DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA

FOURTH DISTRICT

SEMINOLE LAKES HOMEOWNER’S ASSOCIATION, INC.,

a Florida corporation,

Appellant,

v.

SHELDON ESNARD and MARY ANN ESNARD, his wife,

Appellees.

No. 4D18-15

[December 19, 2018]

Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, Palm 

Beach County; Cymonie S. Rowe, Judge; L.T. Case No. 2014-CA-005525 

(AO).

Thomas L. Hunker of Cole, Scott & Kissane, P.A., Plantation, and 

Lissette Gonzalez of Cole, Scott & Kissane, P.A., Miami, for appellant.

Andrew A. Harris and Nichole J. Segal of Burlington & Rockenbach, 

P.A., West Palm Beach, and Joseph R. Fields, Jr. of Fields Legal, LLC, West 

Palm Beach, for appellees.

KANNER, DANIEL J., Associate Judge.

Seminole Lakes Homeowner’s Association, Inc. appeals a final 

judgment entered after jury trial verdict in favor of Sheldon and Mary 

Esnard. Seminole Lakes contends that the trial court erred by not 

granting its motion for directed verdict on the issue of proximate 

causation. Seminole Lakes also appeals on two other grounds. We agree 

and reverse on the issue of proximate causation rendering the other two 

issues moot.

This case arose out of a car accident between the Esnards and Dedric 

Upshur which occurred inside the Seminole Lakes community. Upshur 

rear-ended the Esnards while they were stopped waiting for two trucks to 

pass between two parked cars on the street. The Esnards sought damages 

against Seminole Lakes on the basis that Seminole Lakes was negligent 

and proximately caused the Esnards’ damages by permitting homeowners 

and their guests to park on both sides of the community’s streets contrary 
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to its governing documents. The jury found that Seminole Lakes’ 

negligence was a legal cause of the Esnards damages and apportioned 

fault with 30% to Seminole Lakes and 70% to Upshur.

Seminole Lakes is a community of single family homes and townhomes 

located in the Village of Royal Palm Beach, Florida. At the time of the 

accident, the Esnards were renting a townhome in Seminole Lakes. The 

Association’s restrictive covenants provide that owners and guests shall 

park in their driveways or garages or designated common area spaces. In 

2009, the board realized that there was a severe parking problem within 

the community and made the decision to allow overnight street parking, 

despite the fact that the Village of Royal Palm Beach Code prohibits any 

street parking which interferes with the flow traffic. As a result, vehicles 

parked on both sides of the street in various sections of the community. 

Occasionally, this circumstance would only allow one car to pass between 

two parked vehicles.

One evening in 2013, Mr. and Mrs. Esnard were returning home to their 

residence where they encountered such a circumstance. While they waited 

behind a truck for another truck to pass between two cars, they were rearended by Upshur. The Esnards’ car was totaled and Mr. Esnard suffered 

injuries as a result of the accident.

The case proceeded to trial. At the close of the Esnards’ case, Seminole 

Lakes moved for a directed verdict maintaining that Seminole Lakes’ 

allowing cars to park on the street was not a proximate cause of the 

accident.

The issue of proximate causation is generally an issue for the trier of 

fact; however, there are instances where the issue should be decided as a 

matter of law. The Supreme Court of Florida held in Nat’l Airlines, Inc. v. 

Edwards, 336 So. 2d 545, 547 (Fla. 1976) (quoting Kwoka v. Campbell, 

296 So. 2d 629, 631 (Fla. 3d DCA 1974)): “The question of proximate 

cause is one for the court where there is an active and efficient intervening 

cause.”

The Second District Court of Appeal further explained the issue of 

proximate causation in Mathews v. Williford, 318 So. 2d 480, 481-83 (Fla. 

2d DCA 1975):

The law is well settled in this state that a remote condition or 

conduct which furnishes only the occasion for someone else’s 

supervening negligence is not a proximate cause of the result 

of the subsequent negligence.
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* * *

In short, conduct prior to an injury or death is not legally 

significant in an action for damages like this, unless it is a 

legal or proximate cause of the injury or death-as opposed to 

a cause of the remote conditions or occasion for the later 

negligence.

