Title: Richard Toombs v. Alamo Rent-a-car, Inc.

State: florida

Issuer: Florida Supreme Court

Document:

Supreme 
Court 
of 
Florida
____________
No. SC00-1755
____________
RICHARD TOOMBS, etc., 
Petitioner,
vs.
ALAMO RENT-A-CAR, INC.,
Respondent.
[October 31, 2002]
PER CURIAM.
We have for review the decision in Toombs v. Alamo Rent-A-Car, 762 So.
2d 1040 (Fla. 5th DCA 2000), which certified conflict with the decision in
Enterprise Leasing Co. v. Alley, 728 So. 2d 272 (Fla. 2d DCA 1999).  We have
jurisdiction.  See art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const.
FACTS
The petitioner, Richard Toombs, personal representative of the estate of Julia
1.  In the complaint, Toombs, as next friend, also sought damages for
personal injuries suffered in the accident by Stuttard’s daughter, Bethan. 
2.  The dangerous instrumentality doctrine “imposes strict vicarious liability
upon the owner of a motor vehicle who voluntarily entrusts that motor vehicle to an
individual whose negligent operation causes damage to another.”  Aurbach v.
Gallina, 753 So. 2d 60, 62 (Fla. 2000) (citing Southern Cotton Oil Co. v.
Anderson, 86 So. 629, 637 (Fla. 1920)).  
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Stuttard, filed a wrongful death action against Alamo-Rent-A-Car seeking damages
on behalf of her two surviving minor children.  Julia Stuttard was killed in a car
accident while a passenger in an Alamo automobile rented and driven by her
husband, Ian Stuttard.  Her husband and their two minor children, who were also
passengers in the car, survived.1  Recovery was sought on the basis of the
dangerous instrumentality doctrine.2
Alamo moved for summary judgment on the ground that Julia Stuttard, as
co-bailee of Alamo’s vehicle, could not rely on the dangerous instrumentality
theory because the injury occurred while the vehicle was in her possession.  Stated
differently, Alamo argued that because Julia Stuttard would have been unable to
maintain an action and recover damages against it under the dangerous
instrumentality doctrine as a co-bailee of the rental car, neither could her survivors
under the Wrongful Death Act.  The trial court granted Alamo’s motion for
3.  The petitioner raises a collateral issue regarding the propriety of the trial
court’s order granting summary judgment, arguing that the facts did not establish
that the decedent was a co-bailee of the rental car as a matter of law.  We disagree. 
The facts established that Julia Stuttard’s name and license number appeared on the
rental agreement as an additional driver.  Moreover, although the rental agreement
was not signed by Julia, Ian Stuttard testified that Julia intended to and did drive the
rental car prior to the accident.  Finally, pursuant to the rental agreement, the
Stuttards were charged for an additional driver.  Under these circumstances we find
no error in the trial court’s conclusion that a joint bailment was established as a
matter of law.   
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summary judgment.3 
On appeal, Toombs argued that the case was controlled by Enterprise
Leasing Co. v. Alley, 728 So. 2d 272 (Fla. 2d DCA 1999).  In Alley the Second
District, under circumstances practically identical to those in the instant case,
allowed a wrongful death action against a rental car company to stand despite the
decedent’s status as a co-bailee of the rental car:  “We conclude that although the
deceased mother would have no right of action against [Enterprise] had she
survived, since the underlying cause of action remained viable, her survivors’
wrongful death action also survives.”  Id. at 272.  
The Fifth District rejected Alley, concluding that Stuttard’s status as co-
bailee prevented a cause of action from existing altogether.  See Toombs v. Alamo
Rent-A-Car, 762 So. 2d 1040, 1042 (Fla. 5th DCA 2000).  Accordingly, the Fifth
District affirmed the trial court’s order granting summary judgment and certified
4.  The summary judgment granted by the trial court did not affect the claim
for personal injuries on behalf of Stuttard’s minor daughter. 
5.  The accident which gave rise to the instant wrongful death action
occurred on January 8, 1996.  Section 768.19 has remained unchanged since its
enactment in 1972.  See ch. 72-35, § 1, Laws of Fla.  
