Department of Transp. v. Anglin

• Decision Date: 05 February 1987
• Docket Number: Nos. 67599,67600,s. 67599
• Citation: 502 So.2d 896,12 Fla. L. Weekly 93
• Parties: 12 Fla. L. Weekly 93 DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, Petitioner, v. Cleopatra Gayle ANGLIN, et al., Respondents. SEABOARD COAST LINE RAILROAD COMPANY, Petitioner, v. Cleopatra Gayle ANGLIN, et al., Respondents.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 896

502 So.2d 896

12 Fla. L. Weekly 93

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, Petitioner, v. Cleopatra Gayle ANGLIN, et al., Respondents.

SEABOARD COAST LINE RAILROAD COMPANY, Petitioner, v. Cleopatra Gayle ANGLIN, et al., Respondents.

Nos. 67599, 67600.

Supreme Court of Florida.

Feb. 5, 1987.

Ronald W. Brooks of Brooks & Callahan, Tallahassee, for State of Florida Dept. of Transp.

C. DuBose Ausley, William M. Smith and Stephen C. Emmanuel of Ausley, McMullen, McGehee, Carothers & Proctor, Tallahassee, for Seaboard System Railroad, Inc.

William Whitaker, Karl O. Koepke and Hurley P. Whitaker of Whitaker & Koepke, Chartered, Orlando, for respondents.

EHRLICH, Justice.

We have for our review Anglin v. Department of Transportation, 472 So.2d 784 (Fla. 1st DCA 1985), wherein the district court relied on our decision in Gibson v. Avis Rent-a-Car System, Inc., 386 So.2d 520 (Fla.1980), which involved a materially different factual situation in arriving at its conclusion. We have jurisdiction, article V, section 3(b)(3), Florida Constitution, and quash the decision below.

Cleopatra Anglin, her husband and his brother were driving their 1965 model pickup truck on alternate U.S. 27 in rural Polk County on the evening of September 3, 1979. It had been raining throughout the day as a result of Hurricane David. At approximately 8:30 p.m. it was still drizzling when the Anglins crossed a Seaboard Coast Line Railroad track and drove through a six-inch deep puddle of water which covered both lanes of the highway. The water evidently doused the truck's engine, causing it to sputter for some distance before it finally died. The Anglins pushed their vehicle off the side of the road and unsuccessfully attempted to restart it. The Anglin brothers then pushed their vehicle back on the roadway and attempted to start it by having Mrs. Anglin "pop the clutch" once the truck reached a certain speed. After pushing the vehicle approximately one hundred yards up a small incline, the roadway leveled off. It appears from the record that Mrs. Anglin was not adept at starting an engine by popping the clutch, so her husband stopped pushing, ran forward to the driver's seat and jumped in, while his brother continued pushing the vehicle; Mrs. Anglin exited the vehicle, joined her brother-in-law and started pushing. At this point, approximately fifteen minutes after the Anglin's truck hit the puddle of water, a truck driven by Edward DuBose passed the Anglins heading in the opposite direction; someone in the DuBose vehicle yelled to the Anglins that they would be back to help. According to the testimony below DuBose traveled a short distance, slammed on his brakes, spun around before reaching the puddle of water, and headed back toward the Anglin's vehicle. With the engine roaring and at a speed approaching forty miles per hour, DuBose failed to stop and slammed into the back of the Anglin's truck. Mrs. Anglin was pinned between the two vehicles causing injuries which resulted in amputation of both her legs.

The Anglins filed a complaint against Seaboard and the Department of Transportation alleging negligence in the design of the railroad tracks and the roadway by allowing the accumulation of water on the roadway immediately adjacent to the tracks. The defendants filed a motion for summary judgment which was granted by the trial court who reasoned that, as a matter of law, the actions of the Anglins in leaving their place of safety and placing their disabled vehicle back on the highway, plus the actions of DuBose in losing control of his vehicle, were independent, efficient intervening causes of the accident which broke the chain of causation between the defendants' alleged negligence and the plaintiff's injury.

The district court reversed, finding that "it cannot be said as a matter of law that an injury to plaintiff was not within the scope of danger or risk arising out of the alleged negligence." 472 So.2d at 787.

Even assuming that petitioners were negligent in allowing this pooling of water on the highway adjacent to the railroad track, we disagree with the district court's conclusion and find that, as a matter of law, the actions of DuBose constituted an independent, efficient, intervening cause of the Anglins' injuries. Liability for these injuries, therefore, may not legally be attached to any conduct of the petitioners.

The district court's analysis of what constitutes an independent, efficient, intervening cause correctly concludes that for the original negligent actor to be relieved of liability, the intervening cause must be "truly independent of and not 'set in motion' by the original negligence." 472 So.2d at 787. According to the district court, if an intervening cause is reasonably foreseeable the original negligent defendant may still be held liable; whether an intervening cause is foreseeable is a question for the trier of fact. Id. at 788. The district court relied on our decision in Gibson for these principles and evidently the court viewed the defendants' negligently allowing a puddle of water to stand in the road as an act which "set in motion" a chain of events which culminated in the Anglins' injuries. We disagree with this conclusion. While it is undisputed that petitioners' negligence was a factual cause of the Anglins' predicament (i.e., "but for" the puddle of water, the Anglins' vehicle would not have stalled), petitioners' negligence simply provided the occasion for the negligence of another. See, e.g., Metropolitan Dade County v. Colina, 456 So.2d 1233 (Fla. 3d DCA 1984), review denied, 464 So.2d 554 (Fla.1985); Pope v. Cruise Boat Co., 380 So.2d 1151 (Fla. 3d DCA 1980).

The district court has read our decision in Gibson too broadly and has applied it to a materially different factual situation. In Gibson we recognized that a negligent party is not liable for another's injuries when a separate force or action is the active and efficient intervening cause, the sole proximate cause or an independent cause. 386 So.2d at 522. However, we distinguished this principle from situations where the original negligent conduct "sets in motion" the chain of events which culminates in injury to the plaintiff. Id. It was in this context that we stated: "If an intervening cause is foreseeable the original negligent actor may still be held liable. The question of whether an intervening cause is foreseeable is for the trier of fact." Id. The negligent conduct at issue in Gibson did set in motion a chain of events which resulted in the plaintiff's injuries. The defendant, Arata, while intoxicated, stopped his car in one of the inner lanes of an interstate highway, causing a second car to stop behind him which in turn caused Gibson to stop behind the second car; once Gibson stopped, a fourth car driven by McNealy struck Gibson's car forcing it into the second car. The trial court granted Arata's motion for directed verdict but denied McNealy's, ruling that McNealy's negligence was an efficient, intervening cause. Id. at 521. We held that this was error and found that in this context a jury question was presented because Arata's stopping his car in a lane of an interstate highway set in motion a chain of events which a reasonable person could have foreseen would create "a risk that other cars may collide as a result of trying to avoid...