As of the writing of this blog article, September 30, 2020, the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit which is the court system covering all of Hillsborough County is still in Phase One of re-opening the court systems as mandated by the Florida Supreme Court.

This means there are no civil jury trial at the present time.

While some counties were selected to hold jury trial via Zoom, Hillsborough County was not one of those counties.

The 13TH Judicial Circuit Chief Judge Ronald Ficarrotta has declined to comment on when civil jury trial will re-commence issued the following statement: “We are looking for input from Tallahassee on when it is safe to move out of Phase One and then Two.  But all of the judges in our circuit have really embraced the technology and are working hard to continue to move cases. The bottom line is we want the courthouse to be a safe place for our community.”

Having a sufficient number of jurors willing and/or capable of participating in live jury trial is a big concern.  If there are not enough jurors for a jury pool, then it will be difficult to hold proper jury trials.

As we understand it, there will not be any civil jury trials in Hillsborough at least thru the end of 2020 and maybe not any until the spring or summer of 2021.  At this time, no one really knows when civil jury trials will be started back up again in Hillsborough County.

We remind our readers that for all personal injury cases, the statute of limitations to file your civil case is four (4) years from the date of the accident.  This includes all auto accidents, slip and falls, trip and falls, premises liability, and dog bite cases.  This means the civil complaint must be filed before the expiration of the four (4) years but does not mean your case must go to trial within four (4) years.

COVID-19 has certainly slowed down the civil court system’s ability to move cases along and bring them to finality by getting civil cases to trial in front of a jury.

This article is meant to only address civil trials and does not address criminal cases or criminal trials.

If you have any questions about your civil case involving personal injuries sustained due to the negligence of another person or company, please contact us for a FREE CONSULTATION.  1-833-LAW-STONE