Court Opinion

ID: 9902475
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-27 15:17:41.40228+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:20.404803
License: Public Domain

FIFTH DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
                STATE OF FLORIDA
                 _____________________________

                      Case No. 5D22-1901
                 LT Case No. 2019-10377-CIDL
                 _____________________________

DISCOUNT TIRE CO.,

    Appellant,

    v.

TAMMY BRADFORD, as Personal
Representative of the Estate of
MICHAEL BLAZE BRADFORD,
deceased; and as PERSONAL
REPRESENTATIVE of the ESTATE
of WARREN MICHAEL BRADFORD,
deceased,

    Appellee.
                 _____________________________

On appeal from the Circuit Court for Volusia County.
Kathryn D. Weston, Judge.

Kenneth B. Bell and Lauren V. Purdy, of Gunster, Yoakley &
Stewart, P.A., Jacksonville, for Appellant.

Christopher V. Carlyle, of The Carlyle Appellate Law Firm,
Orlando, for Appellee.

                       November 3, 2023

EDWARDS, C.J.
     This wrongful death case arose out of a single-vehicle crash
that resulted from the failure of a fourteen-year-old tire.
Plaintiff/Appellee, Tammy Bradford, as personal representative of
the estates of her husband and their son, sued
Defendant/Appellant Discount Tire Co., a retail tire sales and
service store. Although Appellee claimed during the ensuing jury
trial that Discount Tire breached certain industry standards, she
failed to offer evidence to support her claim. The trial court
properly granted Discount Tire’s motion for directed verdict and
entered judgment in its favor.             However, the trial court
subsequently granted Appellee’s motion for new trial based on her
argument that Discount Tire’s alleged breach of its own internal
policies was sufficient, by itself, to create a legal duty. It was error
to grant a new trial because Florida law is clear that a defendant’s
internal policies, alone, do not create or define the duty owed to a
plaintiff. Accordingly, for the reasons discussed in detail below,
we reverse the order granting a new trial and remand for entry of
final judgment in favor of Discount Tire.

                      BACKGROUND FACTS

      In February 2017, Michael Bradford, Appellee’s husband, took
his truck to Discount Tire where he purchased two new tires which
were installed on the rear wheels while the older rear tires were
rotated to the front. Four months later, while driving his truck on
I-95 at highway speeds, Mr. Bradford’s left front tire experienced
a tread separation resulting in a loss of control that led to a crash
in which Mr. Bradford and their son, Warren Bradford, were
killed. In her complaint and at trial, Appellee asserted that the
left front tire that failed was dangerous and likely to fail due to the
fact that it was allegedly more than ten years old. She further
asserted that Discount Tire was negligent for having serviced that
older tire, i.e., rotating it to the front from the rear, and that
“industry standards” called for taking tires of that age out of
service. Appellee’s tire engineer and failure analysis expert, David
Southwell, testified that the fourteen-year-old tire failed because
it was too old.

    At trial, another of Appellee’s experts testified—William
Zembower, the proprietor of Zembower Auto, a single-store,
family-owned business that engages in the repair and

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maintenance of automobiles in Central Florida. He said that one
industry, tire manufacturers, and a second industry, motor vehicle
manufacturers, had determined that old tires, despite having
adequate tread, may not be safe for use because of aged-related
degradation that could lead to tread separations or other failures.
Different tire manufacturers and vehicle manufacturers used
varying definitions for what was an “old” tire, with some saying
that a tire manufactured ten years earlier, and others stating that
tires manufactured as recently as six years earlier, may not be safe
based on age. Others shared no public information on age-related
safety concerning tires.

     According to Mr. Zembower, the tire manufacturing industry’s
standard and the vehicle manufacturing industry’s standard
called for those manufacturers to inform consumers that the age of
a tire was important for safety, that old tires should not be used,
but rather should be replaced. 1 Taken in the light most favorable
to Appellee, that testimony from Mr. Zembower was evidence of
the standards observed in two industries: tire manufacturing and
vehicle manufacturing. However, it was not evidence of what, if
any, standards existed concerning older tires in Discount Tire’s
industry, namely the retail tire service and sales industry.

     Mr. Zembower did testify about Discount Tire’s internal
policy: employees at its stores were not to service any tire that was
over ten years old. He admitted that he was not able to name any
other tire retail sales and service providers that had adopted that
policy, other than Discount Tire and Zembower’s own single-shop
business. Mr. Zembower admitted that retail tire sales and service
stores, like Discount Tire, have the right to service tires at any age
and that there are no regulations or mandates requiring
replacement of tires at any age. On cross-examination, Mr.

    1 Appellee was not pursuing Discount Tire under any theory

of failure to warn Mr. Bradford about the safety of old tires or the
desirability of buying four rather than two tires for his truck.
Discount Tire witnesses presented in Appellee’s case testified that
their store had several large signs or posters displaying
information about the safety of older tires and its recommendation
to replace all four tires on a vehicle at the same time.

