Category:Affirmative Defense

An “Affirmative Defense” is any defense that assumes the Complaint or charges to be correct but raises other facts that, if true, would establish a valid excuse or justification or a right to engage in the conduct in question. An affirmative defense does not concern itself with the elements of the offense at all; it concedes them. In effect, an affirmative defense says, “Yes, I did it, but I had a good reason.” State v. Cohen, 568 So.2d 49, 51-52 (Fla. 1990). Stated differently, an affirmative defense is any matter that avoids the action and that, under applicable law, the plaintiff is not bound to prove initially but the defendant must affirmatively establish. Langford v. McCormick, 552 So.2d 964, 967 (Fla. 1st DCA 1989).

This Category contains topics that discuss legal doctrines recognized as an Affirmative Defense in the State of Florida.