Diaz v. Sheriff of Miami-Dade County et al

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
Case No. 25-cv-20795-BLOOM/Elfenbein
CHERYL DIAZ,
Plaintiff,
v.
MIAMI-DADE COUNTY and
MAJOR BENNY SOLIS,
Defendants.
________________________________/
ORDER ON MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION
THIS CAUSE is before the Court upon Plaintiff Cheryl Diaz’s (“Plaintiff”) Motion to
Alter or Amend Judgment and for Reconsideration of Order Granting Summary Judgment
(“Motion”), 	ECF 	No. 	[58]. 	Defendants 	Miami-Dade 	County 	and 	Major 	Benny 	Solis
(“Defendants”) filed a Response in Opposition, ECF No. [62], to which Plaintiff filed a Reply,
ECF No. [63]. The Court has reviewed the Motion, related submissions, applicable law, and is
otherwise fully advised. For the reasons that follow, the Motion is denied.
I. 	BACKGROUND
Plaintiff filed this employment discrimination action in February 2025. ECF No. [1]. In
November 2025, Defendants moved for summary judgment on all counts. ECF No. [38]. In
December 2025, in connection with her Response to Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment,
Plaintiff filed Plaintiff’s Index of Exhibits, which referenced a “Dropbox folder” containing the
exhibits cited in Plaintiff’s Declaration. ECF No. [45]. On March 23, 2026, the Court ordered
Plaintiff to file via CM/ECF or conventional filing any exhibits she wanted the Court to consider
by close of business that day. ECF No. [55]. By March 25, 2026—two days later—Plaintiff had
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not filed the exhibits, nor had she moved for an extension of time in which to do so. Accordingly,
the Court issued an Order on Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment, finding that dismissal
of all counts was warranted. ECF No. [56]. Later that day, Plaintiff submitted certain exhibits. ECF
No. [57].
In April 2026, Plaintiff filed the instant Motion, arguing that the Court erred in resolving
the Motion for Summary Judgment without Plaintiff’s exhibits and that, regardless of those
exhibits, the Court’s decision contained “manifest errors of law and fact.” ECF No. [58] at 1. The
Motion is now fully briefed.
II. 	LEGAL STANDARD
A motion for reconsideration is “an extraordinary remedy to be employed sparingly.”
Burger King Corp. v. Ashland Equities, Inc., 181 F. Supp. 2d 1366, 1370 (S.D. Fla. 2002). “The
burden 	is 	upon 	the 	movant 	to 	establish 	the 	extraordinary 	circumstances 	supporting
reconsideration.” Saint Croix Club of Naples, Inc. v. QBE Ins. Corp., No. 2:07-cv-00468-JLQ,
2009 WL 10670066, at *1 (M.D. Fla. June 15, 2009) (citing Taylor Woodrow Constr. Corp. v.
Sarasota/Manatee Airport Auth., 814 F. Supp. 1072, 1073 (M.D. Fla. 1993)).
A motion for reconsideration must do two things. First, it must demonstrate some
reason why the court should reconsider its prior decision. Second, it must set forth
facts or law of a strongly convincing nature to induce the court to reverse its prior
decision. Courts have distilled three major grounds justifying reconsideration: (1)
an intervening change in controlling law; (2) the availability of new evidence; and
(3) the need to correct clear error or manifest injustice.
Cover v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 148 F.R.D. 294, 295 (M.D. Fla. 1993) (citations omitted). “[C]lear
error or manifest injustice occurs where the Court has patently misunderstood a party, or has made
a decision outside the adversarial issues presented to the Court by the parties, or has made an error
not of reasoning but of apprehension.” Campero USA Corp. v. ADS Foodservice, LLC, 916 F.
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Supp. 2d 1284, 1292–93 (S.D. Fla. 2012). “Such problems rarely arise and the motion to reconsider
should be equally rare.” Burger King Corp., 181 F. Supp. 2d at 1369.
Because court opinions “are not intended as mere first drafts, subject to revision and
reconsideration at a litigant's pleasure,” a motion for reconsideration must clearly “set forth facts
or law of a strongly convincing nature to demonstrate to the Court the reason to reverse its prior
decision.” Am. Ass’n of People With Disabilities v. Hood, 278 F. Supp. 2d 1337, 1339, 1340 (M.D.
