluation of whether it was reasonable
for Babcock to rely upon what, if anything, he had been told by a
deputy sheriff who could not be identified and thus neither deposed


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nor called to trial? And, unlike in Karp, there is nothing in the
record now before this court that hints at any indicia of reliability
for what, if anything, the code enforcement officer may have
passed along to Babcock.

     While we note that the trial court included in the order
granting Babcock’s summary judgment that the unidentified
deputy and the code enforcement officer supposedly passed along
the information to Babcock while acting in their “official capacity;”
there is no evidence, as opposed to argument, in the record before
this Court which supports that conclusion. In the current climate,
must a jury or a court conclude as a matter of law, that it is
reasonable, almost mandatory, to believe everything that every
government employee might say, even in his or her official
capacity, without questioning or making any effort to confirm its
accuracy?

     Based on the evidence set forth in the record currently before
this Court, it was error to find that a reasonable jury could not
return a verdict in favor of Lattimer; thus, summary judgment for
Babcock was erroneously granted and is hereby reversed. The
matter is remanded for further proceedings.

    REVERSED and REMANDED.

WALLIS and MACIVER, JJ., concur.




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    Not final until disposition of any timely and
    authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or
    9.331.
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