“[H]arm is ‘proximate’ in a legal sense if prudent human foresight would 

lead one to expect that similar harm is likely to be substantially caused by 

the specific act or omission in question.” McCain v. Fla. Power Corp., 593 

So. 2d 500, 503 (Fla. 1992). Obviously, the facts of every case are different 

and must be analyzed in their entirety.

In Pope v. Cruise Boat Co., Inc., 380 So. 2d 1151 (Fla. 3d DCA 1980), 

the pedestrian plaintiff chose to walk on the shoulder of a county street 

running in front of the defendant’s business. The plaintiff “came upon a 

boat on a trailer and two pickup trucks parked perpendicular to the street 

on the shoulder, but not protruding into the street.” Id. at 1152. The 

plaintiff was struck by a truck when she stepped off the shoulder into the 

street in an attempt to go around the boat. Id. The plaintiff alleged that 

the defendant breached its duty to maintain the premises in a reasonably 

safe condition and that the issue of negligence should have been a 

question for the jury. Id. The Third District Court of Appeal held that the 

defendant’s conduct of permitting the parking condition was not a 

proximate cause of the plaintiff’s injury because it merely furnished the 

occasion for the plaintiff’s own negligence in stepping into oncoming 

traffic, noting that the plaintiff “chose[] to walk the shoulder of the road 

rather than the sidewalk on the other side of the same street.” Id. at 1152-

53. The Third District Court later elaborated on its ruling in Stahl v. Metro.

Dade Cty., 438 So. 2d 14, 23 (Fla. 3d DCA 1983), explaining that the 

accident in Pope was an unusual, unforeseeable event:

[I]t was not a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the 

defendant’s negligence that the plaintiff pedestrian would 

react in such an unusual manner. The plaintiff pedestrian 

plainly had no momentum problem as she travelled on foot 

alongside the road and could have easily come to a complete 

stop upon encountering the subject vehicles on the shoulder; 

in fact, that is what one, as a matter of law, would reasonably 

expect. Her decision thereafter to step onto the road without 

looking, whereupon she was hit by a car, was an unexpected, 

highly unusual event, and therefore an unforeseeable 
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intervening cause for which the defendant was not 

responsible. There was causation-in-fact in that case, but the 

result was considered too extraordinary and too unforeseeable 

to be considered a proximate cause of the defendant’s 

negligence.

The same analysis applies to the present case. While the vehicles 

parked on the side of the street caused traffic to slow or even stop, it cannot 

be said that this was a proximate cause of the Esnards’ damages. It is 

within common experience while driving on the streets of Florida to 

encounter traffic that is slowed or stopped for any number of reasons. The 

law requires every driver to maintain a safe distance from the traffic in 

front of them to avoid rear-end collisions.

In this case, the evidence showed that the Esnards had been stopped 

for a period of time before Upshur collided with them. The parking 

situation was patently obvious to any and all drivers using the streets in 

Seminole Lakes. There was no evidence that the Esnards were forced to 

make a sudden emergency stop or otherwise take evasive action to avoid 

the parked vehicles. This court sees no difference between this situation 

and a car being stopped behind a city bus waiting to pick up passengers. 

While Seminole Lakes’ failure to enforce the parking rules was a cause-infact of the accident, its negligence only furnished the occasion for Upshur’s 

negligence.

In light of all of the evidence, including the lack of any prior incidents 

of this nature, and the general conditions of this residential neighborhood, 

we hold that Upshur’s negligence was not reasonably foreseeable by

Seminole Lakes, and the failure to enforce its parking rules was not the 

proximate cause of the Esnards’ injuries. See Las Olas Holding Co. v. 

Demella, 228 So. 3d 97 (Fla. 4th DCA 2017).

Accordingly, we reverse the trial court’s denial of Seminole Lakes’ 

motion for directed verdict, and remand for entry of a judgment in favor of 

Seminole Lakes.

Reversed and Remanded.

DAMOORGIAN and KLINGENSMITH, JJ., concur.

* * *

Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.