Elisamuel Caballero-Quinones v. Kyle T. Wilder, Wilder Outdoors LLC and Sheriff Grady C. Judd in His Official Capacity as Sheriff of Polk County, Florida

── Elisamuel Caballero-Quinones v. Kyle T. Wilder, Wilder Outdoors LLC and Sheriff Grady C. Judd in His Official Capacity as Sheriff of Polk County, Florida ── Court: District Court of Appeal of Florida Date: April 17, 2026 Category: General SIXTH DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL STATE OF FLORIDA _____________________________ Case No. 6D2023-4106 Lower Tribunal No. 2020CA-000514-0000-00 _____________________________ ELISAMUEL CABALLERO-QUINONES, Appellant, v. KYLE T. WILDER, WILDER OUTDOORS, LLC, and SHERIFF GRADY JUDD, in his official capacity as Sheriff of Polk County, Appellees. _____________________________ Appeal from the Circuit Court for Polk County. William D. Sites, Judge. April 17, 2026 MIZE, J. Appellant, Elisamuel Caballero-Quinones (“Plaintiff”), appeals the trial court’s final judgment and its order denying Plaintiff’s motion for new trial. Plaintiff asserts that the trial court erred by excluding the deposition testimony of the organizational representative 1 of Appellee, Sheriff Grady Judd (the “Sheriff”), concerning the Sheriff’s office’s investigation of the car accident that is the subject 1 See Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.310(b)(6). of this case. Because we agree that the legal grounds relied upon by the trial court to exclude the representative’s deposition testimony did not support exclusion of the testimony, we reverse the final judgment and remand for a new trial. In reversing the final judgment, we reject the Sheriff’s argument that we should affirm the trial court under the tipsy coachman doctrine because the representative’s deposition testimony was properly excludable under Section 90.403, Florida Statutes (“Rule 403”). The trial court did not perform a Rule 403 analysis, and we conclude that an appellate court cannot conduct such an analysis in the first instance in order to affirm a trial court under the tipsy coachman doctrine. This holding places us in conflict with two decisions of the First District, Childers v. State, 936 So. 2d 585 (Fla. 1st DCA 2006), and Mizell v. State, 350 So. 3d 97 (Fla. 1st DCA 2022). Accordingly, pursuant to Article V, Section 3(b)(4) of the Florida Constitution, we certify this decision to be in direct conflict with those decisions. Background and Procedural History Plaintiff is a mail carrier for the United States Postal Service. On the date of the incident that gave rise to this case, he was stopped at a red light in a busy intersection in his mail truck. On the opposite side of the intersection, facing Plaintiff, Polk County Sheriff’s Deputy Edwin Harvey (“Deputy Harvey”) was driving through the intersection in his police vehicle while on duty with the Sheriff’s Office. Detective Harvey had received an emergency call and activated his lights 2 and sirens to pass a red light and proceed through the intersection. When he went through the intersection, he collided with Kyle Wilder (“Wilder”) who was driving his truck through the intersection past a green light on Plaintiff’s lefthand side. The impact between Deputy Harvey’s police vehicle and Wilder’s truck caused the truck to crash into Plaintiff’s mail truck. The impact rendered the mail truck inoperable, and Plaintiff sustained injuries. Plaintiff filed suit against the Sheriff’s office, alleging that the Sheriff’s office was vicariously liable for the negligence of Deputy Harvey. 2 The primary dispute in the case was whether the collision was caused by Wilder’s failure to yield to the police vehicle or by Deputy Harvey’s failure to act with sufficient caution when he passed through a red light to cross the intersection. During the litigation, Plaintiff took the deposition of Lieutenant Anthony Allaire (“Lieu