Hartley v. Floyd, BR-347

• Decision Date: 01 September 1987
• Docket Number: No. BR-347,BR-347
• Citation: 512 So.2d 1022,12 Fla. L. Weekly 2098
• Parties: 12 Fla. L. Weekly 2098 Pat HARTLEY, Sheriff of Levy County, and Agricultural Excess and Surplus Insurance Company, Appellants, v. Susan FLOYD, as Personal Representative of the Estate of James Edward Floyd and on Behalf of the Estate, Susan Floyd and Kristin Floyd, Appellees.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 1022

512 So.2d 1022

12 Fla. L. Weekly 2098

Pat HARTLEY, Sheriff of Levy County, and Agricultural Excess and Surplus Insurance Company, Appellants, v. Susan FLOYD, as Personal Representative of the Estate of James Edward Floyd and on Behalf of the Estate, Susan Floyd and Kristin Floyd, Appellees.

No. BR-347.

District Court of Appeal of Florida,

First District.

Sept. 1, 1987.

Julius F. Parker, Jr., of Parker, Skelding, McVoy & Labasky, Tallahassee, for appellants.

Rodney D. McGalliard and Raymond F. Brady, of McGalliard, Mills & deMontmollin, Gainesville, for appellees.

THOMPSON, Judge.

This is an appeal from a final judgment in favor of the plaintiffs in a wrongful death action. We affirm.

James Floyd, the husband of appellee Susan Floyd and the father of appellee Kristin Floyd, drowned in the Gulf of Mexico off Cedar Key at approximately 5:00 p.m. on June 1, 1982. He and four others had set out from Cedar Key on May 29 in a 24 foot open fishing boat. The boat capsized during the early hours of May 30 and for approximately the next 60 hours Floyd and his companions kept afloat using life preservers and taking turns resting on the hull of the overturned boat. At some point during the ordeal Floyd suffered an ankle injury when part of the capsized boat began to break up. At around 5:00 p.m. on June 1st, less than one-half hour before a Coast Guard helicopter found and rescued the four survivors, Floyd lost the strength to keep his head above water and to cling to the boat. At the time of Floyd's death his wife was four and one-half months pregnant with Kristin, who is now four and one-half years old.

Prior to leaving their Gainesville home for the planned two-day fishing trip, Floyd told his wife to expect him back on the afternoon of May 31. When Floyd had not arrived home by midnight on the 31st his wife called the Levy County Sheriff's Office to request assistance in locating her husband. She made her first call to the sheriff's office at approximately 12:20 a.m. on June 1 and reported to Deputy Legler that Floyd and his friends were overdue from a fishing trip. She advised that they had been driving a blue Chevrolet Surburban truck and requested that the sheriff's office check the Cedar Key boat ramp to determine whether the Surburban and boat trailer were still there. The sheriff admits that Deputy Legler promised to have someone check the Cedar Key boat ramp, and that he did not do so. When Mrs. Floyd called back approximately 40 minutes later the deputy told her that the boat ramp had been checked and her husband's truck was not there. The sheriff also admits that based on Deputy Legler's representation that her husband's truck and trailer were no longer at the boat ramp, Mrs. Floyd assumed that the fishermen had returned safely to Cedar Key, trailered their boat, and were on their way home. The sheriff further admits that in reliance on the erroneous information Mrs. Floyd made no additional effort to locate her husband for approximately five hours. At around 5:45 a.m. and again at around 7:00 a.m., having heard no word concerning her husband and his friends, Mrs. Floyd called the sheriff's office only to be told again that the boat ramp had been checked and that her husband's truck and trailer were...