Fla. 2003) (citations omitted). As such, a court will not reconsider its prior ruling without a
showing of “clear and obvious error where the ‘interests of justice’ demand correction.” Bhogaita
v. Altamonte Heights Condo. Ass’n, Inc., No. 6:11-cv-1637-Orl-31, 2013 WL 425827, at *1 (M.D.
Fla. Feb. 4, 2013) (quoting Am. Home Assurance Co. v. Glenn Estess & Assoc., 763 F.2d 1237,
1239 (11th Cir. 1985)). “When issues have been carefully considered and decisions rendered, the
only reason which should commend reconsideration of that decision is a change in the factual or
legal underpinning upon which the decision was based.” Taylor Woodrow Constr. Corp., 814 F.
Supp. at 1072-73; see also Longcrier v. HL-A Co., 595 F. Supp. 2d 1218, 1247 n.2 (S.D. Ala.
2008) (noting that reconsideration motions are to be used sparingly, and stating, “imagine how a
district court’s workload would multiply if it w[ere] obliged to rule twice on the same arguments
by the same party upon request”).
A motion for reconsideration “is not an opportunity for the moving party . . . to instruct the
court on how the court ‘could have done it better’ the first time.” Hood v. Perdue, 300 F. App’x
699, 700 (11th Cir. 2008) (citation omitted). Thus, a motion to reconsider is “appropriate where,
for example, the Court has patently misunderstood a party, or has made a decision outside the
adversarial issues presented to the Court by the parties, or has made an error not of reasoning but
of apprehension.” Kapila v. Grant Thornton, LLP, No. 14-61194-CIV, 2017 WL 3638199, at *1
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(S.D. Fla. Aug. 23, 2017) (quoting Z.K. Marine Inc. v. M/V Archigetis, 808 F. Supp. 1561, 1563
(S.D. Fla. 1992) (internal quotation marks omitted). “Such problems rarely arise and the motion
to reconsider should be equally rare.” Burger King Corp., 181 F. Supp. 2d at 1369. Ultimately,
reconsideration is a decision that is “left ‘to the sound discretion’ of the reviewing judge.” Arch
Specialty Ins. Co. v. BP Inv. Partners, LLC, No. 6:18-cv-1149-Orl-78DCI, 2020 WL 5534280, at
*2 (M.D. Fla. Apr. 1, 2020) (quoting Region 8 Forest Serv. Timber Purchasers Council v. Alcock,
993 F.2d 800, 806 (11th Cir. 1993)).
III. 	DISCUSSION
Plaintiff raises two primary arguments. First, Plaintiff argues that the Court erred in not
considering the exhibits that Plaintiff ultimately filed. ECF No. [58] at 1. Second, Plaintiff argues
that even without those exhibits, summary judgment was improper. Id. at 7–18. The Court
considers these issues one at a time.
A. Whether the Court Should Have Considered Plaintiff’s Late-Filed Exhibits
Plaintiff’s first basis for reconsideration is that the Court erred in making its decision
without the benefit of Plaintiff’s 1,200 exhibits. ECF No. [58] at 1. Specifically, Plaintiff argues
that because the Dropbox link was on file for three months without objection and the Court gave
Plaintiff less than one day to appropriately file the exhibits, “Plaintiff was deprived of the
opportunity to have her full evidentiary record considered through circumstances entirely beyond
her control. Id. at 6–7.
Defendants respond that Plaintiff attempts to blame the Court and Defendants for her own
failure to timely file documents in compliance with procedural rules. ECF No. [62] at 2. Moreover,
reconsideration is not warranted because “Plaintiff had more than three months to properly submit
its summary judgment evidence, and this Court did not create any confusion about the deadlines
for Plaintiff’s filings.” Id. Thus, “Plaintiff should not be allowed to use Rule 59(e) to add or
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reformat evidence that was not properly before the court when it ruled.” Id. at 3.
Plaintiff replies that her exhibits were timely submitted, but the practical problem arose
with the Court’s Order requiring Plaintiff to refile the exhibits. ECF No. [63] at 1–2. Rather than
“gamesmanship, sandbagging, or a post-judgment attempt to create a new record,” this represented
“a good-faith effort to cure a filing-format issue after a same-day directive.” Id. at 2. Plaintiff
argues that a technical filing mistake should not result in judgment on all claims without
consideration of Plaintiff’s evidence. Id. at 3.
