On June 3, 2026, Florida's Third District Court of Appeal reversed a final summary judgment in Best&Beam Management, Inc. v. Silverstone, No. 3D25-1015, and re-enforced a rule that Florida civil practitioners already know but occasionally see tested at the summary judgment stage: a trial court cannot grant summary judgment on a theory that was never pled in the complaint. The decision is short — a per curiam reversal running just over one page — but the citations behind it stretch back to 1985, and the practice-level implications reach well beyond the landlord-tenant setting in which the case arose.
The Case
Marc Silverstone, a tenant, sued Best&Beam Management, Inc. in Miami-Dade County Court on a breach-of-lease theory. At summary judgment, the trial court concluded that a series of text messages between Silverstone and the property manager had modified the written terms of the lease and entered summary judgment in Silverstone's favor on that basis.
The problem: Silverstone had never pled modification. His complaint alleged breach of the written lease, full stop.
Reversing per curiam, a panel of Judges Lindsey, Gordo, and Gooden held that "a trial court cannot grant summary judgment on an unpled theory" and remanded. The opinion runs a single substantive paragraph, but the string cite behind it does the heavy lifting.
The Rule and Its Roots
The Third DCA has been consistent on this point for four decades. The Best&Beam panel cited four decisions:
- Fernandez v. Florida National College, Inc., 925 So. 2d 1096, 1101 (Fla. 3d DCA 2006): "[I]ssues that are not pled in a complaint cannot be considered by the trial court at a summary judgment hearing."
- Carroll & Associates, P.A. v. Galindo, 864 So. 2d 24, 29 (Fla. 3d DCA 2003): "To allow a court to rule on a matter without proper pleadings and notice is violative of a party's due process rights."
- Hemisphere National Bank v. Goudie, 504 So. 2d 785, 786 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987): a complaint must be "broad enough" to include the claim the court is being asked to adjudicate.
- Reina v. Gingerale Corp., 472 So. 2d 530, 531 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985): "At a summary judgment hearing, the court must only consider those issues made by the pleadings."
Read together, these decisions plant the rule squarely on due-process ground. The complaint is what gives the opposing party a fair opportunity to develop discovery and defenses tailored to the theory actually in the case. When a court adjudicates a matter outside that framework, it deprives the opposing party of any meaningful chance to litigate against it — a structural defect that reversal is meant to correct.
What Plaintiffs' Counsel Should Take Away
The tactical instinct in Florida civil practice is often to draft a lean, direct complaint and let discovery develop the alternative theories. Best&Beam is a reminder that this approach carries hidden cost at summary judgment. If the operative facts might support both a straight breach claim on the written contract and a modification-by-conduct theory, plead both. If they might support both a breach claim and a waiver or estoppel theory, plead them all. Florida's pleading regime does not forgive at summary judgment the failure to plead a theory the plaintiff hopes to argue.
Amending under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.190(a) is available, but the "when justice so requires" standard is not a substitute for careful pleading at the outset. And a motion to amend filed at or near the summary-judgment stage, particularly one meant to accommodate a newly-articulated theory, invites the sort of prejudice objection that trial courts will take seriously. Better to plead broadly at the front end than to test the elasticity of Rule 1.190 at the back end.
What Defense Counsel Should Take Away
Best&Beam is a fresh addition to the objection quiver. When a plaintiff's summary judgment argument drifts beyond the theories in the operative complaint, object early, object clearly on the record, and cite Best&Beam alongside Fernandez, Carroll, Hemisphere, and Reina. The Third DCA has now given practitioners a 2026 authority that summarizes the rule with unusual concision and connects it to nearly forty years of consistent Third District precedent.
The objection is worth preserving even where the underlying facts appear undisputed. As Best&Beam illustrates, a trial court's willingness to reach the "obvious" answer on an unpled theory is not a shortcut the appellate court will endorse. Reversal on this ground is remarkably clean: no fact-intensive review, no harmless-error analysis. The complaint either includes the theory or it does not.
The Broader Trend: Text Messages and Contract Modification
The substantive question that the trial court reached — whether text messages between a tenant and property manager can modify a written lease — is one Florida courts will continue to see with increasing frequency. Traditional integration clauses, statute-of-frauds analysis, and course-of-dealing principles will do most of the work when that question is properly presented. But Best&Beam is a reminder that whichever way the substantive analysis cuts, the theory does not get reached at summary judgment unless it is in the pleadings.
For a practitioner drafting a modern commercial or residential lease complaint in a jurisdiction where informal digital communications increasingly sit alongside written agreements, the practical response is to include a modification count — or an affirmative pleading of the subsequent-agreement facts — whenever the operative dealings include text messages, emails, or other informal channels that might later carry the argument. That approach preserves optionality at summary judgment without requiring the client to bet the case on any single theory.
The Bottom Line
Best&Beam Management, Inc. v. Silverstone is a short opinion with a long lesson. The Third DCA reversed because a trial court cannot grant summary judgment on a theory the plaintiff never pled — a rule that has been the law of the Third District for four decades and now carries a fresh 2026 citation. For plaintiffs, the message is to plead comprehensively. For defendants, it is to hold the plaintiff to what has actually been pled. For trial courts, it is a reminder that the pleadings define the theater within which summary judgment operates, and stepping outside that theater is reversible error.