Case Title: De Wald v. Quarnstrom

Citation: 60 So. 2d 919

Docket Number: 

State: florida

Court: Florida Supreme Court

Date: 1952-07-15T00:00:00Z

Document:
60 So. 2d 919 (1952)
DE WALD
v.
QUARNSTROM.

Supreme Court of Florida, en Banc.
July 15, 1952.
Rehearing Denied August 2, 1952.
Nichols, Gaither & Green and Evans, Mershon, Sawyer, Johnston & Simmons, *920 and William O. Mehrtens, Miami, for appellant.
Knight, Smith & Underwood, Miami, and Fleming, O'Bryan & Fleming, Fort Lauderdale, for appellee.
PER CURIAM.
Affirmed.
SEBRING, C.J., and THOMAS, HOBSON and ROBERTS, JJ., concur.
TERRELL, CHAPMAN and MATHEWS, JJ., concurring specially.
CHAPMAN, Justice (concurring specially).
This appeal involves the legal sufficiency of an amended declaration. The suit was brought under Section 320.59, F.S.A., by a guest passenger, George E. DeWald, against the host, Bert L. Quarnstrom, operator or driver of the automobile. It was alleged that the motor vehicle was operated in a southeasterly direction on State Highway #25 at about 8:00 o'clock P.M., during the nighttime, when a motor vehicle of Leonard Bros. Transfer & Storage Co., Inc., was negligently stopped or parked upon the traveled portion of the aforesaid highway so as to obstruct the same and with which the automobile in which the plaintiff was riding as a guest passenger collided, thereby causing permanent injuries. The issues presented here are only the legal rights of the guest passenger-plaintiff-appellant and the host driver-defendant-appellee.
Pertinent are the following portions of the amended declaration, as amended:
The defendant-appellee filed a demurrer to the amended declaration and as grounds stated: First, the amended declaration fails to state a cause of action against the defendant; second, the facts alleged are insufficient to charge this defendant-appellee with liability for gross negligence. It was the trial Court's view and conclusion that the separately alleged acts of negligence as charged in the amended declaration, supra, set forth in paragraphs 1 to 11, inclusive, were legally insufficient to constitute gross negligence as defined by the adjudications of this Court. The plaintiff, electing to stand on the sufficiency of the amended declaration, declined to plead further. A final judgment was entered for the defendant and plaintiff appealed.
It may be helpful to distinguish between simple or ordinary negligence and gross negligence as recited in Section 320.59, F.S.A., and as defined by our adjudications. Simple negligence may be defined as the failure to observe for the protection of another's interest such care and vigilance as the circumstances justly demand and the want of which caused the injury. Smith Electric Co. v. Hinkley, 98 Fla. 132, 123 So. 564. Negligence is the failure to observe, for the protection of another's interest, such care, precaution and vigilance as the circumstances justly demand or the failure to do what a reasonable and prudent person would ordinarily have done under the circumstances or the doing of what such person would have done under the circumstances. Russ v. State, 140 Fla. 217, 191 So. 296. Ordinary negligence is the failure to exercise that degree of care and precaution and vigilance which an ordinary prudent man would exercise, whereby and as a consequence whereof the person or property of another is injured.
65 C.J.S., Negligence, § 8, pages 371-372, defines gross negligence viz.:
Our recent case of Dexter v. Green, 55 So. 2d 548, 549, was an action brought under Section 320.59, F.S.A. The issue presented was whether the allegations of the declaration sufficiently stated a cause of action under the above-cited statute. The following language employed in Dexter v. Green is pertinent and has a bearing on the case at bar:
From the language above employed, we must conclude that the terms gross negligence and willful and wanton misconduct appearing in Section 320.59 are synonymous.
Counsel for appellant, in their brief and in oral argument heard at the bar of this Court, suggest that conflicts, confusion and doubt now exist in our decisions as to the exact meaning of "gross negligence" or "willful and wanton misconduct" as set out in Section 320.59, supra. It is quite true that members of the Court, in the early period of the construction of this statute, held apparent conflicting views as to the exact meaning of the language employed, as will be reflected in the dissenting opinions of the Judges appearing in our early cases, but our holdings in Cormier v. Williams, 148 Fla. 201, 4 So. 2d 525, and in Dexter v. Green, supra, have put these questions at rest.
We fail to find error in the record.
Affirmed.
TERRELL and MATHEWS, JJ., concur.