Case Title: Cantinca v. Fontana

Citation: 

Docket Number: 209, 2005

State: delaware

Court: Delaware Supreme Court

Date: 2005-10-05T00:00:00Z

Document:
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE 
 
VICTORIA NAVA CANTINCA, OSCAR § 
GONZALES, husband and wife, and 
§ 
FERNANDO LADRILLERO FLORES, 
§ 
 
 
§ No. 209, 2005      
 
Plaintiffs Below, 
 
§ 
 
Appellants, 
 
§  Court Below:  Superior Court of  
 
 
 
§ the State of Delaware in and for 
              v. 
 
 
§ New Castle County 
 
 
 
§ 
 
GENNARINO FONTANA, 
 
§ C. A. No. 04C-03-220 
 
 
 
§ 
 
 
Defendant Below, 
 
§ 
 
Appellee. 
 
§ 
 
 
Submitted: September 14, 2005 
 
Decided: 
October 5, 2005 
 
Before STEELE, Chief Justice, BERGER and JACOBS, Justices. 
 
 
Upon appeal from Superior Court.  REVERSED. 
 
 
 
Timothy E. Lengkeek, Esquire, of Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor, 
Wilmington, Delaware, for Appellants. 
 
 
Robert K. Pearce and Thomas R. Riggs, Esquires, of Ferry, Joseph & 
Pearce, P.A., Wilmington, Delaware, for Appellee. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
JACOBS, Justice:
The plaintiffs-below appellants, Victoria Nava Cantinca, Oscar Gonzales 
and Fernando Ladrillero Flores, appeal from an order of the Superior Court 
granting defendant’s motion for summary judgment and dismissing this action.  
The sole issue, which is one of statutory interpretation and of first impression, is 
whether in a civil action for negligence, 16 Del. C. § 6636 bars evidence of 
conduct that is claimed to constitute a violation of a county ordinance and, as a 
consequence, negligence per se.  In a bench ruling, the Superior Court held that 
Section 6636 barred all evidence relating to a landlord-owner’s failure to install 
and maintain smoke detectors, including evidence that such conduct violated the 
New Castle County Code.  Without such evidence, the plaintiffs could not 
establish a prima facie case.  The plaintiffs appealed the grant of summary 
judgment.  Because we conclude that summary judgment was erroneously granted 
to the defendant, we reverse.   
Facts 
 
On April 8, 2002, the plaintiffs were seriously injured after being forced to 
jump out of a second story window to escape a fire in their apartment building that 
was owned by the defendant-below appellee, Gennarino Fontana.  Besides losing 
all their personal property in the fire, plaintiffs Cantinca and Gonzales were forced 
to drop their infant daughter from a second floor window into the arms of 
onlookers below.   
 
2
 
The fire broke out in the basement/common area of the building where the 
defendant admittedly failed to install a smoke detector.  The fire spread to the 
upper levels where two residential apartments were located.  The smoke detector 
on the first floor activated, alerting the first floor residents, but the second floor 
alarm did not.  The defendant admitted that neither he nor his son, who assisted 
him in maintaining the property, had ever changed the batteries in any of the 
smoke detectors installed in the building.   
The plaintiffs filed a Superior Court action against defendant Fontana, 
alleging negligence and grossly and wantonly reckless conduct, including: (1) 
failure to install and maintain smoke detectors on any level of the apartment 
building; (2) failure to install and maintain fire prevention materials; (3) failure to 
adequately maintain the common area of the building (thereby allowing household 
items and debris to accumulate near the heating units); and (4) failure to provide 
adequate security (especially in the lower level common area to prevent intruders).  
In support of their case, the plaintiffs offered expert testimony that the property 
contained defective, insufficient and inactive fire alarm devices, and that the 
defendant had failed to install and maintain smoke detectors—all of which 
conduct, the expert opined, violated New Castle County Ordinance 16.02.001.   
 
 
 
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The Superior Court Ruling 
 
After hearing oral argument on the motion for summary judgment, the 
Superior Court ruled from the bench in favor of Fontana.  The trial court correctly 
noted that there were no material issues of fact and that the issue was purely one of 
law, namely the proper construction of 16 Del. C. § 6636 and its application to 
New Castle County Ordinance 16.02.001.1 
The Superior Court held that “the plain meaning of 6636 was intentioned 
[sic] by the General Assembly to exclude evidence of any violation of smoke 
detectors laws set forth in Chapter 66 either as evidence coming in or as a standard 
of care,”2 and also determined that Section 6636 preempted the New Castle County 
Ordinance that was allegedly violated by the defendant’s conduct.  The Superior 
Court found that Section 6636 was intended to bar any evidence of failure to install 
or maintain smoke detectors in any civil action, even if such failure violated the 
New Castle County Code, because “to allow individual counties or individual 
municipalities to set their own standards of care and their own criteria of 
admissibility . . . would eviscerate the ends of the General Assembly in prohibiting 
‘in civil suits’ smoke detector non-compliance as evidence substantially or 
                                                 
