Nondelegable Duty Doctrine

The recent Fourth District Court of Appeal decision, Publix Super Markets, Inc. v. Safonte, 49 Fla.L.Weekly D1337a (Fla. 4thDCA 2024), discussed what is known as the nondelegable duty doctrine: A business establishment owes a non-delegable duty to an invitee “to maintain the premises in a safe condition.” Pembroke Lakes Mall Ltd. v. McGruder, 137 So. 3d 418, 431 (Fla. 4th DCA 2014). “[A] breach of [this] duty is a form of direct liability, in which a business owner may be liable to the plaintiff for negligently failing to take reasonable efforts to maintain the premises in a safe condition.” Id. Thus, a business establishment...

05 November

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The Violation of a Company’s Internal Policies Alone does Not Create a Duty Owed to a Third Party

Posted by David Adelstein

in Appeal, Standard of Review

Can internal policies of a company create a standard of care or duty to a plaintiff? Stated another way, can a company’s violation of its internal policies result in a breach of that company’s standard of care or duty to plaintiff? A recent case, Discount Tire Co. v. Tammy Bradford, as the Personal Representative of the Estate of Bradford, 2023 WL 7228186 (Fla. 5th DCA 2023), in analyzing case law with respect to this issue, answered this issue in the negative: a company’s internal policy’s do not alone create duties owed to third parties. In this case, a retail tire company was...

29 May

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Premise Liability and Duty Owed to Business Invitees

Posted by David Adelstein

in Trial Perspectives

A premise liability action is a negligence action. As with any negligence action, a focus is on the duty the defendant (the landowner or possessor of real property) owes to the plaintiff. In a premise liability action, a focus is on the duty an owner or possessor owes to an invitee. An owner owes two duties to a business invitee: (1) the duty to use reasonable care in maintaining the property in a reasonably safe condition; and (2) the duty to warn of dangers of which the owner has or should have knowledge and which are unknown to the invitee and cannot be...

17 October

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Duty Element of Negligence – Did Defendant’s Conduct Foreseeably Create Broader Zone of Risk

Posted by David Adelstein

in Trial Perspectives

In any negligence action, the first element a plaintiff needs to prove is that the defendant owed a duty of care to the plaintiff. Lee v. Harper, 46 Fla.L.Weekly D2251a (Fla. 1st DCA 2021). This duty element is a threshold legal question or a question of law. Id. “The duty element of negligence focuses on whether the defendant’s conduct foreseeably created a broader ‘zone of risk’that poses a general threat of harm to others.” Id. (quotations and citations omitted). The issue is not whether the harm in question was foreseeable but the “defendant’s conduct must create the risk or control the...