Case Name: CITY OF MIAMI BEACH, and Juan A. Garcia, Jr., et al., Appellants, v. DICKERMAN OVERSEAS CONTRACTING COMPANY, U.S.A., Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1995-05-03
Citations: 659 So. 2d 1106
Docket Number: Nos. 94-879, 94-549
Parties: CITY OF MIAMI BEACH, and Juan A. Garcia, Jr., et al., Appellants, v. DICKERMAN OVERSEAS CONTRACTING COMPANY, U.S.A., Appellee.
Judges: Before NESBITT, BASKIN, and GERSTEN, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 659
Pages: 1106–1110

Head Matter:
CITY OF MIAMI BEACH, and Juan A. Garcia, Jr., et al., Appellants, v. DICKERMAN OVERSEAS CONTRACTING COMPANY, U.S.A., Appellee.
Nos. 94-879, 94-549.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.
May 3, 1995.
Rehearing Denied Sept. 27, 1995.
Zack, Ponce, Tucker, Korge & Gillespie, and Keith E. Hope, Miami, for appellant, City of Miami Beach.
Spence, Payne, Masington, Needle & Leeds, and Podhurst, Orseck, Josefsberg, Eaton, Meadow, Olin & Perwin, and Joel D. Eaton, Miami, for appellant, Juan A. Garcia, Jr.
Fowler, White, Gillen, Boggs, Villareal & Banker, and Bonita L. Kneeland, Tampa, for appellee.
Before NESBITT, BASKIN, and GERSTEN, JJ.

Opinion:
NESBITT, Judge.
Juan A. Garcia, Jr. was injured in a diving accident at a site along the City of Miami Beach shoreline. Garcia brought a negligence action against the City and Dickerman Overseas Contracting Company, among others, alleging that they were negligent in failing to remove certain underwater debris at the site, and by failing to take the necessary precautions to prevent the accident. The lower court granted Diekerman's motion for summary judgment on the ground that there was no legal or contractual basis between the plaintiff Garcia and Dickerman upon which a legal duty existed or could be imposed. Garcia and the City appeal. We affirm.
In March 1988, Dickerman responded to a City of Miami Beach invitation to bid on a contract to remove underwater debris at a former pier site. In May, 1988, the City notified Dickerman that it had accepted Dickerman's bid, and presented Dickerman with the contracts for its signature. Because provisions for certain technical services in Diekerman's initial proposal had changed, Dickerman did not execute the performance contract until it and the City re-negotiated and agreed to new specifications, resulting in Dickerman signing the performance contract on June 20, 1989. On August 3, 1989, the City sent Dickerman a Notice to Proceed and to begin work on August 8, 1989. Garcia's diving accident occurred on February 1, 1989, five months before the performance contract was signed and seven months before the City notified Dickerman to begin work.
The principle issue in any negligence action is whether the injury resulted from the defendant's violation of a legal duty owed to the plaintiff. Seitz v. Surfside, Inc., 517 So.2d 49 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987), review denied, 525 So.2d 880 (Fla.1988). Without the element of duty, there is no cause of action for negligence. Id. at 50. In the absence of any duty imposed by law, the element of duty in this particular negligence action depended on the existence of a valid contract between the City and the contractor, Dickerman, at the time of the incident. See 38 Fla.Jur.2d Negligence § 17 (1982) (in a negligence action, the contract is significant only in creating the legal duty). Here, the City itself wrote the bid agreement and performance contract. By the City's own explicit terms, the contract was not "executed" until the contractor signed. Because Dicker- man did not sign, or "execute," the bid acceptance and performance agreement until June 20,1989, well after Garcia's February 1,1989 accident, we find no valid contract between these parties, and no duty on Dickerman's part to protect Garcia at the time the accident occurred.
We acknowledge that normally in a public bidding contest, "acceptance" of a bid forms a contract between the parties, which in turn gives rise to the duty to use reasonable care in affirmatively performing that contract. See, e.g., Schloesser v. Dill, 383 So.2d 1129 (Fla. 3d DCA 1980). Notwithstanding those cases cited by the City for this proposition, they do not control where, as in this case, the City explicitly provided in its invitation to bid that there was no contract to perform entered into until the Bidder "executed" it. Here, it appears that the invitation to bid was explicitly drafted by the City to avoid the above principle.
Moreover, the relationship between Dickerman and the City did not give rise to any duty by Dickerman to the plaintiff that was imposed by law independent of contracts. See, e.g., Mullray v. Aire-Lok Co., 216 So.2d 801 (Fla. 3d DCA 1968).
For the foregoing reason, the order under review is affirmed.
GERSTEN, J., concurs.
. Two separate agreements were secured by two separate bonds, one to secure the bid acceptance and execution, and another to secure the performance of the executed contract. Until "execution" of the performance agreement, the Bidder had not yet entered into the performance contract, and the proposal was not binding on the City. Furthermore, the City negated its own responsibilities until the performance contract was first "executed," when it expressly provided in its bid proposal that "[n]o proposal will be considered binding upon the City until the execution of this Contract." (emphasis added).