Case Name: Robert A. BARNES and Nathan Michael Mashburn, Appellants, v. GULF POWER COMPANY, a Maine Corporation, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1987-12-15
Citations: 517 So. 2d 717
Docket Number: No. BL-20
Parties: Robert A. BARNES and Nathan Michael Mashburn, Appellants, v. GULF POWER COMPANY, a Maine Corporation, Appellee.
Judges: WIGGINTON, J., concurs.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 517
Pages: 717–726

Head Matter:
Robert A. BARNES and Nathan Michael Mashburn, Appellants, v. GULF POWER COMPANY, a Maine Corporation, Appellee.
No. BL-20.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.
Dec. 15, 1987.
Ray P. Pope of Shell, Fleming, David & Menge, Pensacola, for appellants.
D.L. Middlebrooks, M. Robert Blanchard and Charles J. Kahn, Jr. of Levin, Warfield, Middlebrooks, Mabie, Thomas, Mayes & Mitchell, Pensacola, for appellee.

Opinion:
THOMPSON, Judge.
Appellants, plaintiffs below in this personal injury action, seek review of the trial court's entry of summary judgment in favor of the appellee. The judgment was based on the trial court's alternative findings that no duty was owed the plaintiffs by the defendant or that there was a lack of causal connection between any alleged negligence of the defendant and the plaintiffs' injuries. We agree with the trial court's finding that there was no causal connection between the alleged negligence of the defendant and the plaintiffs' injuries, and affirm.
At approximately 8:00 p.m. on December 27, 1983 the plaintiffs, two telephone repairmen employed by Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company, were brutally attacked by unknown assailants at a work-site near downtown Pensacola. Their complaint alleged that Gulf Power was negligent in maintaining its electrical lines and in misrepresenting that it would send out repairmen to repair the lines, thereby delaying the telephone repair job until after darkness fell and proximately causing plaintiffs' injuries.
Assuming the defendant was negligent as alleged, it is not liable to the plaintiffs if there was an efficient, independent intervening cause of plaintiffs' injuries. This is true even if defendant's negligence resulted in the plaintiffs having to work late and that "but for" their having to work late they might not have been attacked. The defendant's negligence, at most, provided the occasion for the attack and the resulting injuries to the plaintiffs. Department of Transportation v. Anglin, 502 So.2d 896 (Fla.1987). Normally causation is a jury question, but when reasonable people could not differ, the issue is one of law for the court. The trial judge correctly found under the facts in this case that the attack upon the plaintiffs by the unknown assailants was an independent efficient intervening cause of the plaintiffs' injuries, and properly entered summary judgment in favor of the defendant. AFFIRMED.
WIGGINTON, J., concurs.
ERVIN, J., specially concurs with written opinion.