Case Name: Franklin L. SMITH, Appellant, v. GROVE APARTMENTS, LLC, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 2007-08-22
Citations: 976 So. 2d 582
Docket Number: No. 3D06-688
Parties: Franklin L. SMITH, Appellant, v. GROVE APARTMENTS, LLC, Appellee.
Judges: Before GREEN, RAMIREZ, and SUAREZ, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 976
Pages: 582–596

Head Matter:
Franklin L. SMITH, Appellant, v. GROVE APARTMENTS, LLC, Appellee.
No. 3D06-688.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.
Aug. 22, 2007.
Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied Feb. 15, 2008.
Chasin & Stinson and Keith Chasin, Miami, for appellant.
Law Offices of Roland Gomez and Ronnie Guillen, Miami, for appellee.
Before GREEN, RAMIREZ, and SUAREZ, JJ.

Opinion:
GREEN, J.
Franklin L. Smith, tenant, appeals an adverse final summary judgment entered in his personal injury action against his landlord, Grove Apartments, LLC. ("landlord"). Smith allegedly sustained his injuries when he resorted to self-help to correct a defective condition of the parking lot after the landlord refused to do so. The trial court entered summary judgment in favor of the landlord based upon its conclusion that Smith's injuries were not foreseeable as a matter of law. Because foreseeability in this context is an issue for the trier of fact, and there are other genuine issues of material fact, the entry of summary judgment was error and must be reversed.
The pleadings, record evidence, and reasonable inferences therefrom, which must be construed in the light most favorable to Smith as the non-moving party, reveal that this is a relatively simple negligence case. Smith resided as a tenant in an apartment complex owned by the landlord. He sustained personal injuries on July 28, 2002, when he fell from his step ladder. At the time, he was attempting to clear and trim back overgrown foliage above the parking lot of the leased premises. The landlord had permitted the tree branches and vines over the parking lot to grow to the point where they were scratching vehicles, causing power outages, and hitting motorists in the eyes as they attempted to enter and exit their vehicles.
Prior to his use of self-help to trim back this overgrown foliage, Smith had repeatedly complained to the landlord about this problem in the parking lot. However, the landlord refused and/or failed to take any corrective action. Prior to Smith's accident, Florida Power and Light came out to cut back those trees surrounding its power lines that were causing the power outages. Florida Power and Light, however, declined Smith's request to trim back the remaining overgrown trees because they didn't impact the company's power lines.
Thus, after the landlord and Florida Power and Light both declined to trim back the remaining overgrown tree branches and vines in the parking lot, Smith decided to exercise self-help to alleviate this problem for himself and other tenants and invitees. In fact, according to Smith's testimony, the landlord's maintenance supervisor actually suggested that Smith cut the trees for himself.
On the day of the accident, Smith placed his 12 foot aluminum single ladder against a holly tree that he described as "almost all limbs." He had with him a machete and chain saw that he utilized to remove tree branches. He fell from the ladder as he was reaching to pull a dead limb from the holly tree. As a result of his fall, he sustained serious bodily injuries.
Smith filed the instant negligence action against the landlord. The complaint alleged, among other things, that the landlord owed Smith and the other tenants a duty to use reasonable care for the maintenance of the parking lot. It was further alleged that the landlord breached his duty by failing to trim back these overgrown trees in the parking lot after being put on notice of the same. As a result of the landlord's breach of its duty to maintain this common area, Smith alleged that he resorted to "self-help" to make the parking lot useable for himself and other tenants and invitees on the leased premises and was injured as a result.
The landlord filed its motion for summary judgment on the grounds that the alleged improper maintenance was not the direct or legal cause of the tenant's injuries as a matter of law. Rather, the landlord essentially argued that Smith's own voluntary act of climbing onto his ladder to trim back the trees was an intervening or superseding cause of his injuries. In response to this motion, Smith argued that the landlord had both a statutory and common law duty to maintain its parking lot properly as one of the common areas of the leased premises; the landlord breached this duty by not trimming back the overgrown trees and vines. He further argued that the landlord would be liable for his injuries if the jury found that his injuries were a foreseeable result of the landlord's breach of its duty. See Bean v. Carey's Rental Agency, Inc., 532 So.2d 685 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988); Bennett M. Lifter, Inc. v. Varnado, 480 So.2d 1336 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985).