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conflict with Alley.  Id.4 
ANALYSIS
Section 768.19, Florida Statutes (1995), which defines the right of action
under the Wrongful Death Act (the Act), provides:
When the death of a person is caused by the
wrongful act, negligence, default, or breach of contract or
warranty of any person, including those occurring on
navigable waters, and the event would have entitled the
person injured to maintain an action and recover damages
if death had not ensued, the person or watercraft that
would have been liable in damages if death had not
ensued shall be liable for damages as specified in this act
notwithstanding the death of the person injured, although
death was caused under circumstances constituting a
felony.  
§ 768.19, Fla. Stat. (1995).5  Resolution of the conflict between Alley and the 
instant case revolves around the language in the second clause, which conditions
the right of action created under the Act on the decedent’s entitlement to “maintain
an action and recover damages if death had not ensued.”  
NATURE OF THE ACTION CREATED UNDER
THE WRONGFUL DEATH ACT
6.  Section 768.17, Florida Statutes (2001), provides:
Legislative intent.--It is the public policy of the state to shift the
losses resulting when wrongful death occurs from the survivors of the
decedent to the wrongdoer.  Sections 768.16-768.27 are remedial and
shall be liberally construed.
 
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An action for wrongful death is a purely statutory right.  See, e.g., Florida
East Coast Ry. v. McRoberts, 149 So. 631, 632 (Fla. 1933).  Although such an
origin ordinarily requires strict construction under traditional rules of construction,
the legislature has expressly provided that the Act should be liberally construed to
effect its remedial purposes.  See § 768.17, Fla. Stat. (2001); see also, Stern v.
Miller, 348 So. 2d 303, 308 (Fla. 1977).6
In that vein, this Court has long characterized the Act as creating a new and
distinct right of action from the right of action the decedent had prior to death.  In
Florida East Coast Railway v. McRoberts, 149 So. 631 (Fla. 1933), this Court, in
addressing the import of the second clause of the Act, explained:
The fact that the statute provides that an action for death by
wrongful act can be maintained by the statutory beneficiaries only
when the alleged wrongful death has been caused under such
circumstances as would have entitled the injured party himself to
maintain an action had he lived is simply a regulation of, and a
limitation on, the new statutory right of action created.  
Sections 4960, 4961, R.G.S., sections 7047, 7048, C.G.L., the
Florida death by wrongful act statutes, do not purport to transfer to
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the statutory representatives of a person killed by another’s wrongful
act the right of action which the injured party might have maintained
for his injury had he lived, but those sections gave to such statutory
representatives, subject to terms, conditions and limitations of the
statute, a totally new right of action for the wrongful death, and that on
different principles.
Id. at 633 (emphasis added).  
In Ake v. Birnbaum, 25 So. 2d 213 (Fla. 1946) (on rehearing), we again
emphasized the distinct nature of an action for wrongful death under our statutory
scheme:
It will be observed that the statute gives a right of action to
certain statutory beneficiaries for the recovery of damages suffered by
them by reason of the death of the party killed; but it makes no
provision for the recovery of the damages suffered by the injured
person by reason of the injury inflicted upon him.  Nor was the death
by wrongful act statute ever intended to afford such a remedy.  It was
not the purpose of the statute to preserve the right of action which the
deceased had and might have maintained had he simply been injured
and lived; but to create in the expressly enumerated beneficiaries an
entirely new cause of action, in an entirely new right, for the recovery 
of damages suffered by them, not the decedent, as a consequence of
the wrongful invasion of their legal right by the tortfeasor.
Id. at 221; accord, e.g., Bilbrey v. Weed, 215 So. 2d 479 (Fla. 1968); Stokes v.
Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 213 So. 2d 695 (Fla. 1968); Moragne v. State Marine Lines,
Inc., 211 So. 2d 161 (Fla. 1968); Shearn v. Orlando Funeral Home, Inc., 88 So. 2d
591 (Fla. 1956); Brailsford v. Campbell, 89 So. 2d 241 (Fla. 1956); Klepper v.
Breslin, 83 So. 2d 587 (Fla. 1955); Parker v. City of Jacksonville, 82 So. 2d 131
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(Fla. 1955); Shiver v. Sessions, 80 So. 2d 905 (Fla. 1955); Epps v. Railway
Express Agency, Inc., 40 So. 2d 131 (Fla. 1949).  