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Zembower agreed that Discount Tire’s internal policy went above
and beyond and was one step higher than other tire retailers.

    Zembower did opine that Discount Tire violated its own
extraordinary internal policy when it serviced the old tire on Mr.
Bradford’s truck by rotating it from the rear to the front axle. But
he did not identify any existing standards in Discount Tire’s
industry regarding older tires that Appellant had violated in this
case.

                 DIRECTED VERDICT MOTION

     At the close of Plaintiff/Appellee’s case, Appellant moved for
directed verdict. The court and counsel discussed the evidence
presented with a focus on Mr. Zembower’s testimony. Ultimately,
the trial court granted the motion for directed verdict because no
evidence was presented to prove what the relevant industry
standard for retail tire sales and service providers was and more
specifically because Appellee’s expert, Zembower, agreed that
Discount Tire’s internal policies exceeded whatever the industry
standard might have been. The trial court entered final judgment
for Appellant.

                      NEW TRIAL MOTION

     Appellee filed a timely motion for new trial which was argued
to the trial court. Appellee’s counsel argued that Discount Tire
had a duty, based on its internal policy, not to service the older
tires on Mr. Bradford’s truck. When the court asked if Discount
Tire should have seized the older tires and refused to return them
to Mr. Bradford, Appellee’s counsel answered, “Absolutely.”

     Appellee asserted that this Court’s decision in Moyer v.
Reynolds, 780 So. 2d 205 (Fla. 5th DCA 2001), recognized that a
defendant’s internal policy, alone, could create and define a legal
duty owed to the plaintiff and a breach of that internal policy, and
that that alone presented a case that could go to the jury. Discount
Tire’s arguments to the contrary were unavailing. Ultimately, the
trial court accepted Appellee’s argument based on a
misinterpretation of Moyer and granted Appellee’s motion for new

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trial. Discount Tire timely appealed the order granting the new
trial.

                     STANDARD OF REVIEW

     “An order granting a new trial is generally reviewed for an
abuse of discretion.” Finkel v. Batista, 202 So. 3d 913, 915 n.1 (Fla.
3d DCA 2016). However, “appellate courts apply a de novo
standard of review to a trial court’s legal conclusions in an order
granting a new trial.” Id. “[W]hen an appellate court has
determined that a trial court’s grant of a new trial is premised, at
least in part, on an error of law, the inquiry then becomes whether
the trial court would have granted a new trial but for the error of
law.” Wal Mart Stores, Inc. v. Wittke, 202 So. 3d 929, 930 (Fla. 2d
DCA 2016) (quoting Van v. Schmidt, 122 So. 3d 243, 246 (Fla.
2013)).

                             ANALYSIS

     Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.530 grants the trial court
discretion to order a new trial to any party on all or part of the
issues. Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.530(a). When granting a new trial, the
trial court “must state the specific grounds therefor.” Fla. R. Civ.
P. 1.530(f). The appellate court is “dependent on the trial court to
articulate [the] reasons supporting its order.” Jordan v. Brown,
855 So. 2d 231, 234 (Fla. 1st DCA 2003); see also Jones v. Atkinson,
974 So. 2d 573, 577 (Fla. 1st DCA 2008) (“We have previously
expressed our reliance on trial judges to articulate the reasons for
granting new trials so that we can intelligently review their orders,
and we and other district courts of appeal have confined review of
such orders to their stated reasons.”). Rule 1.530 also applies to
motions for rehearing; the purpose of this rule “is to afford ‘the trial
court an opportunity to consider matters which it overlooked or
failed to consider.’” Howarth v. Lombardi, 313 So. 3d 729, 731 (Fla.
2d DCA 2020).

     Here, the order granting a new trial clearly articulated the
trial court’s reasoning. It stated:

    Plaintiff’s motion is hereby GRANTED based on this
    Court’s reading of Moyer v. Reynolds, 780 So. 2d 205, 208

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    (Fla. 5th DCA 2001) and its acceptance of Plaintiff’s
    argument that Moyer stands for the proposition that
    evidence a defendant failed to comply with its own
    internal rule or procedure is evidence of the standard of
    care and evidence of a breach of the standard of care; and
    is, therefore, sufficient to defeat a motion for directed
    verdict based on an argument that Plaintiff failed to offer
    evidence sufficient to establish the standard of care (duty)
    or a violation of the standard of care.

Thus, as explained above, this Court’s review is limited to the trial
court’s legal interpretation of Moyer.

