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1. Defendant intended to confine the plaintiff;
2. Defendant performed an act resulting in plaintiff’s confinement; and
3. Plaintiff was conscious of the confinement or resulting harm.

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1. Defendant intended to confine the plaintiff;
2. Defendant performed an act resulting in plaintiff’s confinement; and
3. Plaintiff was conscious of the confinement or resulting harm.

False imprisonment is identical to false arrest. Card v. Miami Dade County Florida, 147 F. Supp. 2d 1334, 1347 (S.D. Fla. 2001). Courts use the terms “confine” and “restrain” interchangeably in defining the elements of false imprisonment. See Maybin v. Thompson, 606 So. 2d 1240, 1242 (Fla. 2d DCA 1992).

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FLORIDA STATE COURTS

Florida Supreme Court: Johnson v. Weiner, 155 Fla. 169, 19 So. 2d 699, 700 (1944).

First District: Spears v. Albertson’s, Inc., 848 So.2d 1176 (Fla. 1st DCA 2003).

Second District: Mathis v. Coats, 24 So.3d 1284, 1289 (Fla. 2d DCA 2010).

Third District: Rivero v. Howard, 218 So. 3d 992, 994 (Fla. 3d DCA 2017); Tursi v. Metro. Dade County, 579 So. 2d 150, 152 (Fla. 3d DCA 1991).

Fourth District: Florez v. Broward Sheriff’s Office, 270 So.3d 417, 421 (Fla. 4th DCA 2019); City of Boca Raton v. Basso, 242 So.3d 1141, 1142 (Fla. 4th DCA 2018).

Fifth District: City Of St. Petersburg v. Austrino, 898 So. 2d 955, 957 (Fla. 5th DCA 2005); Everett v. Fla. Inst. of Tech., 503 So. 2d 1382, 1383 (Fla. 5th DCA 1987).

FLORIDA FEDERAL COURTS

Eleventh Circuit: Scott v. City of Miami, No. 23-11280, 2025 WL 1647025, at *8 (11th Cir. June 11, 2025); Davis v. Tony, 2022 WL 1224261, *10 (11^th Cir. Apr. 26, 2022); Archer v. City of Winter Haven, 846 F. App’x 759, 763 (11th Cir. 2021); Henning v. Walmart Stores, Inc., 738 Fed.Appx. 992, 998 (11th Cir. 2018).

Southern District: Senko v. Jackson, 2022 WL 1682205, *10 (S.D. Fla. May 19, 2022); Anderson v. Ahluwalia, 2022 WL 850000, *7 (S.D. Fla. Feb. 28, 2022); Johnson v. Carnival Corp., 2021 WL 5415857, *11 (S.D. Fla. Nov. 19, 2021); McDonough v. Mata, 489 F. Supp. 3d 1347, 1361-62 (S.D. Fla. 2020).

Middle District: Thomas v. Hyler, No. 8:23-CV-2777-MSS-AAS, 2024 WL 3771716, at *2 (M.D. Fla. Aug. 13, 2024); Corbin v. Prummell, 2023 WL 1967574, *4 (M.D. Fla. Feb. 13, 2023); Andrade v. Marceno, 2023 WL 157087, *5 (M.D. Fla. Jan. 11, 2023); Holston v. Dawson, 2022 WL 1177142, *6-7 (M.D. Fla. Mar. 10, 2022).

Northern District: Brown v. Brown, No. 1:21-CV-75-AW-GRJ, 2021 WL 2144250, at *2 (N.D. Fla. Apr. 27, 2021); Newbold v. Santana, No. 4:19cv26-WS/CAS , 2020 WL 853910, at *7 (N.D. Fla. January 8, 2020); Hall v. Dawson, No. 5:15cv27-WS-CJK, 2016 WL 5853744, at *9 (N.D. Fla. September 1, 2016).

FLORIDA STATUTES

42 U.S.C. § 1983

FLORIDA REFERENCES

Restatement (Second) of Torts § 35 (1965)

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2 Defenses to Claim for False Imprisonment

(1) Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.110(d) (pleading affirmative defenses), and other standard defenses. See § 1.

(2) Statute of Limitations: § 95.11(3)(o), Fla. Stat. (four years); Ervans v. City of Venice, 169 So.3d 267, 268 (Fla. 2d DCA 2015).

(3) Imprisonment pursuant to valid legal process, such as an arrest warrant, cannot support a claim for false imprisonment. Johnson v. Weiner, 155 Fla. 169, 19 So. 2d 699, 700 (1944); Hall v. Dawson, 2016 WL 5853744, at *9 (N.D. Fla. September 1, 2016) (holding “the general rule is that arrest and imprisonment, if based upon a facially valid process, cannot be false”). See also Jones v. State, 302 So.3d 414, 415 (Fla. 2d DCA 2019). 

(4) Plaintiff may not bring claim for false imprisonment where a police officer had probable cause to confine the plaintiff. Rivero v. Howard, 218 So.3d 992, 994 (Fla. 3d DCA 2017); Hendricks v. Sheriff, 492 Fed.Appx. 90, 94-95 (11th Cir. 2012); Ford v. City of Boynton Beach, 323 So.3d 215, 219 (Fla. 4th DCA 2021). Under the any-crime rule, officers are also immune to claims of false-arrest whenever probable cause existed to arrest the plaintiff for any crime, even if that crime was not what the officer thought had occurred. Scott v. City of Miami, No. 23-11280, 2025 WL 1647025, at *8 (11th Cir. June 11, 2025). Additionally, the mere fact that an officer may have acted without probable cause is not enough to bring a claim, a plaintiff must show the officer acted in bad faith, and under Florida law, “an agent can commit a wrongful, and even intentional, act and still lack bad faith.” Eiras v. Florida, 239 F.Supp.3d 1331, 1334 (M.D. Fla. 2017).

(5) Private citizens are not liable for false imprisonment resulting from mistakenly reporting an incident to the police that results in the alleged actor’s imprisonment where the citizen made such report in good faith. Pokorny v. First Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass’n of Largo, 382 So. 2d 678, 682 (Fla. 1980).

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