It is this characterization of the right of action created under the Act that
comprises the fulcrum of the petitioner's claim that a right of action for wrongful
death survived the decedent in the instant case.  Specifically, the petitioner argues
that this Court’s decision in Shiver v. Sessions precludes the decedent’s status as a
co-bailee of the rental car from barring the right of the survivors to maintain an
action for wrongful death.  The petitioner reads Shiver too broadly.  
SHIVER V. SESSIONS
In Shiver, four surviving minor children brought a wrongful death action
against the estate of their stepfather, who had shot and killed their mother and then
killed himself.  The trial judge dismissed the suit, finding the plaintiffs barred from
maintaining suit for the wrongful death of their mother as interspousal immunity
would have prevented her from maintaining an action against their stepfather.  This
Court reversed, characterizing the interspousal immunity defense as personal to the
decedent, not inhering in her husband’s tortious act, and therefore incapable of
barring the plaintiffs’ independent right of action for wrongful death:
Thus, it is settled law in this jurisdiction that the wife’s disability
to sue her husband for his tort is personal to her, and does not inhere
in the tort itself.  The tortious injury to the wife “does not cease to be
7.  The decedent in Alley was listed as an additional driver in the rental car
agreement.  The issue of her status as co-bailee was apparently not disputed by the
parties.  See Alley, 728 So. 2d at 272.  
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an unlawful act, though the law exempts the husband from liability for
the damage.”  It is also well settled that our Wrongful Death Act
creates in the named beneficiaries “an entirely new cause of action, in
an entirely new right, for the recovery of damages suffered by them,
not the decedent, as a consequence of the wrongful invasion of their
legal right by the tort-feasor.”  This right is “separate, distinct and
independent” from that which might have been sued upon by the
injured person, had he or she lived.
80 So. 2d at 908 (citations omitted).  
Relying heavily on this distinction, the Second District in Alley allowed a
wrongful death action against a rental car company to proceed despite the fact that
the decedent would have been unable to maintain an action as a co-bailee of the
subject rental car.  The decedent in Alley was killed in a single vehicle accident
when her husband fell asleep at the wheel and crashed the rental car into a guard
rail.  The decedent’s husband and two minor children, who were also passengers in
the automobile, survived.  The Alley court rejected the rental company’s claim that
the wrongful death action on behalf of the surviving children was barred given that
the decedent was a co-bailee of the rental vehicle,7 explaining:
It is eminently clear to us, as stated by then Justice Ehrlich in his
concurring opinion in Perkins, that a “wrongful death action is not
derivative, but it is remedial and should be construed to fulfill its
remedial function.”  The Wrongful Death Act has been consistently
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held to create an entirely new and independent cause of action and an
entirely new right in the statutory beneficiaries. 
If a wrongful death action is not derivative, what then under the
Wrongful Death Act is the nature of a decedent’s rights, if the
decedent survived, that will either permit or preclude the survivors’
action?  Shiver seems to be the seminal case that provides the best
answer to that question.  The answer depends on whether, at the time
of the decedent’s death, there existed, had the decedent survived,
either a “cause of action” or a “right of action” that would support an
action for damages for the injuries of the decedent that resulted in
death.  If a cause of action would have existed, even if the right of
action were extinguished, the survivors’ wrongful death action
survives.  
The cases relied upon by appellant to prevent a survivor’s
action all seem to turn on the fact that the “cause of action” was
barred or had been satisfied or eliminated so that it no longer existed. 
The lack of the ability to sue in that instance inheres in the tort itself. 
On the other hand, the survivor’s right of action is not lost where the
viability of the tort so as to support a “cause of action” is not
dissipated, but only a “right of action” in the decedent has been lost
because of a disability to sue which is personal to the decedent and
does not inhere in the tort or cause of action upon which the
survivor’s separate “right of action” is premised.
Id. at 274.
Consistent with Alley the petitioner contends that the decedent’s co-bailee
status, like the defense of interspousal immunity confronted in Shiver, is best
characterized as a disability to sue personal to the decedent and therefore incapable
of precluding survivors from maintaining an action for wrongful death.  This
argument, however, overlooks the genesis of the distinction drawn in Shiver.  
