Willie Brown, Petitioners v. Kim J. Nagelhout, Respondents

Summary

The court held that Florida's venue statutes permit a plaintiff suing multiple defendants residing in different counties to select any county in which any defendant resides, without applying a judicially created joint-residency limitation. It receded from the prior rule imposing that limitation because it conflicted with the plain statutory text and rested on a serious interpretive error. The court quashed the intermediate appellate decision and remanded for further proceedings. It did not decide whether transfer would be warranted for convenience or the interests of justice because that issue had not been developed in the record.