Wallace v. Boca Raton Properties, Inc.
| Decision Date | 07 January 1958 |
| Docket Number | No. 57-9,57-9 |
| Citation | 99 So.2d 637 |
| Parties | William D. WALLACE, Appellant, v. BOCA RATON PROPERTIES, Inc., a Florida corporation, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Ferrell & Young, Miami, for appellant.
Dixon, DeJarnette, Bradford & Williams, and M. R. Adkins, Miami, for appellee.
This is an appeal from a summary judgment rendered in favor of the defendant, in an action for personal injuries filed in the Circuit Court of Dade County.
The appellant, who was the plaintiff below, alleged that he was a sports writer for a Miami newspaper, assigned by the paper to cover a golf tournament held at the defendant's hotel and club property; that defendant's servants placed him at a table in front of a scoreboard to enable him to report the tournament; that the scoreboard was not anchored securely and that it fell on him causing the injuries complained of; that the unsecured scoreboard rendered the premises unsafe, which fact was known or should have been known to defendant; and that he was not warned of the hazard.
By its answer the defendant denied negligence and pleaded contributory negligence, and that the accident was due to an act of God.
The defendant took the plaintiff's deposition on discovery, and then moved for summary judgment relying expressly on plaintiff's deposition in support of the motion.
The assignments of error challenged the entry of the summary judgment, and particularly the finding inherent therein that plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law.
The initial consideration here is the relationship of the parties and the consequent nature of the duty owed to the plaintiff by the defendant as occupier of the premises. From the pleadings and plaintiff's deposition it is shown that the tournament was a business promotional undertaking of the defendant; that defendant invited newspaper coverage of the tournament, and that plaintiff was an experienced golf tournament reporter assigned by his paper to that duty; that he became a guest of the hotel for that purpose; that he arrived at defendant's hotel the night before the tournament, and his room and meals were furnished to him free by defendant; that defendant assigned him a table located a few feet in front of the scoreboard, on which he was to work making notes of the names of the entries, their home towns or addresses, their scores and the progress of the tournament; that there were three scoreboards placed end to end located on the golf course grounds; that a wind of about 25 to 30 miles per hour was blowing; and that under those conditions he worked in the morning for an hour and a half or two hours in front of the scoreboards, after which the scoreboard in question blew over and struck him on the head, with certain results not necessary to detail here.
On the motion for summary judgment, the plaintiff was entitled to be regarded as an invitee, applying the rule that the court should indulge all proper inferences in favor of the party against whom a summary judgment is requested. Yost v. Miami Transit Co., Fla.1953, 66 So.2d 214, 215; Delany v. Breeding's Homestead Drug Co., Fla.1957, 93 So.2d 116, 119.
Thus, plaintiff was in a position of one who, although on the defendant's premises in his own business interest and that of the newspaper which employed him, was there as the invited guest of the defendant to assist in defendant's promotional tournament. That would make his presence on the premises one for the mutual aid of both the plaintiff and the defendant, and make him an invitee as distinguished from a mere licensee. McNulty v. Hurley, Fla.1957, 97 So.2d 185, 188.
The defendant owed to such invitee the duty to keep the premises in a reasonably safe condition and to guard against subjecting the plaintiff to dangers of which the owner or occupant was cognizant or might reasonably have foreseen. First Federal Savings & Loan Ass'n v. Wylie, Fla.1950, 46 So.2d 396; Messner v. Webb's City, Fla.1952, 62 So.2d 66; McNulty v. Hurley, supra.
In view of the invitee status of the plaintiff, the resulting duty owed to him by defendant, plaintiff's charge that such duties were violated, and defendant's...
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