At the heart of the distinction drawn in Shiver was this Court’s recognition
8.  As to our opinion in Shiver, Judge Harris observed:
In Shiver, the court permitted a wrongful death action by the
mother’s survivors against the husband for murdering his wife but
only because the defense of interspousal immunity is inapplicable to
wrongful death actions because the reason justifying the defense,
domestic tranquility, is no longer a valid consideration.  Since the wife
is dead, the law can do nothing to encourage further domestic
tranquility.
Toombs, 762 So. 2d at 1043 (Harris, J., concurring specially) (emphasis added).  
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that the policies engendered by interspousal immunity were of no moment in the
action for wrongful death:
This is especially true in view of the fact that the reason for the
rule of marital immunity automatically disappears from the picture
simultaneously with the accrual of the right of action under the
Wrongful Death Act.  As stated in Welch v. Davis, supra, “An
immunity based upon the preservation of marital harmony can have no
pertinence in this case, for here the marriage has been terminated,
husband and wife are both dead, and the action is brought for the
benefit of a third person.”
80 So. 2d at 908; see also Toombs, 762 So. 2d at 1043 (Harris, J., concurring
specially).8  Similar policy concerns are not implicated by a consideration of the
decedent’s co-bailee status.  Moreover, we have revisited the distinction drawn in
Shiver between disabilities to sue personal to the decedent and defenses inhering in
the cause of action on only one occasion.  See Dressler v. Tubbs, 435 So. 2d 792
(Fla. 1983).  Significantly, in Dressler we were again grappling with the role of
9.  In Dressler we distinguished our decision in Raisen v. Raisen, 379 So. 2d
352 (Fla. 1979), wherein we rejected an attempt to abrogate the doctrine of
interspousal immunity, by emphasizing that the policies fostered by interspousal
immunity were not implicated in an action for wrongful death:
Nor can Raisen be fairly read to overrule Shiver.  Petitioner
points to the concluding paragraph of this Court’s opinion in Raisen
stating “that the common law doctrine of interspousal tort immunity is
still viable in Florida and that it precludes a tort action between
husband and wife in all cases.”  Raisen dealt with a tort and a suit
arising therefrom occurring during a marriage.  Both spouses were
living and were parties to the suit.  Raisen was decided on the grounds
that allowing such a suit would be disruptive of marital unity and
harmony.  Obviously, Raisen cannot be applied to the factual situation
here.  Husband and wife are dead.  There is no suit between spouses,
just as there is no longer any marital unit to preserve.  
Dressler, 435 So. 2d at 794 (citation omitted) (emphasis added).  
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interspousal immunity in an action for wrongful death.  
In Dressler a husband and wife were killed in the crash of a plane piloted by
the husband.  The personal representative of the wife’s estate brought suit on
behalf of the estate and the wife’s heirs against her husband’s estate to the extent of
available liability insurance coverage on the aircraft.  The trial court dismissed the
suit, holding that it was barred by the doctrines of interspousal and interfamily tort
immunity.  On appeal, the Fifth District reversed and we approved their decision on
the strength of Shiver.  See Dressler, 435 So. 2d at 793-94.9  
Indeed, our most recent inquiries into the wrongful death right of action
10.  The doctrine of interspousal immunity was abolished by this Court in
Waite v. Waite, 618 So. 2d 1360 (Fla. 1993).  
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confirm Shiver and Dressler’s status as a sport in this Court’s wrongful death
jurisprudence crafted to address the vagaries inherent in an application of
interspousal immunity to bar an action for wrongful death, but ill-suited for general
application to the consideration of wrongful death actions.10  This Court’s post-
Shiver determination of whether a right of action for wrongful death attached in the
statutory survivors has focused on the existence of a right of action in the decedent
at his or her death, not the distinction between personal disabilities to sue and
defenses inhering in the underlying cause of action which guided our inquiry in
Shiver.  
