Court Opinion

ID: 9449848
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:25:18.782698+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:01.241731
License: Public Domain

JONES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The Florida courts have had frequent occasion to declare and apply the well-settled rule that negligence is not actionable unless there is a causal connection between the negligence and the injury for which relief is sought. See Mayhew v. Pierce Tire Co., Fla.App., 120 So.2d 451; Pope v. Pinkerton-Hays Lumber Co., Fla.App., 120 So.2d 227; McWhorter v. Curby, Fla.App., 113 So.2d 566; Florida Power Corporation v. Willis, Fla.App., 112 So.2d 15; Williams v. Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Co., 56 Fla. 735, 48 So. 209, 24 L.R.A.,N.S., 134, 131 Am.St.Rep. 169; Florida Cent. & P. R. Co. v. Williams, 37 Fla. 406, 20 So. 558.
The testimony of Mrs. Shirey is enough to go to the jury on the questions of defendant negligence and plaintiff injury. I cannot join in saying that there is enough evidence to make a jury issue on the question of causation. Mrs. Shir-ey fell and as an incident of her fall she scuffed her shoes. But she could have scuffed her shoes as the result of a fall resulting from her sole negligence. So also could she have suffered the injuries which she sustained from a fall resulting from her sole negligence.
In support of its view that Mrs. Shir-ey’s testimony was enough to go to the jury on the question of causation, the court cites, among other decisions, the opinion of this Court in Pogue v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, 5th Cir. 1957, 242 F.2d 575. Of this decision of this Court, the Supreme Court of Florida has said that the Court, in the Pogue decision, interpreted the decisions of the Florida courts more broadly than the decisions justify. Food Fair Stores, Inc. v. Trusell, Fla., 131 So.2d 730. The court has, I am convinced, in this case, continued to interpret the decisions of the Florida courts more broadly than is justified. .
*554It is my view that the evidence here is purely speculative on the issue of causation and inadequate to produce a jury question. Food Fáir Stores, Inc. v. Tru-sell, supra. I would affirm the judgment of the district court.