As 	an 	initial 	matter, 	as 	this 	District’s 	Case 	Management/Electronic 	Case 	Filing
Administrative Procedures make clear, “[a] hyperlink reference is extraneous to any filed
document and is not part of the Court’s record.” U.S. DISTRICT C OURT FOR THE S OUTHERN
DISTRICT OF FLORIDA , CM/ECF Administrative Procedures, 3G(4), https://www.flsd.uscourts.gov
/sites/flsd/files/25-06-26%20CMECF%20Administrative%20Procedures%20-%20effective%201
2-1-2025%20-%20FINAL.pdf (effective December 1, 2025). Several other courts confronting
similar situations have found that a hyperlink is not a substitute for filing evidence. See, e.g.,
Polywad, Inc. v. Able’s Sporting, Inc., No. 5:23-CV-00512-TES, 2024 WL 1744068, at *2 n.3
(M.D. Ga. Apr. 23, 2024); List Indus., Inc. v. List, No. 217CV2159JCMCWH, 2017 WL 3749593,
at *2 (D. Nev. Aug. 30, 2017); Pandya v. Bank of Am., No. C23-1947JLR, 2024 WL 1621076, at
*2 (W.D. Wash. Apr. 15, 2024); Heaton v. Gonzales, No. CV 21-463 JCH/KK, 2022 WL 843892,
at *8 (D.N.M. Mar. 22, 2022); Barnett v. Acker, No. 25-CV-6174 (CS), 2025 WL 2855629, at *5
n.7 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 8, 2025). The CM/ECF Administrative Procedures provide that, if Plaintiff’s
exhibits were too large to file as one submission, the proper protocol was to “save[] and transmit[
the document] in segments or attachments not exceeding 50 megabytes.” U.S. DISTRICT C OURT
FOR THE 	S OUTHERN 	DISTRICT OF 	FLORIDA, 	CM/ECF 	Administrative 	Procedures, 	3G(3),
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https://www.flsd.uscourts.gov/sites/flsd/files/25-06-26%20CMECF%20Administrative%
20Procedures%20-%20effective%2012-1-2025%20-%20FINAL.pdf 	(effective 	December 	1,
2025).
Moreover, notwithstanding the Court’s deadline to properly submit the relevant exhibits,
the Court did not rule on the Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment until two days later,
providing Plaintiff ample time to either file the relevant exhibits or otherwise indicate to the Court
that they were forthcoming. The Pioneer factors do not apply, because unlike in Glover v. City of
Pensacola, 372 F. App’x 952, 955 (11th Cir. 2010), the Court did not have late-filed evidence at
its disposal that it ignored when rendering its summary judgment decision. Rather, Plaintiff failed
to file the evidence two days later. In other words, it was not that the Court declined to consider
late-filed evidence that it had available; instead, the Court made a decision, after waiting two extra
days, to proceed without the claimed evidence, taking Plaintiff’s failure to file the exhibits as a
concession that Plaintiff did not seek to make the exhibits part of the record.
Finally, and most significantly, although Plaintiff asserts that the Court’s decision to issue
its summary judgment decision before receiving some of Plaintiff’s exhibits was clear error or
manifest injustice, Plaintiff fails to assert that this lack of consideration resulted in the Court
misunderstanding Plaintiff, the decision was outside the adversarial process, or an apprehension
of law or fact. Campero USA Corp. v. ADS Foodservice, LLC, 916 F. Supp. 2d 1284, 1292–93
(S.D. Fla. 2012). In other words, Plaintiff does not explain how the Court’s decision in the absence
of those exhibits resulted in the Court misapprehending the law or the facts. There was no factual
contention or argument by Plaintiff that the Court declined to consider based on the lack of those
exhibits at its disposal, so there was no impact on the Court’s legal reasoning.
The Court declines to reconsider its Order based on the argument that its failure to consider
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Plaintiff’s improperly filed exhibits constituted clear error or manifest injustice.