POST-SHIVER CASES
In Variety Children’s Hospital v. Perkins, 445 So. 2d 1010 (Fla. 1983), we
held that a father’s wrongful death action on behalf of his deceased minor son was
barred because his son had recovered a judgment for personal injuries flowing from
the same tortious act underlying the wrongful death action.  In the prior personal
injury action the decedent recovered damages for his injuries and his parents
recovered damages for past and future medical expenses.  Accordingly, the
defendant argued, inter alia, that the father’s cause of action had already been
11.  Our holding was premised on the doctrine of merger:  “This rule is
supported by the theory that a cause of action merges into the judgment and, once
the judgment is rendered and final, no cause of action exists.”  Perkins, 445 So. 2d
at 1012 (quoting Stuart M. Speiser, Recovery for Wrongful Death, § 5:18 (1966)).
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satisfied.  The trial court agreed, dismissing the action, and the Third District
reversed, reasoning that “the right to recover for wrongful death is separate and
independent from, rather than derivative of, the injured person’s right while living to
recover for personal injuries.”  Id. at 1011.  We quashed the district court's
decision, “hold[ing] that the judgment for personal injuries rendered in favor of the
injured party while living barred the subsequent wrongful death action based on the
same tortious conduct.”  Id.  
This Court explained that at his death, the decedent had no right of action
against the tortfeasor because his cause of action had already been satisifed;
therefore, no cause of action for wrongful death survived the decedent:
At the moment of his death the injured minor Anthony Perkins
had no right of action against the tortfeasor because his cause of
action had already been litigated, proved and satisfied.  The recovery
awarded by the judgment in the previous personal injury action
included damages arising from future expenses.  Since there was no
right of action existing at the time of death, under the statute no
wrongful death cause of action survived the decedent.  
Id. at 1012 (emphasis added).11
Next, in Ash v. Stella, 457 So. 2d 1377 (Fla. 1984), we addressed whether
12.  We emphasized the narrow reach of our decision in Ash in Nissan
Motor Co. v. Phlieger, 508 So. 2d 713 (Fla. 1987), wherein we stated:
Although we stated in Ash that the issue before the Court was
“whether a survivor can bring a wrongful death action in cases where
if the decedent had survived, the decedent would have been precluded
from filing suit because of the statute of limitations,” that issue was
never actually reached by this Court.  In Ash we held that wrongful
death actions based on medical malpractice would be governed by the
medical malpractice statute of limitations, section 95.11(4)(b), Florida
Statutes (1979).  This conclusion was based solely on the fact that the
statute of limitations at issue specifically defined an action for medical
malpractice as including a “claim in tort or in contract for damages
because of . . . death” and thus, clearly expressed the legislature’s
intent that section 95.11(4)(b) apply to wrongful death actions based
on medical malpractice.  
Id. at 715. 
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the statute of limitations pertinent to medical malpractice actions was applicable to
an action for wrongful death where the tort underlying the wrongful death action
involved a claim of medical malpractice.  Although we framed the issue as “whether
a survivor can bring a wrongful death action in cases where if the decedent had
survived, the decedent would have been precluded from filing suit because of the
statute of limitations,” id. at 1378-79, this Court did not reach that question. 
Instead this Court held that, by its very language, the medical malpractice statute of
limitations applied to actions for wrongful death.  Id. at 1379.12
The question that went unanswered in Ash was answered in Hudson v.
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Keene Corp., 445 So. 2d 1151 (Fla. 1st DCA 1984), approved, 472 So. 2d 1142
(Fla. 1985).   In Hudson the First District affirmed the summary judgment entered in
favor of the defendant, holding that since the statute of limitations applicable to the
decedent’s personal injury action had expired at the time of his death, the wrongful
death action based on the same tortious conduct (although filed within the
limitations period applicable to wrongful death actions) was likewise barred:
[T]he circuit judge in the present case properly granted appellees’
motion for summary judgment, because under the supreme court
interpretation of the statutory language [of the Wrongful Death Act] in
Perkins, Ela Hudson would not have been able to maintain an action
against appellees if death had not ensued due to the running of the
limitations period with regard to the personal injury suit. 
Hudson, 445 So. 2d at 1153.  
In Nissan Motor Co. v. Phlieger, 508 So. 2d 713 (Fla. 1987), we held that the
products liability statute of repose was inapplicable to bar an action for wrongful
death based on products liability.  The plaintiff filed a wrongful death action within
two years of her husband’s death.  However, Nissan argued that the action was
barred because it was filed more than twelve years after the purchase of the vehicle. 
