Gerow v. Schrock · Nos. 2D2025-0933 and 2D2025-1015 (Fla. 2d DCA) · Decided October 2, 2026
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A Pasco County condominium owner’s testimony that a neighbor in the complex banged on his door, mocked him, drove up to the edge of the road where he was walking, and sat across the room from him at an association meeting did not show the “substantial emotional distress” required for a stalking injunction based on harassment, the Second District Court of Appeal has held. The court affirmed the denial of both of his petitions.
What Happened
Eric Gerow owns a condominium unit in Pasco County, and David Schrock rents a unit in the same complex. According to the opinion, animosity developed when Schrock began parking his work truck in the complex lot and letting nonresident coworkers do the same. Gerow, a member of the condominium association board, told Schrock a county ordinance prohibited that, and when Schrock did not comply, Gerow contacted Pasco County code enforcement. Gerow alleged this angered Schrock and led to incidents of harassment beginning in August 2023. Gerow filed two petitions for injunctions for protection against stalking. He represented himself on appeal.
At a March 2025 hearing on the first petition, Gerow testified to about fifty to sixty interactions with Schrock, but on cross-examination said Schrock actually approached him only about a dozen times. Gerow testified that early on Schrock challenged him to fights, and that after Gerow called the police, Schrock would yell “bizarre random things” and loudly “catcall and screech” at him. He described Schrock coming to his door with another man and a woman and banging on it for “several minutes” while yelling for him to come out; Gerow did not open the door. He testified that on another occasion, while he walked on the side of the road into the complex, Schrock drove out, “steered right up to the edge of the road,” “flicked his headlights on and off,” and “almost clipped me with his [side]view mirror.” By his own testimony, Gerow was walking in the grass, Schrock’s vehicle did not leave the roadway, and Gerow had to move further from the road; he did not report that incident to the police. He also testified that Schrock showed up at his gym next to the complex, where Schrock worked out but never spoke to him.
The trial court denied the first petition. Gerow’s second petition alleged continued harassment. He testified that a few days after the first denial, Schrock and two coworkers, none of whom owned units, attended a homeowners association meeting for the complex; that Schrock set up a folding chair “directly opposite me, parallel to me”; that Schrock smirked at him; and that afterward Schrock mockingly told him to file another injunction. Gerow produced eighteen photographs he took of Schrock at the meeting, which the court said showed Schrock was on the opposite side of the room. The trial court denied that petition too, concluding that “no reasonable person could suffer substantial emotional distress based on the conduct that was testified to.” Schrock did not file an appearance in the consolidated appeals.
What the Court Held
Because Gerow alleged harassment, the court explained, section 784.048 required him to show that Schrock’s conduct caused “substantial emotional distress,” which the statute’s definition of “harass” requires. Quoting its earlier decision in Abercrombie v. Nenneman, 401 So. 3d 614 (Fla. 2d DCA 2025), the court applied a reasonable-person standard, not a subjective one, under which annoyance, frustration, or embarrassment will not suffice.
“While Gerow’s testimony evidences that Schrock’s behavior was at times annoying, frustrating, and embarrassing, we agree with the trial court that it is not competent substantial evidence of substantial emotional distress using the reasonable person standard,” the court wrote. “Schrock’s actions were obnoxious, but by his own testimony, Gerow typically ignored him and walked away.” The court noted that Schrock, as a resident, has a right to be present throughout the complex and at neighboring businesses, and that “[c]alling out mockingly to Gerow is certainly childish.” The door-banging and roadway incidents “certainly would be distressing in the moment,” the court said, but the required distress must be greater than an ordinary feeling of distress. It held the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the first petition.
As to the second petition, the court found the trial court’s conclusion supported by competent substantial evidence. Gerow’s testimony established only that Schrock and two coworkers attended a public meeting, sat across the room, and attempted to mock him, and Gerow “remained at the meeting and, in fact, openly took eighteen photographs of Schrock.”
Gerow also argued on appeal that substantial emotional distress is not required when a stalking petition rests on allegations that the respondent willfully, maliciously, and repeatedly “follow[ed]” the petitioner, because that requirement appears in the statutory definitions of “harass” and “cyberstalk” but not in the description of following. The court did not decide that question. It held Gerow had not preserved the argument by raising it in the trial court and had not raised it as fundamental error, so it was “not properly before this court.”
Judge Sleet wrote the opinion, joined by Judges LaRose and Morris.
Why It Matters
The opinion applies the Second District’s reasonable-person standard for substantial emotional distress to a dispute between neighbors who share a complex, treating conduct the court called obnoxious and childish as falling short of what a harassment-based stalking injunction requires. It leaves open whether a petition based on a person who “follows” another must show the same distress. On the same day, in Wolfe v. Martinez, the Second District reversed a Hillsborough County order that summarily denied a neighbor’s petition for an injunction against repeat violence, holding that the petition’s allegations entitled him to an evidentiary hearing.
The Opinion
Download the full opinion (PDF)
| Court | Second District Court of Appeal |
| Case No. | 2D2025-0933 and 2D2025-1015 (consolidated) |
| Lower Court | Circuit Court, Pasco County (Judges Kemba J. Lewis and Dustin Anderson) |
| Opinion by | Judge Sleet (Judges LaRose and Morris concurring) |
| Decided | October 2, 2026 |
| Result | Affirmed (both orders) |