1 Tr. of Summ. J. Mot. at 21-30. 
 
2 Id. at 23. 
 
 
4
establish[ing] a standard of care.”3  To rule otherwise, the trial court explained “. . . 
would be allowing in the back door [what] the General Assembly sought to 
prohibit by section 6636. . . .  The Court will not allow that.”4     
Analysis 
 
This Court reviews a grant of summary judgment de novo.5  The inquiry is 
two-fold:  “whether the record shows that there is no genuine, material issue of fact 
and [whether] the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”6 
 
Under the Superior Court’s interpretation of Section 6636, plaintiffs would 
have no provable claim.  They would be barred from presenting a negligence per 
se claim predicated on a violation of the New Castle County Code.  They would 
also be barred from introducing evidence of the defendant’s failure to install or 
maintain smoke detectors to support a claim based on common law negligence. 
  
  
The plaintiffs contend that the Superior Court reversibly erred by 
interpreting Section 6636 to have so broad a preclusive effect.  The plaintiffs argue 
that:  (1) the explicit language of Section 6636 makes it plain that the statute 
operates only to exclude evidence of a landlord or property owner’s failure to 
                                                 
3 Id. at 25.  
 
4 Id. at 27-28.   
 
5 Williams v. Geier, 671 A.2d 1368, 1375 (Del. 1996). 
 
6 Id. (quoting Arnold v. Society for Sav. Bancorp., 650 A.2d 1270, 1276 (Del. 1994)).  
 
 
5
comply with the provisions of Subchapter II of Title 16, Chapter 66, and (2) 
nothing in Subchapter II supports a legislative intent to preempt the New Castle 
County Code provisions that govern smoke detectors, or that otherwise apply to 
negligence per se claims.   
The Plain Meaning of Section 6636 
           
16 Del. C. § 6636 provides: 
Failure to comply with this subchapter shall not be considered as 
evidence of either comparative or contributory negligence in any civil 
suit or insurance claim adjudication arising out of any injury or death 
arising from a fire or the direct consequences of a fire; nor shall 
failure to comply with this subchapter be admissible as evidence in 
any trial of any civil action or insurance claim adjudication. 
 
(italics added).  “[T]his subchapter” refers to Subchapter II, which regulates the 
installation and maintenance of smoke detectors, confers upon the State Fire 
Marshal enforcement power, and establishes the jurisdiction of the Justice of the 
Peace Court over subchapter violations.7   
 
This Court has held that in construing a statute, the plain meaning of the 
statutory language controls.8  “In particular, ‘the courts may not engraft upon a 
                                                 
7 16 Del. C. § 6631, et. seq.  
 
8 State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Mundorf, 659 A.2d 215, 220 (Del. 1995).   
 
 
6
statute language which has been clearly excluded therefrom by the Legislature.’”9  
It is within this framework that the Court must construe the statutory text.10   
 
Each side argues that the plain meaning of the statute supports its position.  
The plaintiffs emphasize the clause “under this subchapter,” as establishing the 
legislative intent that only violations of “this subchapter” may be barred as 
evidence of negligence or contributory negligence.  To buttress their position, the 
plaintiffs point to other provisions of the Delaware Code where the General 
Assembly has explicitly declared specific underlying conduct to be inadmissible in 
a civil action.  For example, failure to wear a seat belt,11 failure to wear a child 
passenger restraint system,12 and failure to wear a bicycle helmet13 are made 
inadmissible, by statute, as evidence of negligence in a civil suit.  The statutes that 
so provide bar not only evidence that specific conduct constitutes a violation of the 
statute, but also evidence of the specific underlying conduct itself.  The plaintiffs 
                                                 
9 Id.  See also Eliason v. Englehart, 733 A.2d 944, 946 (Del. 1999) (“If a statute is unambiguous, 
there is no need for judicial interpretation, and the plain meaning of the statutory language 
controls.”).  
 
10 Neither party in this case, nor the Superior Court, was able to locate any legislative history 
regarding the General Assembly’s intent in enacting 16 Del. C. § 6636.   
 
11 21 Del. C. § 4802(i) (2004) (“Failure to wear or use an occupant protection system shall not be 
considered as evidence. . . .”). 
 
12 21 Del. C. § 4803(d) (2004) (“A violation of this section shall not be considered as evidence 
. . . nor shall failure to wear a child passenger restraint system. . . .”). 
 
13 21 Del. C. § 4198K(e) (2004) (“Failure to wear a bicycle helmet as herein described shall not 
be considered evidence. . . .”). 
 