The trial court granted the landlord's motion and entered final summary judgment in the landlord's favor. Although the trial court found that the landlord had a duty to his tenant to trim the trees and breached this duty when it failed to do so, the trial court nevertheless found as a matter of law, that the tenant's injuries were not a foreseeable result since the tenant voluntarily performed the maintenance services using his own ladder and equipment.
On appeal the tenant argues that the trial court erred in entering summary judgment where the issue of foreseeability in this case was one for the trier of fact. We agree and reverse.
We initially acknowledge that our standard of review of this final summary judgment is de novo. Major League Baseball v. Morsani, 790 So.2d 1071, 1074 (Fla.2001)("The standard of review governing a trial court's ruling on a motion for summary judgment posing a pure question of law is de novo."). Further, we note that a summary judgment should be granted with caution in negligence and malpractice actions. See Moore v. Morris, 475 So.2d 666, 668 (Fla.1985); Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Tracz, 799 So.2d 413, 414 (Fla. 5th DCA 2001); Lindsey v. Bill Arflin Bonding Agency, Inc., 645 So.2d 565, 566-67 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994). As the Supreme Court has stated:
Summary judgments should be cautiously granted in negligence and malpractice suits. The law is well settled in Florida that a party moving for summary judgment must show conclusively the absence of any genuine issue of material fact and the court must draw every possible inference in favor of the party against whom a summary judgment is sought. A summary judgment should not be granted unless the facts are so crystallized that nothing remains but questions of law.
If the evidence raises any issue of material fact, if it is conflicting, if it will permit different reasonable inferences, or if it tends to prove the issues, it should be submitted to the jury as a question of fact to be determined by it.
Moore, 475 So.2d at 668 (citations omitted).
The movant for summary judgment in a negligence action must demonstrate as a matter of law either that there is no negligence or that the sole proximate cause of the injury was the plaintiffs negligence. See Bryant v. Lucky Stores, Inc., 577 So.2d 1347, 1349 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990). "To establish that there was no negligence the movant must demonstrate that there is no duty owed to the plaintiff or that it did not breach a duty which is owed." Id. (citing Cutler v. St. John's United Methodist Church of Edwardsville, Ill., 489 So.2d 123 (Fla. 1st DCA 1986)).
In the context of a landlord/tenant relationship, the law is well settled that after a tenant takes possession of a residential dwelling unit a landlord has a continuing statutory duty to maintain common areas in a safe condition and to repair dangerous, defective conditions upon notice of their existence, unless otherwise agreed to by the tenant. See § 83.51(2)(a)3., Fla. Stat. (2007); Mansur v. Eubanks, 401 So.2d 1328, 1330 (Fla.1981)(the owner has a duty "to transfer a reasonably safe dwelling unit to the tenant [and] . to exercise reasonable care to repair dangerous, defective conditions upon notice of their existence by the tenant," unless the tenant waived such defects). The policy reason for imposing this duty on the landlord was explained by the Supreme Court in its seminal Mansur decision.
We do not believe there are sufficient reasons to continue to completely insulate the landlord from liability. We live in an age when the complexities of housing construction place the landlord in a much better position than the tenant to guard against dangerous conditions.
Mansur, 401 So.2d at 1330.
The parking lot area in the instant case is most assuredly a common area of the leased premises. As stated earlier, the lease agreement did not impose a duty upon the tenants to maintain the parking lot area. Therefore, the landlord retained its statutory duty to maintain the parking lot area in a clean and safe condition.
The landlord's liability in this personal injury action appears to be primarily grounded upon its statutory violation of section 83.51 (2)(a)3, in failing to properly maintain the parking lot. Accordingly, the threshold question is whether Smith comes within the class of persons this statute was intended to protect. See Bennett M. Lifter, Inc., 480 So.2d at 1338. That is generally a question of fact for the trier of fact. Id. However, in this case, it cannot be disputed that Smith as a tenant, was within the protected class. The trial court's implicit legal determination then, that he was within the protected class, was therefore correct. Id.
