Case Name: Cordelia WALLACE, Appellant, v. P. L. DODGE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1981-06-02
Citations: 399 So. 2d 114
Docket Number: No. 79-1584
Parties: Cordelia WALLACE, Appellant, v. P. L. DODGE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, Appellee.
Judges: Before BARKDULL, SCHWARTZ and DANIEL S. PEARSON, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 399
Pages: 114–122

Head Matter:
Cordelia WALLACE, Appellant, v. P. L. DODGE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, Appellee.
No. 79-1584.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.
June 2, 1981.
Podhurst, Orseck & Parks and Joel D. Eaton, Joe N. Unger, Miami, Wolfson & Diamond, Miami Beach, for appellant.
Fowler, White, Burnett, Hurley, Banick & Strickroot and Henry Burnett, Miami, for appellee.
Before BARKDULL, SCHWARTZ and DANIEL S. PEARSON, JJ.

Opinion:
DANIEL S. PEARSON, Judge.
This is the second appearance of this case before this eourt. Three years ago, a panel of this court overturned a summary judgment entered in favor of P. L. Dodge Memorial Hospital. See Wallace v. P. L. Dodge Memorial Hospital, 355 So.2d 855 (Fla.3d DCA 1978). In so doing, they held that "[t]here was a genuine issue of material fact as to the alleged negligence of the defendant hospital in failing to provide adequate attendants to protect the plaintiff as an invitee of the hospital against a violent attack by one of its mental patients," see Wallace v. P. L. Dodge Memorial Hospital, supra, at 855. After remand, the case went to trial. A jury resolved that issue of fact in favor of Mrs. Wallace. The trial court, notwithstanding the verdict, entered a judgment for the hospital. Mrs. Wallace appeals from that judgment.
The evidence from which this court determined that there existed an issue of fact precluding summary judgment is indisputably the same as the evidence later presented at trial. Therefore, our ruling in 1978 established the law of the case, precluding, except in extraordinary circumstances, a contrary determination that no issue of fact existed. Myers v. Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company, 112 So.2d 263 (Fla.1959); Geller v. 2500 Collins Corp., 130 So.2d 322 (Fla.3d DCA 1961); Lincoln National Life Insurance Company v. Roosth, 306 F.2d 110 (5th Cir. 1962) (en banc). Since the trial court's judgment is a determination contrary to the established law of the case, and since we are of the view that this case paradigmatically requires us to apply the doctrine of law of the case, we reverse.
The situation in the present case is not unlike that addressed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, in Lincoln National Life Insurance Company v. Roosth, supra. There a panel of the court reversed a judgment n. o. v. entered for the defendant-insurer. See Roosth v. Lincoln National Life Insurance Company, 269 F.2d 171 (5th Cir. 1959). A retrial resulted in a verdict for the plaintiff-insured and the defendant appealed. The evidence in both trials was identical.
The panel to which the second appeal was assigned differed in its make-up from the panel which decided the first appeal. A serious question arose whether the second panel agreed with the decision of the former panel that the evidence was legally sufficient to present an issue to be decided by a jury. In light of that, the court on its own motion ordered an en banc hearing. The en banc court decided that it is precisely this kind of case which requires the application of the law of the case doctrine.
"The reconsideration of this identical record by the second panel and now by the full Court revealed another thing of equal positiveness. There are no differences among the Judges of this Court on the questions of law as such. The differences, such as they exist, relate to the facts. It is true, of course, that whether the evidence is sufficient to make out a jury case is a question of law. [citations omitted]. But it is one only in relation to the particular facts of the particular case. There is no disagreement over the controlling standard, only on whether the evidence does, or does not, satisfy that standard.
"It is that absence of any disagreement on controlling legal principles and the very substantial actual sameness of the two records which leads us to the conclusion that this is a case calling imperatively for the application of the doctrine of the law of the case."
*
"[W]e think that when the issue resolves itself, as it does so clearly here, into a question of whether the same body of evidence is enough to permit a jury submission, neither a subsequent, second, or third, panel of this Court, nor the whole Court sitting en banc, should ordinarily undertake to review the correctness of the first decision or, doing so, arrive at a contrary conclusion.... " 306 F.2d at 112, 113.
The rationale of the Fifth Circuit applies with equal force to us:
"We think that in a multi-Judge Court it is most essential that it acquire an institutional stability, by which the immediate litigants of any given case, and equally important, the bar who must advise clients or litigants in situations yet to come, will know that in the absence of most compelling circumstances, the decision on identical questions, once made, will not be re-examined and redecided merely because of a change in the composition of the Court or of the new panel hearing the case." 306 F.2d at 114.