 
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contend that because the General Assembly did not use similar language 
prohibiting evidence of the underlying conduct in 16 Del. C. § 6636, the statutory 
intent was to exclude only evidence that the underlying conduct amounts to a 
violation of one or more of the provisions found in Subchapter II of Title 16, as 
distinguished from evidence of the underlying conduct itself.   
 
The defendant argues that the statutory language, a “failure to comply with 
this subchapter,” must be read to exclude evidence of both a violation of the 
subchapter, and of the underlying conduct constituting the violation.  Otherwise, 
the defendant urges, the “very same conduct which is inadmissible under the state 
code would be admissible under a county code.  This would lead to a patchwork of 
inconsistent results, and obviously was not what the General Assembly 
intended.”14   
 
The difficulty with this argument, and with the Superior Court’s holding, is 
that they do not give effect to the statute’s clear language.  The plain meaning of 
Section 6636 is that a violation of “this subchapter” cannot serve as a basis for a 
negligence claim.15  To interpret Section 6636 as the Superior Court did, would 
overly broaden its reach, and would read the statute as if it mandated that:  “failure 
                                                 
14 Appellee’s Am. Answering Brief at 6.   
 
15 See Norfleet v. Mid-Atlantic Realty Co., Civ. A. No.  95C-11-008, 2001 WL 695547, at *2 
(Del. Super. Ct. Apr. 20, 2001) (holding that a plaintiff could not base a claim on a violation of 
16 Del. C. § 6634 because of the exclusionary provision in Section 6636, which is clear from the 
text of the statute).   
 
 
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to comply with the provisions of this subchapter, and the ordinances of any county 
or subdivision of this State, shall not be considered as evidence.”  That (italicized) 
meaning simply does not appear, expressly or by implication, anywhere within the 
statute’s four corners.  By its own terms, Section 6636 expressly bars only the 
introduction of evidence in a civil action that a party’s conduct constituted a 
violation of Subchapter II.  It does not expressly bar evidence of the underlying 
conduct, or evidence that such conduct constitutes a violation of a legal provision, 
ordinance or other regulation that is not found in Subchapter II.16  
Preemption of the County Code 
The Superior Court also held that Section 6636 preempts the counterpart 
New Castle County Code provision,17 because Section 6636 (a state statute) and 
the counterpart County Code provision conflict.  Those provisions conflict, the trial 
court ruled, because the County Code permits the admission of smoke detector 
violation evidence but Section 6636 precludes it.  That ruling, the plaintiffs urge, is 
erroneous, because the Delaware Constitution authorizes New Castle County to 
                                                 
16 The plaintiffs cite two cases to support their position that Section 6636 should preclude 
evidence of only a violation of “this subchapter” while allowing evidence of the underlying 
conduct:  Reed v. Phillips, 452 S.E.2d 708 (W.Va. 1994) and Dixon v. Stewart, 658 P.2d 591 
(Utah 1982).  In both cases, the statutory language specifically prohibited evidence of “a 
violation of this section” (Reed, 452 S.E.2d at 395) and “the record of conviction” (Dixon, 658 
P.2d at 599).  Both courts excluded only the record of violation or conviction, but held that 
evidence of the underlying conduct remained admissible to prove fault.       
  
17 New Castle County Code § 16.02.001 (1998) (articulating the requisite location, audibility and 
maintenance of smoke detectors in a residential building).    
 
 
9
adopt ordinances, laws or rules regulating buildings and other structures, and 
unless the state statute on its face purports to be exclusive or the substance of the 
state and county regulatory provisions is inconsistent, there is no conflict that 
justifies preemption.  
 
In Delaware, the State and its political subdivisions are permitted to enact 
similar provisions and regulations, so long as the two regulations do not conflict.18  
But “where [a] conflict exists between a state statute and a municipal ordinance, 
the statute must always prevail.”19  The predominant test for conflict in a 
preemption analysis is whether the state statute was intended to be exclusive.20   
 
Legislative intent to make a state statute exclusive of any regulation of the 
same subject matter by a political subdivision may be express or implied.21  
Express exclusivity intent exists where the statutory text or legislative history 
                                                 
18 Poynter v. Walling, 177 A.2d 641, 646 (Del. Super. Ct. 1962).  See Firemen’s Ins. Co. of 
Washington, D.C. v. Washington, 483 F.2d 1323, 1328 (D.C. Cir. 1973) (“Statutory and local 
regulation may coexist in identical areas although the latter, not inconsistently with the former, 
exacts additional requirements, or imposes additional penalties.”).  “The test of concurrent 
authority . . . is the absence of conflict with the legislative will.” Id.  See also City of Des Moines 
v. Reiter, 102 N.W.2d 363, 365-66 (Iowa 1960); Miller v. Fabius Tp. Bd., St. Joseph County, 114 
N.W.2d 205, 208 (Mich. 1962).   
 
