Hadley v. Davjoy, Inc.

• Decision Date: 23 December 1992
• Docket Number: 91-2842,Nos. 91-2535,s. 91-2535
• Citation: 613 So.2d 49
• Parties: 18 Fla. L. Week. D94 Mildred J. HADLEY and Curtis Hadley, her husband, Appellants, v. DAVJOY, INC., d/b/a Holiday Inn Plantation and Sico, Incorporated, a Minnesota corporation, Appellees.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 49

613 So.2d 49

18 Fla. L. Week. D94

Mildred J. HADLEY and Curtis Hadley, her husband Appellants, v. DAVJOY, INC., d/b/a Holiday Inn Plantation and Sico Incorporated, a Minnesota corporation, Appellees.

Nos. 91-2535, 91-2842.

District Court of Appeal of Florida Fourth District.

Dec. 23, 1992.

Rehearings Denied March 4, 1993.

Peter N. Feld of Peter N. Feld, P.A., Fort Lauderdale, for appellants.

Linda R. Spaulding of Conrad, Scherer & James, Fort Lauderdale, for appellee-Davjoy, Inc., d/b/a Holiday Inn.

DOWNEY, JAMES C., Senior Judge.

In these consolidated cases appellants, Mildred and Curtis Hadley, appeal from summary judgments granted to the defendants in each of said cases.

It appears that Mildred and Curtis were guests at a wedding reception held at the Holiday Inn Plantation. While they were dancing, Mildred stepped backwards off the edge of the dance floor, fell and was injured. Suit was commenced against the owner of the premises, Davjoy, Inc., d/b/a Holiday Inn Plantation, charging the defendant-owner with negligently maintaining its premises by utilizing a temporary dance floor with a steep drop-off on the edges and with failure to warn of said dangerous condition. The amended complaint further charged appellee, Sico International, as manufacturer of the temporary dance floor, with negligent design thereof due to the steep drop-off between the dance floor and the hotel banquet hall floor.

A Uniform Pretrial Order and Order Setting Trial was entered in March 12, 1991, which required the parties to disclose their respective expert witnesses "60 days before the beginning of the trial period [the referenced trial period was "two weeks commencing June 17, 1991."] The Hadleys filed a notice of expert witnesses on April 22, 1991, naming two doctors. On May 6, 1991, the Hadleys filed a supplemental notice of expert witnesses naming Ronald Zollo, an engineering expert. A motion to strike said notice as untimely was filed. The Hadleys moved to compel an examination of the premises and, on May 9, 1991, the court struck the untimely notice of expert witness and denied the Hadleys' motion to allow their expert Zollo to examine the premises. Shortly thereafter, Holiday Inn filed its motion for summary judgment, which was granted, and final judgment was entered for appellee Holiday Inn Plantation on July 20, 1991.

On August 2, 1991, the Hadleys filed a motion to add Roland Zollo as an expert witness, stating therein that the case was not tried during the original setting in June and was reset for October 7, 1991. An agreed order was entered allowing the addition of Zollo as an expert witness for the Hadleys.

On August 9, 1991, Sico filed its motion for summary judgment. The Hadleys then filed an affidavit by their expert, Zollo, stating that, after an inspection of the temporary dance floor in question, he found it to be an unreasonably dangerous design with thirty degree excessive slope on the edges. Nevertheless, the trial court entered final summary judgment for Sico finding, as a matter of law, that the condition of the dance floor does not constitute a dangerous condition.

On the basis of the record presented and existing legal precedent, we hold that the trial court committed reversible error in granting summary judgments in favor of the two appellees herein.

In the case of Sico, the record contained the affidavit of Ronald Zollo, a civil and architectural engineer whose substantial qualifications were attached to his affidavit. His affidavit sets forth the opinion that the dance floor in question was negligently designed due to the excessive slope on the edges of the floor. That, in combination...