The remaining issues in this case are whether the landlord breached this statute by failing to trim back the trees; whether the injuries suffered by Smith are the type that this statute was intended to prevent; and whether the landlord's violation of the statute was the proximate cause of Smith's injuries. Bennett M. Lifter, Inc., Under well-established Florida law, these are all issues to be resolved by the trier of facts and the trial court reversibly erred when it entered final summary judgment in favor of the landlord in this case. See Cold Storage Café, Inc. v. Barone, 779 So.2d 371 (Fla. 2d DCA 2000)(whether the condition of the window on the leased premises on the date of the accident was dangerous, e.g., because the window should have contained safety glass instead of plate glass, is an unresolved issue of fact that precluded summary judgment); Grant v. Thornton, 749 So.2d 529 (Fla. 2d DCA 1999)(sum-mary judgment reversed where tenant was injured while exiting through front window of apartment during fire and alleged that landlord had violated County building and fire codes by maintaining front door with a deadbolt that required key to be used to exit); Bosket v. Broward County Hous. Auth., 676 So.2d 72 (Fla. 4th DCA 1996)(the issues of whether landlord breached duty to provide tenant with readable stove knobs allegedly requested by tenant, as well as duty to maintain fire extinguisher in safe working condition, were for jury to decide; the directed verdict in landlord's favor reversed); Bean v. Carey's Rental Agency, Inc., 532 So.2d 685 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988)(summary judgment reversed in action brought by father of deceased child who died as a result of inhaling noxious fumes from mineral spirits supplied by apartment manager to child's mother who was painting apartment upon the landlord's refusal to do so).
In fact, all of these remaining issues of fact have generally been addressed in terms of proximate causation. See Bennett M. Lifter, Inc., 480 So.2d at 1338 ("[I]n personal injury cases where liability is grounded in a statute or ordinance violation, questions of whether a plaintiff comes within the class of persons intended to be protected by the statute or ordinance and whether the injury is of the kind generally intended to be prevented have been dealt with in terms of proximate cause and, as such, are subject to the determinations of the triers of fact.") (citations omitted). The Florida Supreme Court has stated that proximate causation is established "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.... However, . it is immaterial that the defendant could not foresee the precise manner in which the injury occurred or its exact extent." McCain v. Florida Power Corp., 593 So.2d 500, 503 (Fla.1992) (citation omitted)(emphasis added); see Hernandez v. State, 959 So.2d 355 (Fla. 3d DCA 2007)("Because we think it obvious that the possibility that the only other also-intoxicated driver would indeed actually drive the vehicle upon Jose Enrique's inability or unwillingness to do so was directly within the zone of danger created by Jose Enrique's conduct in the first place , it does not matter under the law that Jose Enrique was unable to foresee 'the exact concatenation of events,' . which actually culminated in the accident") (citations omitted). Additionally, proximate causation does not require an injury to result directly from the tortfeasor's act. Rather, proximate causation exists where the injury "results as a consequence so natural and ordinary as to be regarded as probable." Bosket, 676 So.2d at 74 (citing Bennett M. Lifter, Inc., 480 So.2d at 1339—40).
[WJhere reasonable persons could differ as to whether the facts establish proximate causation — i.e., whether the specific injury was genuinely foreseeable or merely an improbable freak' — then the resolution of the issue must be left to the fact-finder. The judge is free to take this matter from the fact-finder only where the facts are unequivocal, such as where the evidence supports no more than a single reasonable inference.
McCain, 593 So.2d at 504 (citations omitted).