B. Whether the Court Erred Based on the Evidentiary Record Before It
Plaintiff argues that even without those exhibits, summary judgment was improper due to
(1) Plaintiff’s above-satisfactory evaluations in both cycles preceding removal; (2) chronology that
establishes or at least supports an inference of causation; (3) the strength of Plaintiff’s comparator
evidence; (4) the director’s contemporaneous finding that removal of Plaintiff from duty would
have been baseless; and (5) Plaintiff’s contemporaneous written statement attributing the discipline
to retaliation. Id. at 7–10. Plaintiff specifically argues that the Court overlooked two instances of
protected activity, weighed comparator and circumstantial evidence rather than viewing the mosaic
as a whole, improperly treated the alleged intervening misconduct as breaking causation as a matter
of law, and failed to recognize that the aggregate record presents a convincing mosaic. Id. at 12–
18.
Defendants respond that Plaintiff’s Motion “impermissibly re-hashes old arguments the
Court has already considered and rejected in its thorough, well-reasoned summary judgment
order.” ECF No. [62] at 3.
Plaintiff replies that rather than relitigating old arguments, she is pointing out manifest
errors of law or fact. ECF No. [63] at 4. Specifically, Plaintiff argues that her March 10, 2023
email was protected activity, that the temporal proximity between complaints and discipline
creates jury issues, that the whole record would permit a jury to infer discrimination or retaliation,
and that Defendants’ arguments about hearsay and self-serving evidence do not justify summary
judgment. Id. at 4–9.
The Court addresses Plaintiff’s arguments one at a time. By and large, Plaintiff merely
disagrees with the Court’s analysis and rehashes previous arguments. For instance, the Court
expressly noted and considered Plaintiff’s above-satisfactory evaluations in the cycles preceding
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removal. ECF No. [56] at 45. The Court simply found that, even with those evaluations in mind,
no jury could find discrimination or retaliation in light of the totality of the facts, in particular
Plaintiff’s intervening acts of misconduct. Id. at 51–52. As to the chronology of events, the Court
analyzed this matter in depth and did not agree with Plaintiff that it supported a finding of
discrimination or retaliation; Plaintiff merely reiterates the timeline she previously submitted to
the Court and does not point to legally cognizable errors in the Court’s ruling. Id. at 46–52. With
respect to Plaintiff’s comparator evidence, the Court thoroughly analyzed its relevance to the case,
finding 	the 	purported 	comparators 	“simply 	too 	different 	to 	support 	a 	finding 	of 	racial
discrimination,” id. at 39, or, in the case of Jenna Parmentor, reflective of preferential treatment
of people in Plaintiff’s protected classes. Id. at 35. As to Plaintiff’s claim that her opposition to the
statement of facts demonstrates that, during the incident in which Plaintiff called her captain
“sweetie,” the Director ordered the captain not to relieve Plaintiff, the Court has located nothing
in Plaintiff’s responsive statement of facts to this effect. As such, the Court does not find this to
be a basis for reconsideration.1 And as to Plaintiff’s contemporaneous written statement attributing
the discipline to retaliation, it is not clear how this evidence changes the Court’s analysis. There is
no doubt that Plaintiff subjectively believes disciplinary actions taken against her constitute
retaliation. Evidence that Plaintiff held this subjective belief at the time of the events does not
change whether the events, as a matter of law, do in fact constitute retaliation. In sum, all of the
purported errors in the Court’s reasoning are, in reality, mere disagreements with the Court’s
conclusions or attempts to re-argue how the Court should interpret evidence.
Plaintiff’s remaining arguments are generally equally unavailing. Plaintiff argues that the
1 Notably absent from Plaintiff’s Motion are citations to the record, which makes it difficult for the Court
to identify individual pieces of evidence to which Plaintiff refers.
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March 10, 2023 complaint constituted protected activity. ECF No. [58] at 11–12. The Court
directly addressed this issue and disagreed with Plaintiff. ECF No. [56] at 47–48. Plaintiff now
raises issues she sees in the Court’s reasoning, but the relevant standard to warrant reconsideration
is to identify that the Court “has made an error not of reasoning, but of apprehension.” Campero
USA Corp., 916 F. Supp. 2d at 1292–93. Plaintiff fails to point to facts or law that the Court
misapprehended.
Plaintiff also argues that the Order weighed comparator and circumstantial evidence rather
than viewing the mosaic as a whole. ECF No. [58] at 13. However, Plaintiff simply re-raises the
arguments she made in her initial Response, reiterating that the Court view the evidence
differently, which is inappropriate on a motion for reconsideration.
