Case Name: CITY OF WILLISTON, Appellant, v. Lillie Allie CRIBBS, a widow, Appellee
Court: Florida Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1955-07-27
Citations: 82 So. 2d 150
Docket Number: 
Parties: CITY OF WILLISTON, Appellant, v. Lillie Allie CRIBBS, a widow, Appellee.
Judges: DREW, C. J.', and TERRELL, ROB-' ERTS and THORNAL, Jj., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 82
Pages: 150–155

Head Matter:
CITY OF WILLISTON, Appellant, v. Lillie Allie CRIBBS, a widow, Appellee.
Supreme Court of Florida. En Banc.
July 27, 1955.
Rehearing Denied Sept. 15, 1955.
J. Frank West, Williston, and Scruggs & Carmichael, Gainesville, for appellant.
Lazonby, Dell, Graham & Mills, Gaines-ville, for appellee. ■

Opinion:
HOBSON, Justice.
The history and the facts of this case are stated in the opinion prepared by Mr. Associate Justice Patterson.
This court long ago adopted the rule that ordinarily the defenses of contributory negligence, Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Gary, Fla., 57 So.2d 10, and assumption of risk, Wilson & Toomer Fertilizer Co. v. Lee, 90 Fla. 632, 106 So. 462, present issues which should be resolved by the jury. However, our conclusion herein is not reached solely by invocation of the forestated common principle. It is founded upon our inability to find in the record conclusive evidence from which the inescapable inference [i. e., only permissible reasonable inference] must be drawn that appellee's husband assumed such an insouciant attitude toward his own safety as to cause this court to determine as a matter of law that the deceased was shown, under the facts and circumstances of this case, to have been guilty of contributory negligence or that he assumed the risk of the injury which caused his death.
Implicit in the jury's verdict is the inference that the deceased husband of ap-pellee did not appreciate the danger with which he was confronted immediately prior to the accident although he was aware of the condition which created the peril. We do not believe upon a consideration of the evidence in its entirety that such an inference can be declared to be unreasonable. We have held in common with the courts of most, if not all, other jurisdictions that "appreciation of the danger is as essential to the defense of assumption of risk, or of contributory negligence, as is knowledge of the condition which creates the peril." Bartholf v. Baker, Fla., 71 So.2d 480, 483.
This case involves a man who, in the course of his employment as a carpenter, was holding the spool of a measuring tape and walking along the ridge of a pitched roof. The fatal wires obstructed his way. He had admonished his associate to "watch out" for them.. He stepped over them with "great caution". The wires were uninsulated but dark in color. These key facts are altogether susceptible of. the inference that the decedent was naturally more concerned with maintaining his balance than with making a minute investigation of his surroundings, and failed to appreciate the danger of injury or electrocution. A man walking the ridge of a roof will negotiate any obstruction with caution, solely for fear of tripping or losing his balance, and for the same reason he might well advise a companion to "watch out" for anything which hindered his precarious way along the ridge. Moreover, the decedent, keeping his foothold and his grip on the tape while giving the wire.s the brief inspection that such a situation would permit, and noticing that they were of dark color, might well have concluded that the wires, if electrical, were insulated and therefore harmless, like, for instance, telephone wires. We do not agree that such a conclusion was not logically and lawfully available to decedent under the facts of this case nor do we believe that the question should have 'been taken away from the jury. Decedent was not shown to have had any special knowledge of electricity. To reverse this case on the law we must find that decedent, who was concerned with measuring a roof, knew or should have known that the installation from which the wires emanated was composed of transformers which placed a dangerous or lethal electrical charge in the wires, that the wires were wholly without any protective coating, and that the steel tape which he was holding by'its spool would conduct the charge through the spool and through his body. If we are required to impute so much knowledge and awareness to the decedent, the dissenting opinion is correct in stating that he "voluntarily or carelessly risked his own injury or death." In other words, under this theory the inference is inescapable that he virtually committed suicide. It is elementary that suicide is never presumed. Be that as it may, so wanton a disregard for personal safety is, to say the least, unusual, and we cannot agree that such an inference is the only reasonable inference deducible from the evidence. We believe there was at least one other reasonable inference which could have been, and obviously was, drawn by the jury from the facts and circumstances established by the evidence. Hence it was, without doubt, the duty of the jury to weigh all such reasonable inferences -and determine which inference preponderated. This the jury did, and this court under such circumstance is not authorized to substitute its judgment for that of the jury.
There is no showing of bias or prejudice on the part of the jury, the learned trial judge denied a motion for new trial and his charges were accurate as well as clear. It is not for us to say under such circumstances that the inference patently gleaned by the jury is not reasonable in that it does not accord with, or is antithetical to, logic and reason or human experience, and that another reasonable inference which might have been adopted by the jury should be held as a matter of law to preponderate over any and all other contrary reasonable inferences.
It is our view that this case was properly submitted to the jury upon the questions of contributory negligence and assumption of risk and that the trial judge did not err in denying appellant's motion for judgment non obstante veredicto, or, in the alternative, a new trial.
Affirmed.
DREW, C. J.', and TERRELL, ROB-' ERTS and THORNAL, Jj., concur.
SEBRING, J., and PATTERSON, Associate Justice, dissent. -