In this case, Smith claims that he, a tenant, was injured when he resorted to self-help to correct a deficiency in a common area of the leased premises after the landlord refused to act. Reasonable people could differ as to whether it was foreseeable that, upon the landlord's refusal to act, someone would ultimately take corrective measures to eliminate these overgrown trees in the parking lot, which allegedly scratched motor vehicles and hit motorists in their faces as they entered and exited their vehicles. As we observed in Bennett M. Lifter, Inc., it cannot be said in this case that the harm that resulted from the defendant's action or omission is so bizarre or has happened so infrequently that "in the field of human experience it could not have been reasonably anticipated." 480 So.2d at 1339.
In fact, this case is virtually indistinguishable from our Bennett M. Lifter, Inc. decision. In Lifter, an electric hot water heater in a leased house remained inoperable for three days, although the landlord had been put on notice of the same. As a result, a mother and grandmother filled the bathtub with water boiled on the stove presumably for bathing purposes. As the grandmother was transporting a pot of water to the bathtub, she collided with her grandchild who had been sent from the bathroom by his mother to give the grandmother a message. The child was injured by the hot water; an action was filed against the landlord. The case proceeded to trial and a verdict was rendered in favor of the plaintiffs and against the landlord. On appeal, the landlord argued (as does the landlord here) that it was entitled to a judgment as a matter of law because (1) it breached no duty requiring it to conform to a certain standard of conduct for the protection of others, including the plaintiffs, and (2) the alleged breach of duty was not the proximate cause of the accident. 480 So.2d at 1337. On the proximate causation issue, the landlord argued that the mother's own acts were the direct cause of the accident, i.e., her act of boiling water rather than merely heating it, and her act of instructing the young child to go to the specific area where she knew the grandmother might be carrying boiling water. Id.
We rejected these arguments and affirmed the verdict and denial of the motion for new trial on appeal. As to the landlord's first argument, regarding the landlord's duty, we affirmed the trial court's implicit determination that the County's minimum housing standards imposed a duty upon the landlord to provide hot running water. Id. at 1338. As to the second issue of proximate causation and foreseeability, we held that it was for the trier-of-fact to determine whether the broken water heater was the proximate cause of the child's injuries and whether intervening superseding causes were presented by the grandmother's act of transporting the hot water and/or by the mother's act of sending the child with a message.
Application of the foreseeability test to intervening causes is generally the responsibility of the trier of fact. It is said that the issue will be decided as a matter of law only in cases where reasonable men could not differ. As a guide to what is a case "where reasonable men could not differ," our courts have employed notions of fairness and policy consideration so as to appropriately relieve a defendant of liability only in highly unusual, extraordinary cases or those with bizarre consequences. It cannot be said in this case that the harm which resulted from the defendant's action or omission is so bizarre or has happened so infrequently that "in the field of human experience" it could not have been reasonably anticipated.
Bennett M. Lifter, Inc., 480 So.2d at 1339 (citations omitted).
Similarly in this case, as stated earlier, the landlord had a statutory duty to make reasonable provisions for the clean and safe condition of common areas. See § 83.51(2)(a)3, Fla. Stat. (2007). The issues of whether the landlord breached this duty by failing to trim back the trees in the parking lot and whether the injury sustained by the tenant in this case was of the type of injury that this statute was intended to prevent are questions of fact for the trier of fact. Id.; Bosket; Bean. Moreover, the question of whether the tenant's own actions was an intervening and independent cause of his injuries so as to relieve the landlord of any liability are also factual issues for the trier of fact. See Bosket, 676 So.2d at 74 ("whether the evidence shows there was intervening cause related to the factual question of the defendant's proximate causation and is to be determined by the fact-finder")(citing McCain, 593 So.2d at 504).
Thus, for all of the foregoing reasons, the summary judgment in this cause must be reversed and this cause must be remanded for further proceedings.
Reversed.
SUAREZ, J., concurs.
. Turner v. PCR, Inc., 754 So.2d 683 (Fla.2000).
. Although the lease agreement made the tenants responsible for keeping the walkway to their respective apartments free from dirt and debris, it did not make them contractually responsible for the maintenance of the parking lot.