19 State v. Putnam, 552 A.2d 1247, 1249 (Del. Super. Ct. 1998).   
 
20 Poynter, 177 A.2d at 646.  See 56 AM. JUR. 2d Municipal Corporations, Etc. § 329 (2005).     
 
21 See Fogle v. H & G Restaurant, Inc., 654 A.2d 449, 460 (Md. 1995) (“A state law may 
preempt a local law or regulation in one of three ways: 1) by conflict, 2) expressly, or 3) by 
implication.”).  The Court of Appeals of Maryland defined implied preemption as “when the 
legislature . . . so forcibly express[es] its intent to occupy a specific field of regulation that the 
acceptance of the doctrine of pre-emption by implication is compelled."  Id. 
 
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explicitly provides or demonstrates that the state statute is intended to replace or 
prevail over any pre-existing laws or ordinances that govern the same subject 
matter.22  Implied exclusivity intent may be found where the two regulations are 
inconsistent; for example, where a state statute prohibits an act that is permitted by 
a local ordinance.23  To be inconsistent by implication, however, the local 
ordinance must hinder the objectives of the state statute.24   
 
No exclusivity intent, express or implied, can be found in Section 6636.  No 
express language in that statute suggests that the General Assembly intended that 
provision to be the exclusive vehicle for regulating smoke detectors.  To the 
contrary, Section 6633(b), which governs the installation of smoke detectors, 
provides that: “[w]here there is a conflict between installation requirements, this 
section shall be interpreted to require the more strict of the installation 
specifications for a particular occupancy.”25  Although Section 6633(b) addresses a 
conflict between the State Fire Prevention Regulations and local building codes, it 
                                                 
22 See, e.g., Goodell v. Humboldt County, 575 N.W.2d 486, 493 (Iowa 1988). 
 
23 See Hayward v. Gaston, 542 A.2d 760, 767 (Del. 1988) (holding that the Kent County Zoning 
Ordinance was not preempted by Chapter 90 of the Delaware Code because they were not 
inconsistent).  See also Goodell, 575 N.W.2d at 493 (“Implied preemption may also occur when 
the legislature has ‘cover[ed] a subject by statutes in such a manner as to demonstrate a 
legislative intention that the field is preempted by state law.’”). 
 
24 Hayward, 542 A.2d at 767  (The two sets of regulations were not inconsistent because the 
county zoning authority in no way hindered the objectives of Chapter 90.). 
 
25 16 Del. C. § 6633(b). 
 
 
11
signals that the General Assembly did not intend for the statute to be the exclusive 
body of law regulating smoke detectors.  Thus, unless there is an implied intent 
that the state statute be exclusive, there is no preemption.  The Court next 
addresses that inquiry.   
 
The New Castle County Code and Section 6636 are not implicitly 
inconsistent.  Although both provisions regulate the placement and maintenance of 
smoke detectors in rental apartments, concurrent regulation of the same subject 
matter, without more, does not create a preemption justifying conflict.26  To be 
inconsistent, the county ordinance must hinder the objectives of the state statute.27  
The trial court found the two provisions to be inconsistent, because Section 6636 
precluded the admission of evidence of noncompliance with smoke detector 
regulations while the County Code permitted it.  The flaw in the trial court’s 
reasoning stems from its overbroad reading of the statute.       
 
As we have held, Section 6636 does not preclude the admission of all 
evidence of noncompliance with smoke detector regulations.  Rather, it bars only 
evidence that the defendant’s conduct constitutes a violation of Subchapter II.  The 
County Code does not hinder the objectives of Section 6636, because its regulatory 
commands do not derive from, nor are they part of, Subchapter II.  Persuasive 
                                                 
26 Poynter, 177 A.2d at 646.   
 
27 Hayward, 542 A.2d at 767.   
 
12
evidence that Section 6636 is not inconsistent with the County ordinances by 
implication is that Section 6633(b) explicitly defers to the stricter regulation in the 
event of a conflict between installation requirements.  The conflicts clause of the 
counterpart County Code provision similarly states that “[i]n a conflict between 
this Section and any other applicable State or County statute, ordinance or 
regulation, the more restrictive provisions shall prevail.”28  Therefore, Section 
6636 and the counterpart provision of the New Castle County Code are consistent 
and there remains no express or implied preemption-justifying conflict as between 
these two regulatory provisions.   
Conclusion 
The judgment of the Superior Court is reversed, and the case is remanded to 
the Superior Court for proceedings consistent with this Opinion.  
                                                 
28 New Castle County Code § 16.02.001(F).