“’In determining the merits of a motion to dismiss, the trial court must limit itself to the four corners of the complaint, including any attached or incorporated exhibits, assuming the allegations in the complaint to be true and construing all reasonable inferences therefrom in favor of the non-moving party.”Zurich Am. Ins. Co. v. Puccini, LLC, 2019 WL 454222, *1 (Fla. 3d DCA 2019) (citation omitted).   The standard of review associated with reviewing a trial court’s order granting a motion to dismiss with prejudice is de novo.  Id.  

In Puccini, a commercial tenant operating a restaurant caused a fire. The fire resulted in significant damage to the commercial landlord’s building – the landlord’s property insurer paid it over $2.1 Million.    The insurer then, as a subrogee to the landlord, brought a subrogation action against the tenant that caused the fire damage.  The trial court granted the tenant’s motion to dismiss the subrogation action based on the tenant’s argument that it was an implied co-insured under the landlord’s insurance policy and, of course, an insurer cannot pursue a subrogation action against its own insured. 

The appellate court reversed the trial court’s dismissal finding that to determine whether a landlord’s insurer can pursue a subrogation action against a tenant, a court needs to adopt the case-by-case approach.  Under this approach, “there is no presumption if favor of or against subrogation; rather, the [commercial] lease-as-a-whole is examined in order to ascertain the intent of the parties as to who should bear the risk of loss for damage to the leased premises caused by the tenant’s negligence.”  Puccini, 2019 WL at *2 (internal quotations omitted).   The appellate court, examining the lease-as-a-whole attached as an exhibit to the lawsuit, found that the tenant bore the risk of negligence and was not an implied co-insured with the landlord.

Please contact David Adelstein at dadelstein@gmail.com or (954) 361-4720 if you have questions or would like more information regarding this article. You can follow David Adelstein on Twitter @DavidAdelstein1.

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I have previously discussed proposals for settlement / offers of judgment (“proposals for settlement”).  A proposal for settlement is a statutory vehicle pursuant to both Florida Statute s. 768.79 and Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.442 to create an argument to recover attorney’s fees based on the judgment amount.  (See this article for more on proposals for settlement).

For a plaintiff (party seeking affirmative relief), the plaintiff must obtain a judgment 25% greater than the proposal for settlement amount. When there are multiple defendants, the plaintiff needs to serve a proposal for settlement on each defendant. 

In Cassedy, Jr. v. Wood,44 Fla.L.Weekly D422a (Fla. 1st DCA 2019), a landlord sued his tenants for breach of a lease when the tenants vacated the property and stopped paying rent.  The lease agreement provided that if collection was required by the landlord, the tenant was required to pay 10% of the judgment amount to cover attorney’s fees.  I have no clue why the attorney’s provision in the lease included this language versus the standard prevailing party attorney’s fees language.

The landlord, obviously knowing the lease would not make him whole for purposes of recovering his attorney’s fees based on that interesting attorney’s fees language, also served a proposal for settlement on each of his tenants.  The proposal for settlement required each tenant, independent of the other tenants, to pay the landlord $25,000.   If the landlord recovered a judgment 25% greater than any proposal for settlement amount, the landlord would now have an argument to recover his attorney’s fees from the date he served the proposal for settlement on forward.

The landlord recovered a judgment of $83,657.60 against the tenants.  The tenants were jointly and severally liable for this amount, meaning they were ALL on the hook for this total amount and the landlord could collect this judgment amount from any one or a combination of the tenants.  This makes sense since likely all of the tenants were on the lease and signed the lease.

The trial court denied attorney’s fees pursuant to the proposal for settlements, which was subject to a de novo standard of appellate review.  The appellate court reversed.

The tenants argued the separate $25,000 proposal for settlement amounts should be aggregated (totaling $75,000) for purposes of determining whether the judgment amount was 25% greater than the proposals for settlement amount for purposes of determining whether attorney’s fees should be awarded.  This was shot down on appeal.  There is no requirement that separate proposals for settlement be aggregated and there was no dispute that the landlord recovered a judgment against all the defendants ($83,657.6) 25% greater than the $25,000 proposal for settlement amounts, especially since all of the tenants were jointly and severally liable for the judgment.

The tenants also argued that the landlord could not recover attorney’s fees pursuant to the lease and also through a proposal for settlement.  This was shot down on appeal.  “Based on the imposition of a penalty pursuant to section 768.79 [Florida Statutes] and its mandatory application if all requirements are met, we find a party is not precluded from receipt of attorney’s fees under a contract and the [proposal for settlement] statute simultaneously.”  Cassedy, Jr., supra.

Please contact David Adelstein at dadelstein@gmail.com or (954) 361-4720 if you have questions or would like more information regarding this article. You can follow David Adelstein on Twitter @DavidAdelstein1.

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Even with an open and obvious dangerous condition, there may still exist a duty to maintain the property and repair that same condition. 