Plaintiff also argues that the Order improperly treated the alleged intervening misconduct
as breaking causation as a matter of law. Id. at 16. Plaintiff argues that whether the intervening
acts of misconduct broke the causal chain is a question of fact for the jury, and the Court
misunderstood the law on intervening acts of misconduct. Id. at 17. However, Plaintiff fails to cite
to any legal authority in support. To the contrary, the weight of authority is clear that courts can
find that an intervening act of misconduct severs any causal chain as a matter of law. See, e.g.,
Hankins v. AirTran Airways, Inc., 237 F. App’x 513, 521 (11th Cir. 2007). Thus, Plaintiff’s
contention also provides no basis for reconsideration.
Plaintiff further argues that the Court did not adequately consider the August 30, 2023 and
September 5, 2023 “escalating complaints,” which Plaintiff describes as “outcome-determinative.”
ECF No. [58] at 12. The Court did not analyze whether these interactions constituted protected
activity as Plaintiff did not offer and meaningful argument as to why these interactions constituted
protected activity, merely asserting in a conclusory fashion that they did. See ECF No. [43] at 5.
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Even in the instant Motion, Plaintiff provides no argument for why these complaints do constitute
protected activity. ECF No. [58] at 13. However, insofar as the Court did not make a finding
regarding the status of these complaints, the Court finds some additional consideration warranted.
As the Court stated in its Order, to establish protected activity under the “opposition
clause,” a plaintiff must show that she had a good faith and objectively reasonable belief that her
employer was engaged in unlawful employment practices. Anduze v. Fla. Atl. Univ., 151 F. App’x
875, 878 (11th Cir. 2005). “A plaintiff must not only show that he subjectively (that is, in good
faith) believed that his employer was engaged in unlawful employment practices, but also that his
belief was objectively reasonable in light of the facts and record presented.” Little v. United Techs.,
Carrier Transicold Div., 103 F.3d 956, 960 (11th Cir. 1997) (emphasis in original). “[T]he
allegations and record must also indicate that the belief, though perhaps mistaken, was objectively
reasonable.” Id.
As such, the inquiry is whether it was reasonable for Plaintiff to attribute her disciplinary
history up until August 30, 2023 and September 5, 2023 to discriminatory animus or retaliation.
In terms of cognizable adverse employment actions, Plaintiff had experienced being removed from
the Field Training Coordinator (“FTC”) position. ECF No. [37] at ¶ 23.2 But as the Court explained
in its Order, that removal was preceded by Plaintiff circulating a petition to remove a subordinate,
which was contrary to policy, ECF No. [37] at ¶ 26, and, as such, the Miami-Dade Police
Department was operating according to policy in disciplining her. Certainly, there was no
indication that Defendants took issue with White females, because Jenna Parmentor, a White
female sergeant, was—by Plaintiff’s admission—treated preferentially. ECF No. [37-2] at 100–
2 Though Plaintiff also alleges disproportionate workload and heightened scrutiny, the Court noted in its
Order that only the two Disciplinary Action Reports (“DARs”) and Plaintiff’s removal from the FTC
position constituted adverse employment activity, ECF No. [56] at 34.
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01. So even if it could be concluded that Plaintiff’s removal from the FTC position was not
attributable to the circulation of the petition, there does not appear to be any logical bridge to
Plaintiff’s race and sex. And in the absence of an objectively reasonable belief that unlawful
discrimination or retaliation had occurred, the Court finds that Plaintiff’s complaints cannot be
considered protected activity. To the extent they were not protected activity, the DAR cannot be
considered unlawful retaliation for protected activity.
Thus, having provided additional analysis in this Order, the Court does not find any error
in its ultimate conclusion that Plaintiff’s discrimination and retaliation claims fail as a matter of
law.
IV. 	CONCLUSION
Accordingly, it is ORDERED AND ADJUDGED that:
1. 	Petitioner’s Motion to Alter or Amend Judgment and for Reconsideration of Order
Granting Summary Judgment, ECF No. [58], is DENIED.
2. 	The Clerk of Court shall CLOSE this case.
3. 	To the extent not otherwise disposed of, any scheduled hearings are CANCELED, all
pending motions are DENIED AS MOOT, and all deadlines are TERMINATED.
DONE AND ORDERED in Chambers at Miami, Florida, on July 2, 2026.
_________________________________
BETH BLOOM
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
cc: 	counsel of record
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