     Moyer, a wrongful death action based on medical malpractice,
dealt with the trial court’s exclusion of portions of a doctor’s
testimony regarding internal policy procedures of a hospital. 780
So. 2d at 206. This Court explained that testimony relating to
breach of the hospital’s policy and procedures was admissible
because, just “[a]s in negligence cases in general, the courts permit
a claimant in a medical malpractice action to establish that the
health care provider breached his or her own rule of practice or
violated an industry standard as evidence of the standard of care.”
Id. at 208. Critically, Moyer stated that although this testimony
was admissible as some evidence of the standard of care, “this type
of evidence does not conclusively establish the standard of care.”
Id. Thus, Moyer does not hold that a plaintiff may establish
standard of care solely through evidence that a defendant violated
its own internal policy. A plain reading of Moyer supports the
opposite—that while evidence of internal polices is relevant to the
standard of care, it “does not conclusively establish the standard
of care.” Id.

     Moyer is in accord with many other cases on this point, all of
which point to the error in granting a new trial here. For example,
in Wittke, “the trial court found that ‘the evidence presented to the
jury during trial clearly demonstrated that [plaintiff’s] injuries
were the result of [Wal Mart’s] failure to follow its own safety
policies and procedures.’” 202 So. 3d at 930. The Second District
found that:

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      the trial court equated the standard of care with
      compliance with [the defendant’s] internal policies and
      procedures, effectively determining that a breach of
      policies and procedures is a per se breach of the standard
      of care. This was error. ‘[A] party’s internal rule does not
      itself fix the legal standard of care in a negligence action
      ....

Id.

     Dominguez v. Publix Super Markets, Inc., 187 So. 3d 892 (Fla.
3d DCA 2016), involved a slip and fall with what can only be
described as remarkable timing. Assistant manager, Keith
Nation, while standing in the soap aisle, heard a crash, ran to
where a bottle of detergent had fallen on the same aisle, and did
his best to straddle the spill. According to the store’s video tape,
he arrived in nine seconds from when the detergent fell. Id. at 893.
Four seconds later, plaintiff came on scene, from Nation’s blind
side, where she slipped and fell on the just-spilled detergent. Id.
Consistent with Moyer, the Third District held that “[t]he evidence
relating to Publix's [internal operating] procedures about blocking
the aisle was certainly admissible and relevant to the jury's
consideration of Nation's conduct after the spill. However, internal
safety policies do not themselves establish the standard of care
owed to the plaintiff.” Id. at 894–95 (citations omitted).

    The Fourth District in Gunlock v. Gill Hotels Co., 622 So. 2d
163 (Fla. 4th DCA 1993), first discussed the absence of case law
that would support granting the motion for new trial here:

      Furthermore, we can find no authority that evidence of
      an internal policy creates a substantive duty to conform
      to the standard of conduct contained therein. Therefore,
      appellants cannot properly demonstrate that the
      existence of appellee’s internal policy created a
      substantive duty to escort intoxicated guests to their
      hotel rooms.

Id. at 164. Making the same point, but from the other end of the
spectrum, in De La Torre v. Flanigan’s Enterprises, Inc., 187 So.
3d 330, 334 (Fla. 4th DCA 2016), the Fourth District noted that

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“there is ample case law stating that internal policies do not create
a duty to third parties.”

     The First District reached the same conclusion on internal
policies in Warren ex rel. Brassell v. K-Mart Corp., 765 So. 2d 235,
236–37 (Fla. 1st DCA 2000), where a minor was injured by a pellet
gun powered by a CO2 cartridge that was sold to the minor by the
defendant. It affirmed the trial court’s order dismissing the
complaint alleging negligent entrustment where plaintiff argued
that “sale of CO2 cartridges to minors may have violated the K-
Mart’s        internal         policy”;       reasoning         that
“[t]he standard of care however is set by the community, rather
than by a corporation's internal policy.” Id. at 237.

   We would be remiss if we failed to mention Pollock v. Florida
Department of Highway Patrol, 882 So. 2d 928, 936–37 (Fla. 2004),
where our supreme court observed that:

    in the context of governmental tort litigation, written
    agency protocols, procedures, and manuals do not create
    an independent duty of care. While a written policy or
    manual may be instructive in determining whether the
    alleged tortfeasor acted negligently in fulfilling an
    independently established duty of care, it does not itself
    establish such a legal duty . . . .

                          CONCLUSION

     The fact that Discount Tire’s internal policy called for it to
refuse service if a customer did not wish to purchase a new tire to
replace a ten-year-old tire is not—as the trial court ruled—
evidence that Discount Tire violated the industry standard of care.
Accordingly, we reverse the order granting Appellee a new trial
and remand with instructions for the trial court to reinstate the
original final judgment for Appellant, Discount Tire.

    REVERSED and REMANDED with instructions.

WALLIS and MACIVER, JJ., concur.

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          _____________________________

Not final until disposition of any timely and
authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or
9.331.
           _____________________________

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