The trial court granted Nissan’s motion for summary judgment, but the district
court reversed, holding the products liability statute of repose inapplicable by its
very language to wrongful death actions.  Nissan argued to the contrary on the
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strength of this Court’s decisions in Ash and Perkins, but this Court rejected those
arguments: “Florida’s Wrongful Death Act does create a right of action in favor of
statutory beneficiaries which was not recognized at common law.  However, this
Court has consistently held that the act also creates a new and independent cause
of action in the statutorily designated beneficiaries.  Neither Ash nor Perkins should
be read to have held to the contrary.”  Nissan, 508 So. 2d at 714 (citations
omitted).  Importantly, we distinguished our decision in Perkins by noting that
unlike the decedent there, Phlieger had a right to maintain an action against Nissan at
the time of his death because the twelve-year statute of repose had not yet expired
at that time:
In Perkins we held . . . that a wrongful death action is barred where the
decedent, during his lifetime, had filed a personal injury action against
the tortfeasor and had fully recovered.  Our holding was based on the
fact that “ [a]t the moment of his death [the injured party] had no right
of action against the tortfeasor because his cause of action had already
been litigated, proved and satisfied. . . .  Since there was no right of
action existing at the time of death, under the statute no wrongful death
action survived the decedent.”  As noted by the district court below,
at the moment of Jay Phlieger’s death, the twelve years had not yet
run.  Therefore, unlike the decedent in Perkins, Mr. Phlieger had a right
to maintain an action against Nissan at the time of his death; and thus,
Mrs. Phlieger, acting as his personal representative, had a statutory
right to bring an action based on injuries suffered by Mr. Phlieger’s
survivors as a result of his death.  
Id. at 715 (citation omitted).  
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Most recently, in Safecare Health Corp. v. Rimer, 620 So. 2d 161 (Fla.
1993), we addressed the question of whether an action for wrongful death against a
joint tortfeasor is barred by a prior settlement of the decedent’s claim for personal
injuries against the other tortfeasor and whether the tortfeasor that was not a party
to the settlement is entitled to a damage setoff.  We answered both questions in the
negative, distinguishing our decision in Perkins in the process by emphasizing that
the decedent’s claim against Safecare had not been resolved at her death:
Unlike [Perkins], the instant case involves two joint-tortfeasors
charged with independent acts of negligence, and only one of the
tortfeasors reached a settlement with the injured party before death. 
As the district court noted, Loeb’s death extinguished her personal
injury action; however, because she had not resolved her claim against
Safecare, Loeb’s survivors are entitled to bring a wrongful death
action. 
. . . In the instant case, the deceased had a viable claim against
Safecare that had not been resolved at the time of her death; therefore,
Rimer is not barred from bringing a wrongful death action. 
Id. at 163-64 (emphasis added).  
As is apparent from our discussion in Perkins, Ash, Hudson, Phlieger, and
Safecare, we have predicated the wrongful death right of action upon whether the
decedent maintained a right of action at his or her death.  Accordingly, we consider
whether the decedent enjoyed a right of action at her death in the instant case. 
In Raydel, Ltd. v. Medcalfe, 178 So. 2d 569 (Fla. 1965), this Court held that
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an owner of a vehicle is not liable to a co-bailee for injuries sustained by that bailee
because of the bailee’s own negligent operation of the vehicle.  The plaintiff in
Raydel, Mrs. Medcalfe, was injured when her husband negligently drove a vehicle
in which she was the passenger.  The Medcalfes’ employer had loaned the vehicle
in question to them.  Accordingly, Mrs. Medcalfe sought damages against her
employer for the injuries she sustained in the accident under the dangerous
instrumentality doctrine.  We rejected that claim, explaining:
[W]e do not believe the dangerous instrumentality doctrine applies
where an automobile is entrusted to a husband and wife jointly and
while it is in their personal use and under their dominion and control it
is negligently operated by one of them, injuring one or both of them. 
Under such circumstances recovery for such injuries can not be had
by either or both of them from the owner of the automobile. 