In Middleton v. Don Asher & Associates, Inc., 44 Fla.L.Weekly D301d (Fla. 5^th DCA 2019), the plaintiff was a unit owner in a condominium for 15 years. She slipped and fell while she was walking on the condominium’s premises.  In particular, she slipped and fell on a sidewalk that contained uneven joints between two concrete segments.  She sued her condominium association and property manager for negligence in a premise liability action.  The sidewalk was apparently a common element required to be maintained by the association. 

The condominium association and property manager filed a motion for summary judgment claiming that the plaintiff’s premise liability claim fails as a matter of law because the condition of the sidewalk was open and obvious and did not constitute a hidden, dangerous condition.  The plaintiff countered that even if the condition was open an obvious, a fact issue remained whether the association and management company should have anticipated that condominium residents would use the sidewalk and, therefore, repair that condition.   The trial court granted summary judgment holding that the condition of the sidewalk was open and obvious and did not constitute a hidden, dangerous condition.   This was reversed on appeal.

“[T]he duty owed to invitees is ‘1) to use ordinary care in keeping the premises in a reasonably safe condition, and 2) to give timely warning of latent or concealed perils which are known or should be known by the owner or occupier.’… The obvious danger doctrine recognizes that owners and occupiers should be legally permitted to assume that an invitee will perceive that which would be obvious upon the ordinary use of their own senses.” Middleton, supra (internal citations omitted).

The plaintiff was an invitee as she lived in the condominium.  There is law that finds that uneven floor levels are an open and obvious condition, so this did not appear to be a disputed issue.  Yet, although this means an owner may not have a duty to warn others of the open and obvious condition, this does not discharge the owner’s duty to “maintain the property in a reasonable safe condition by repairing conditions that they foresee will cause harm.”  Middleton, supra.  Stated differently, the obviousness of a dangerous condition does not relieve an owner’s duty to repair that same condition.   

Here, if the property manager and association anticipated others would use the sidewalk and encounter the open and obvious condition, they still had a duty to maintain the sidewalk in a reasonably safe condition.  If they could anticipate others would use the sidewalk with the open and obvious dangerous condition, then, naturally, it could be anticipated that others could be harmed by that condition.  This does not mean that the plaintiff would not be found comparatively negligent for getting hurt on the open and obvious condition, it just means the association and property manager may have been negligent for not acting reasonably to maintain and repair the condition.

Please contact David Adelstein at dadelstein@gmail.com or (954) 361-4720 if you have questions or would like more information regarding this article. You can follow David Adelstein on Twitter @DavidAdelstein1.

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The recent decision in Coachwood Colony MGP, LLC v. Kironi, LLC, 44 Fla.L.Weekly D340a (Fla. 5^thDCA 2019) discusses the burden an upper landowner owes to a neighboring lower landowner when it comes to stormwater runoff / drainage.  The upper landowner is at a higher elevation than the lower landowner so the issue becomes the flow of stormwater from the upper landowner’s higher elevation property to the neighboring lower elevation property.  The flow of stormwater can result in washout, flooding, and loss of use and enjoyment to the lower elevation property, which is where the issue lies.

The Florida Supreme Court discussed the “reasonable use” rule that is applied to BOTH the upper and lower landowners:

The principle that an upper landowner enjoys an easement across the lower tract for all naturally occurring surface water continues to apply to land in its natural state. However, when any party improves his land, thereby causing surface waters to damage his neighbor’s property, the reasonable use rule shall be applied in order to settle the controversy. The rule applies not only in cases involving the conduct of the upper owner but also to improvements by the lower owner, such as the construction of dams designed to protect against the natural flow of surface waters across the lower land. Regardless of whether a counterclaim has been filed when both parties have made improvements, the reasonableness of the conduct of each will be in issue and may be compared in order to arrive at a fair determination.

Coachwood Colony MHP, LLC, supra, quoting Westland Skating Center, Inc. v. Gus Machado Buick, Inc., 542 So.2d 959, 963 (Fla. 1989). 

In Coachwood Colony, the lower landowner sued its neighboring upper landowner for damages and permanent injunctive relief arguing that the stormwater runoff from the upper landowner “adversely affected its property due to increased water flow, constituted a continuing nuisance, and interfered with the use and enjoyment of its property.”  Under the reasonable use rule, the reasonableness of BOTH parties’ conduct comes into play.  This would include the lower landowner’s reasonable attempts to control the stormwater runoff in addition to the upper landowner’s use of its property, specifically with respect to stormwater diversion.  Hence, if there is a controversy between landowners of different elevations regarding stormwater runoff, the reasonable use rule will apply.

Please contact David Adelstein at dadelstein@gmail.com or (954) 361-4720 if you have questions or would like more information regarding this article. You can follow David Adelstein on Twitter @DavidAdelstein1.

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