Holderbaum v. Itco Holding Co., Inc., 3D98-2594.
| Decision Date | 15 March 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. 3D98-2594.,3D98-2594. |
| Citation | 753 So.2d 699 |
| Parties | Pamela G. HOLDERBAUM, individually, as natural parent and guardian of Nicole Amy Holderbaum, a minor, and as Personal Representative of the Estate of Stacy Holderbaum, Deceased, Appellants, v. ITCO HOLDING COMPANY, INC., f/k/a Itco Tire Company, Inc., a foreign corporation, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Joseph R. Fields, Jr., West Palm Beach; Marjorie Gadarian Graham, Palm Beach Gardens, for appellants.
Fazio, Dawson, DiSalvo, Cannon, Abers, Podrecca & Fazio, Fort Lauderdale, and David B. Pakula, Miami, for appellee.
Before SCHWARTZ, C.J., and GREEN and FLETCHER, JJ.
The plaintiffs are the survivors of a deceased employee. They appeal from an adverse summary judgment upholding the defense of workers' compensation immunity in a wrongful death action against his employer. We affirm.
On orders from his superior, Holderbaum, Quinones was laid off from his job at the Itco Tire Company. When he was informed, Quinones, in the presence of other supervisory employees, threatened Holderbaum's life. Later that day, he made the threat good by murdering1 Holderbaum with a pistol the employees knew he kept at the workplace.
The story is a very compelling one indeed, and the employees may have been negligent—perhaps grossly or even culpably so—in, as they said, not taking Quinones or his threats seriously under the circumstances. Nevertheless, we conclude as a matter of law that—objectively viewed as required by Turner v. PCR, Inc., 754 So.2d 683, 685-88 (Fla. 2000)— their mistakes in failing to remove him or his weapon from the premises or to warn Holderbaum prior to the shooting, neither "exhibit[ed] a deliberate intent to injure [n]or ... [were] substantially certain to result in injury or death" so as to constitute an intentional tort and thus overcome Itco's workers' compensation immunity. § 440.11(1), Fla. Stat. (1995); Turner, 754 So.2d at 687; Kline v. Rubio, 652 So.2d 964 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995), review denied, 660 So.2d 714 (Fla.1995).
In Boynton v. Burglass, 590 So.2d 446 (Fla. 3d DCA 1991), this court held that because, among other things, any predictions of a person's future dangerousness are necessarily so uncertain, a psychiatrist has no duty of reasonable care to warn a victim about a patient's subsequently realized threats to kill him. Accord Green v. Ross, 691 So.2d 542 (Fla. 2d DCA 1997). Boynton is the...
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...we cannot find that they rise to the level of an intentional tort required to invoke the Turner exception. See Holderbaum v. Itco Holding Co., 753 So.2d 699 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000), review denied, No. SC00-1121, 776 So.2d 275 (Fla.2000)(failure to warn of later realized specific threat to kill e......
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Medlen v. Estate of Meyers
...or willful, wanton, reckless and unlawful misconduct," is not enough to allege an intentional tort); Holderbaum v. Itco Holding Co., Inc., 753 So.2d 699, 699 (Fla. App.2000) (laid off employee killed co-worker with a pistol kept at the workplace; court concluded "[employer's] mistakes in fa......
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Sierra v. Associated Marine Institutes, Inc.
...have foreseen that an employee, angry at being laid off, would make good on his threat against his supervisor. Holderbaum v. Itco Holding Co., 753 So.2d 699 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000). None of those cases involved the situation here, in which an employer is alleged to have knowingly placed an unpro......
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