. Mr. Smith's testimony about Florida Power and Light was as follows:
Q. Did you ever call FP & L about cutting the bushes or the trees?
A. No.
Q. You hesitated when you gave that answer. Anything you want to add?
A. FP & L came out, the power had been out several times because of these trees in the power lines. I asked FP & L[sic] would they take the rest of them out. They were hanging over hitting people in the eyes. "It's not our job. Ours is to clear the lines the power lines."
Q. When was that?
A. It was before I started trimming. I know that. Prior to the July accident.
. Smith testified during his deposition that the landlord's agent, Jesus Placencia, suggested that Mr. Smith take the necessary corrective measures:
Q. Did anybody on behalf of Grove Apartments ask you to cut the trees or the bushes.
A. Jesus . I asked Jesus to trim the bushes, he said I don't have the equipment. If you have it you cut them. So I would say he would ask me to cut them.
Mr. Placencia, on the other hand, denied ever making this statement to Smith during his deposition testimony.
. Smith testified as follows:
Q. Where would the ladder have been leaning against?
A. One of these limbs. I wish we had a better picture.
Q. It was leaning against a limb opposed to a tree trunk?
A. Right. A holly tree is almost all limbs...
. Smith testified thusly in this regard:
Q. What were you doing, you were pulling a dead limb?
A. Reaching to pull a branch. It was a holly tree. They are intertwined. I reached up to pull that one. I did, I don't know what happened, the next thing I know the ladder was going down.
Q. The cause of your fall was you reaching for the holly tree branch, correct?
A. Yes.
. The dissent's conclusion that these allegations are insufficient to state a cause in negligence against the landlord is erroneous as a matter of law. In order to state a cause of action against a landlord for negligent failure to repair a dangerous or defective condition, the tenant need only allege that the landlord had either actual or constructive knowledge of the condition or of a statutory code violation for a sufficient time in which to make a correction. See Grant v. Thornton, 749 So.2d 529, 532 (Fla. 2d DCA 1999); Siegel v. Deerwood Place Corp., 701 So.2d 1190 (Fla. 3d DCA 1997); Bennett M. Lifter, Inc. v. Varnado, 480 So.2d 1336 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985).
.The dissenting opinion's misapprehension of a landlord's statutory and common law duty in this regard has unfortunately caused it to mischaracterize the issue in this case as whether the landlord somehow owed Smith a duty to maintain its premises in a safe condition for Smith's tree-trimming activities. See slip op. at 590-91 (Ramirez, J., dissenting). The dissenting opinion's failure to accurately grasp the theory of liability of this case has therefore caused it to mistakenly string together and rely upon wholly distinguishable premise liability decisions outside of the landlord/tenant relationship. See e.g., St. Lucie Harvesting and Caretaking Corp. v. Cervantes, 639 So.2d 37 (Fla. 4th DCA 1994)(premise liability against grove owner by employee of independent contractor); Miller v. Aldrich, 685 So.2d 988 (Fla. 5th DCA 1997)(premise liability action against private homeowner); Ortiz v. Lorie, 921 So.2d 868 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006)(same); Hurst v. Astudillo, 631 So.2d 380 (Fla. 3d DCA 1994). See also Quintanilla v. Coral Gables Hosp., Inc., 941 So.2d 468 (Fla. 3d DCA 2006)(a purported medical malpractice action). In fact, the dissenting opinion cites to no decision involving the alleged negligence of a landlord that supports the affirmance of this summary judgment.
. This section provides that:
2(a) Unless otherwise agreed in writing, in addition to the requirements of subsection (1), the landlord of a dwelling unit other than a single-family home or duplex shall, at all times during the tenancy, make reasonable provisions for:
3. The clean and safe condition of common areas.
. Alternatively, the tenant argues that the landlord owed a common law duty to invitees to reasonably maintain its premises. Contrary to the dissent's suggestion, Smith was not required to plead this specific statutory violation in order to state a cause of action.
. In this regard, the trial court stated that "the Plaintiff occupied the status of either a tenant or an invitee, that the landlord failed to trim the trees when it was his responsibility to do so, and that the landlord's agent had no objection to the Plaintiffs actions."
. Indeed, in the realm of human experience, no motorist to this area would want to be subjected to such a condition on an ongoing basis.