Id. at 572.  Although Raydel did not involve an action for wrongful death, Raydel
makes clear that a co-bailee has no right of action against the owner of a vehicle
because that status prevents the imputation of their negligence to the owner under
the dangerous instrumentality doctrine:  “She and her husband were co-bailees or
joint adventurers, having been entrusted jointly with the possession of the
automobile for their personal use.  In such status they cannot impute the negligent
operation of the automobile by either of them to the Petitioners and recover
damages for injuries to either of them arising therefrom.”  Id.  
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The Fifth District in the instant case concluded that as the decedent had no
right of action against Alamo as a co-bailee of the rental vehicle, no wrongful death
cause of action arose in the survivors:
We do not believe that an individual’s status as a co-bailee of a
dangerous instrumentality is a mere disability to sue, but rather, [it]
prevents the cause of action from wholly existing in such a
circumstance.  The dangerous instrumentality doctrine, in short, was
never intended to apply to the bailee of that instrumentality during the
operation of the bailment.  The co-bailee cannot impute the negligence
of the other co-bailee/driver to Alamo.  We hold that because no right
of action existed at the time of Julia Studdard’s [sic] death, no
wrongful death cause of action survived the decedent.
Toombs, 762 So. 2d at 1042 (emphasis added).  We agree.  Absent the ability to
impute Ian Stuttard’s negligence to Alamo, no right of action originated in the 
decedent to which a wrongful death cause of action could attach. 
CONCLUSION
Although we have long emphasized that an action for wrongful death is
distinct from the decedent’s action for personal injuries had he or she survived
because it involves different rights of recovery and damages, the language of the Act
makes clear a cause of action for wrongful death that is predicated on the
decedent’s  entitlement to “maintain an action and recover damages if death had not
ensued.”  See Valiant Ins. Co. v. Webster, 567 So. 2d 408, 411 (Fla. 1990) (“While
the Wrongful Death Act creates independent claims for the survivors, these claims
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are also derivative in the sense that they are dependent upon a wrong committed
upon another person.”); Celotex Corp. v. Meehan, 523 So. 2d 141, 147 (Fla. 1988)
(“[A] wrongful death action is derivative of the injured person’s right, while living, to
recover for personal injury.”).  Accordingly, consistent with our decisions in
Perkins, Hudson, Phlieger, and Safecare, we hold that no cause of action for
wrongful death survived the decedent in the instant case because she had no right of
action at her death.  We approve Toombs and disapprove Alley.
It is so ordered. 
ANSTEAD, C.J., SHAW, WELLS, PARIENTE, and LEWIS, JJ., and HARDING,
Senior Justice, concur.
QUINCE, J., dissents with an opinion.
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION, AND IF
FILED, DETERMINED.
QUINCE, J., dissenting,
I believe that the principle espoused by this Court in Shiver v. Sessions, 80
So. 2d 905 (Fla. 1955), is equally applicable to this case and would allow the minor
children of the decedent in this case to sue for wrongful death.  As the majority
points out, the plaintiffs in Shiver, the minor children of the decedent, brought suit
against the estate of their stepfather, who had shot and killed their mother and then
himself.  The estate argued that the children could not maintain the action for
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wrongful death since the mother could not have maintained an action because of
interspousal immunity.  This Court, however, reversed the dismissal of the case,
finding the conduct of the husband did not cease to be a tort merely because the
wife would not bring an action for reasons personal to herself.  In so doing, the
Court said: 
It is also well settled that our Wrongful Death Act creates in the named
beneficiaries “an entirely new cause of action, in an entirely new right,
for the recovery of damages suffered by them, not the decedent, as a
consequence of the wrongful invasion of their legal right by the
tortfeasor.”  Ake v. Birnham, 156 Fla. 735, 25 So. 2d 213, 218, 221. 
This right is “separate, distinct and independent” from that which might
have been sued upon by the injured person, had he or she lived.  Epps
v. Railway Express Agency, Fla. 1949, 40 So. 2d 131, 133.  
     A workable distinction between these two separate and distinct
rights of action, on the one hand, and the “original act of negligence of
the tortfeasor [which is] the gist of all actions maintainable either by the
decedent in his lifetime or by the personal representative and the widow
[or other beneficiary under the Wrongful Death Act] after his death,” 
Epps v. Railway Express Agency, supra, on the other, was made by
the Ohio Supreme Court in Fielder v. Ohio Edison Co., 158 Ohio St.