We fully recognize that we have the power to reconsider our own rulings, notwithstanding that such rulings have become the law of the case. See Strazzula v. Hendrick, 177 So.2d 1 (Fla.1965). But that power is to be exercised only in the most compelling circumstances, only for the most cogent reasons, and only where a manifest injustice would result from strict adherence to the rule. Strazzula v. Hendrick, supra. This is not a case in which that power should be exercised. See also Goodman v. Olsen, 365 So.2d 393 (Fla.3d DCA 1979); Schempp v. Schempp, 339 So.2d 672 (Fla. 1st DCA 1976). Instead, this is simply a case where a former decision of this court is attacked as being erroneous — a case for which the doctrine of the law of the case was intended. Indeed, were we to carve an exception to the law of the case doctrine here, and question the soundness of the former decision, the doctrine would be subsumed by the exception.
The cases relied upon by Judge Barkdull in his dissent correctly point out that when the evidence before the appellate court at the time it reverses a trial court's entry of summary judgment differs from the evidence ultimately developed at trial, the appellate court's holding that there are triable issues of fact does not preclude the trial court from later entering a directed verdict. Were we dealing here with even an arguable difference in the evidence, we would agree that the law of the case, which presupposes, in the present context, a ruling of law based on a specified set of facts, would not control. But the critical point in the present case is that the evidence concerning the number and training of the hospital's employees and staff, which was before this court when it held that it was for a jury to determine whether the number and training of hospital employees and staff were adequate, was exactly the same as the evidence presented at trial. It is precisely when that body of evidence is, as here, the same that the reasoning of Lincoln National Life Insurance Company v. Roosth, supra (a ease which, incidentally, is left undisturbed by later Fifth Circuit decisions found in the dissent), controls.
We therefore hold that the law of the case, predicated on evidence identical to that presented at trial, required that the issue of the hospital's negligence be decided by a jury, prevented the trial court from entering a judgment for the hospital, and prevents us from affirming that judgment.
We must, however, affirm the trial court's alternative order granting a new trial on the ground that the verdict was contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence. No abuse of discretion in this ruling has been demonstrated, and it may not, therefore, be set aside on appeal. Cloud v. Fallis, 110 So.2d 669 (Fla.1959); Rivera v. White, 386 So.2d 1233 (Fla.3d DCA 1980); see Baptist Memorial Hospital, Inc. v. Bell, 384 So.2d 145 (Fla.1980); Castlewood International Corp. v. LaFleur, 322 So.2d 520 (Fla.1975). To the extent that Wackenhut Corp. v. Canty, 359 So.2d 430 (Fla.1978), and its progeny mandate that the trial court articulate the bases of its conclusion to grant a new trial on manifest weight grounds, the order entered below fully satisfied that requirement. That order spells out the trial judge's reasons for his finding that there was no evidence at all of the defendant's liability. Even though the law of the case compels us to disagree with that conclusion, it surely cannot be said that the court's opinion provides no record-based support for the determination that the manifest weight of the evidence was contrary to the jury's verdict. See Robinson v. Allstate Ins. Co., 367 So.2d 708 (Fla.3d DCA 1979); Urti v. Transport Commercial Corporation, 479 F.2d 766 (5th Cir. 1973); Keystone Floor Products Co. v. Beattie Manufacturing Company, 432 F.Supp. 869 (E.D.Pa.1977). Thus, as in, e. g., Wagner v. McCormick, 153 So.2d 860 (Fla.2d DCA 1963), we reverse the judgment for the hospital, but affirm the order requiring a new trial.
Reversed in part; affirmed in part.
