Legislative Update 2025 Session

Legislative Update

The Regular Session begins March 4 and continues through May 2. Here are the bills we are following.

Self-Storage Unit Notice Bills

 Senate bill 386 (Sen. Harrell, R. Stuart) allows replacement of newspaper notice of self-storage unit liens with notice on a “public website that customarily conducts or advertises personal property auctions.”  The Senate bill has been referenced to the following committees: Judiciary (Clay Yarborough), Regulated Industries (Jennifer Bradley), and Rules (Kathleen Passidomo). The recently filed House bill 587 (Rep. Smith, R. Winter Springs) is assigned to the following committees: Civil Justice Sub. (Traci Koster), Industries & Professional Activities Sub. (Mike Giallombardo); and Judiciary Comm. (Chuck Brannan).

We will be opposing these bills and also working with the self-storage association to see if  compromise language is a possibility.

Take-Down Defamation Bills

Bills have been filed requiring publishers to remove articles or statements from the internet.

Section 1 relates to existing law that retractions of statements by newspapers or broadcasters published based on an honest mistake of fact provided within a certain time frame will limit damages. The bills add to this existing law by requiring that if the article was published on the internet it must be “permanently removed” as well within the applicable time period.

Of greater concern is section 2 which states that a publisher must remove statements from the internet if notified that the statement has been “found in a judicial proceeding to be false” or “receives notice of facts that would cause a reasonable person to conclude that such statement was false.” Failure to remove the statement after such notice extends the statute of limitations and removes the fair reporting privilege. HB 687 by Rep. Grow (R. Inverness) (no committee references yet) and SB 752 by Sen. Simon (R. Quincy) (referred to Judiciary; Commerce and Tourism; Rules).

Section 2 is unconstitutional in that it requires deletion of truthful protected speech. For example, the fact that an arrest report is later expunged, or the individual is acquitted, does not nullify or falsify the previous truthful and accurate reporting on the arrest. As in the past, we will be working with various media including conservative groups to oppose this language.