375, 109 N.E.2d 855, 859, 35 A.L.R.2d 1365, in considering the Ohio
Wrongful Death Act in another context.  It was there said that “A right
of action is a remedial right affording redress for the infringement of a
legal right belonging to some definite person, whereas a cause of action
is the operative facts which give rise to such right of action.  When a
legal right is infringed, there accrues, ipso facto, to the injured party a
right to pursue the appropriate legal remedy against the wrongdoer. 
This remedial right is called a right of action.”  With this distinction in
mind, it is clear that the Legislature intended that the right of action
created by the Wrongful Death Act in favor of the named beneficiaries
must be predicated upon operative acts which would have constituted a
tort against their decedent under established legal principles--in other
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words, they must state a “cause of action” for tort against the
tortfeasor, subject to the defenses of contributory negligence and the
like which the tort-feasor could have pleaded in a suit against him by
the decedent during his or her lifetime, and this court has so held in
many cases.  But we think it is unreasonable to imply that the
Legislature intended to bar the “right of action” created by the Act on
account of a disability to sue which is personal to a party having an
entirely separate and distinct “right of action” and which does not
inhere in the tort–or “cause of action”--upon which each separate right
of action is based.
Shiver, 80 So. 2d at 907-08.
Based on the Shiver analysis, the Second District Court of Appeal in
Enterprise Leasing Co. v. Alley, 728 So. 2d 272 (Fla. 2d DCA 1999), allowed a
wrongful death action by a decedent’s minor children under circumstances similar to
the ones presented in this case.  In Alley, the decedent was the co-bailee with her
husband of an automobile rented from Enterprise Leasing.  While the decedent’s
husband was driving, he fell asleep, and the car veered off of the highway and
crashed into a guardrail.  The personal representative for the estate of the wife filed
suit, and the children of the decedent recovered damages under the Wrongful Death
Act.  In affirming the recovery, the Second District concluded the decedent’s status
as a co-bailee was personal to her but did not bar the survivors’ action against the
tortfeasor.  
I agree with this analysis.  The fact that the decedent in the case before us was
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a co-bailee of the vehicle rented from Alamo does not negate the fact that her
husband, the driver of the rented vehicle, committed a tortious act.  Thus, there
exists a cause of action based on his tortious conduct.  The Wrongful Death Act
has given the decedent’s children a right of action for the infringement of their rights
to their mother’s support, companionship, etc.  This right of action should  not be
changed or abridged simply because, for reasons personal to her, the mother could
not have recovered for her own injuries, had she lived.
Because I believe the children have a right of action under these
circumstances, I would quash the decision of the Fifth District Court of Appeal in
Toombs v. Alamo Rent-A-Car, 762 So. 2d 1040 (Fla. 5th DCA 2000), and approve
the decision of the Second District Court of Appeal in Enterprise Leasing Co. v.
Alley, 728 So. 2d 272 (Fla. 2d DCA 1999).  
Application for Review of the Decision of the District Court of Appeal - Certified
Direct Conflict of Decisions
Fifth District - Case No. 5D99-2043
(Osceola County)
William L. Petros, P.A., Miami, Florida; and Ralph O. Anderson and Dinah S. Stein
of Hicks, Anderson & Kneale, P.A., Miami, Florida,
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for Petitioner
Daniel S. Pearson and Lenore C. Smith of Holland & Knight LLP, Miami, Florida;
and Walter A. Ketcham, Jr. and David W. Henry of Grower, Ketcham, More`,
Rutherford, Noecker, Bronson & Eide, P.A., Orlando, Florida,
for Respondent
Joel D. Eaton of Podhurst, Orseck, Josefsberg, Eaton, Meadow, Olin & Perwin,
P.A., Miami, Florida,
for the Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers, Amicus Curiae
Warren B. Kwavnick of Cooney, Mattson, Lance, Blackburn, Richards &
O'Connor, P.A., Fort Lauderdale, Florida,
for the Florida Defense Lawyers Association
Michael A. Tonelli of Barr, Murman, Tonelli, Slother & Sleet, Tampa, Florida,
for The Rental Car Association of South Florida, Inc.