. The power to depart from prior rulings has been exercised circumspectly. Exceptions to the law of the case doctrine have been made only where the prior decision of the court (1) established unsound precedent for the guidance of others, e. g., State v. LoChiatto, 381 So.2d 245 (Fla. 4th DCA 1979) (where court's initial decision authorized assessment of attorneys' fees against State for appellate proceedings in a criminal case under statute pertaining to civil cases only); Standard Oil Co. of California v. Johnson, 56 Cal.App.2d 411, 132 P.2d 910 (1942); McGovern v. Kraus, 200 Wis. 64, 227 N.W. 300 (1929); (2) announced a doctrine in conflict with previous pronouncements of the court, e. g., Brewer v. Browning, 115 Miss. 358, 76 So. 267 (1917); (3) was made under a mistake of fact, e. g., Cochran v. M & M Transportation Co., 110 F.2d 519 (1st Cir. 1940) (mistake of fact that judgments had been entered against the plaintiff, causing court to hold that plaintiffs failure to appeal precluded review); Putnam & Norman, Inc. v. Levee, 186 So. 368 (La.App. 1939) (mistake of fact that corporation in whose favor judgment had been entered was dissolved, causing court to set aside judgment); Bird v. Sellers, 122 Mo. 23, 26 S.W. 668 (1894) (mistake of fact that pertinent statute had been revised, causing decision based on supposed revision); (4) was impacted by an intervening decision, e. g., Johnson v. Cadillac Motor Car Co., 261 F. 878 (2d Cir. 1919) (where court first held car manufacturer not liable to buyer with whom there was no privity of contract, but, in light of the intervening landmark decision in Macpherson v. Buick Motor Co., 217 N.Y. 382, 111 N.E. 1050 (1916), later held that an exception to the law of the case doctrine should be made where, inter alia, the initial decision "lays down a principle of law for future guidance which is unsound and contrary to the interests of society"; Maryland Casualty Company v. Hallatt, 326 F.2d 275 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 377 U.S. 932, 84 S.Ct. 1335, 12 L.Ed.2d 296 (1964), and Connor v. New York Times Co., 310 F.2d 133 (5th Cir. 1962) (where federal court had initially decided cases in reliance on state court decisions later overruled); (5) involved an important public policy consideration, e. g., Beverly Beach Properties, Inc. v. Nelson, 68 So.2d 604 (Fla.1953) (where court's initial decision failed to give full faith and credit to judgment of sister state); see Annot., 87 A.L.R.2d 271 (1963); 3 Fla.Jur.2d Appellate Review § 414-29 (1978).
. The proposition that a trial court may for sound practical reasons deny summary judgment, afford the parties a full opportunity to present evidence at trial, and thereafter direct a verdict on the identical evidence, is inapposite to the present inquiry. Gleason v. Title Guarantee Co., 317 F.2d 56 (5th Cir. 1963). The denial of summary judgment merely defers the matter until final hearing. City of Coral Gables v. Baljet, 250 So.2d 653 (Fla.3d DCA 1971).
. But see Hauser Motor Co., Inc. v. Byrd, 377 So.2d 773 (Fla.4th DCA 1979), and Robinson v. Allstate Ins. Co., 367 So.2d 708 (Fla.3d DCA 1979), holding that Wackenhut did not change the rule that the appellate court should examine the record to determine whether a new trial order granted on manifest weight grounds was an abuse of discretion, even if the particularized reasons are not specified in the order itself.
We assume without determining that Wacken-hut applies to new trial orders other than those which, like Wackenhut itself, and most, if not all, of the subsequent decisions, deal with issues of the alleged excessiveness or inadequacy of damages.
. The order stated, in pertinent part:
"The jury has found for the Plaintiff by finding that the Defendant was 80% negligent and Plaintiff 20% negligent.
"This Court is still unable to find a basis upon which a jury could lawfully find that the plaintiff suffered injuries through any negligence of the Defendant. The Plaintiff had caused her husband to be placed in the hospital by the institution of a Baker Act proceedings [sic]. She was injured by her husband when she visited him in the hospital. This occurred when she sat down on the bed with him, at which time he grabbed hold of her, took her into the bathroom and committed battery upon her. This case was before the Third District Court of Appeals, which reversed a Summary Judgment, stating that there is an issue of fact on whether or not the hospital provided an adequate number of employees and staff. There was no evidence in the record that the staff was inadequate. Even if it were inadequate, there is no evidence that the number or the training of the staff contributed or was a legal cause of the Plaintiffs injuries in any way. The hospital staff had received no warnings or instructions to prevent the Plaintiff from visiting her husband. Her injuries were not the result of any lack of supervision by the hospital. This is not a case where the inmate had escaped and caused injury to third persons, as is set forth in the case in 70 ALR 2nd, 366. I am unable to understand how the hospital breached any duty to the Plaintiff. In short, although I have reviewed the case and listened attentively to counsel for the Plaintiff, this court is unable to find any legal basis for assessing liability against the Defendant hospital for injuries suffered by the Plaintiff resulting from battery performed on her by her husband."
.The dissent notes an apparent inconsistency in our holdings that the evidence was sufficient to present a jury question and that the trial court was empowered to grant a new trial when, in its view, the verdict was against the manifest weight of the evidence. The distinction between the weight and sufficiency concepts, and the separate, but consistent, function of each, has recently received full discussion in a different context in Tibbs v. State, 397 So.2d 1120 (Fla.1981).