Florida First National Bank v. City of Jacksonville

310 So. 2d 19
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedMarch 20, 1975
DocketS-489, S-490
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 310 So. 2d 19 (Florida First National Bank v. City of Jacksonville) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Florida First National Bank v. City of Jacksonville, 310 So. 2d 19 (Fla. Ct. App. 1975).

Opinion

310 So.2d 19 (1975)

FLORIDA FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF JACKSONVILLE, As Guardian of the Property of Ernest John Dobbert, III, a Minor, Appellant,
v.
The CITY OF JACKSONVILLE, Florida, a Municipal Corporation, and Transportation Insurance Company, a Corporation, Appellees.
FLORIDA FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF JACKSONVILLE, As Guardian of the Property of Honore Elizabeth Dobbert, a Minor, Appellant,
v.
The CITY OF JACKSONVILLE, Florida, a Municipal Corporation, and Transportation Insurance Company, a Corporation, Appellees.

Nos. S-489, S-490.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.

March 20, 1975.
Rehearing Denied April 16, 1975.

*20 Nathan Bedell, Robert P. Smith, Jr., and William C. Gentry, of Bedell, Bedell, Dittmar, Smith & Zehmer, Jacksonville, for appellant.

Marion R. Shepard, of Mathews, Osborne, Ehrlich, McNatt, Gobelman & Cobb, Jacksonville, for appellees.

BOYER, Acting Chief Judge.

By these consolidated appeals we are asked to review final judgments of dismissal wherein the learned and able trial judge dismissed with prejudice the amended complaints filed by the plaintiff.[1] The broad issue before us is the propriety of those dismissals. It is axiomatic that in passing upon a motion to dismiss a complaint or amended complaint the trial judge is confined to a consideration of the allegation thereof in the light of applicable substantive law.[2] The narrower issue to be here resolved is whether the appellee municipality may be held legally liable for the damages sustained by appellant's wards under the holdings of the Supreme Court of Florida in Hargrove v. Town of Cocoa Beach, Sup.Ct.Fla. 1957, 96 So.2d 130, as explained and clarified by Modlin v. City of Miami Beach, Sup.Ct.Fla. 1967, 201 So.2d 70, and Wong v. City of Miami, Sup. Ct.Fla. 1970, 237 So.2d 132. We hold that it may, and reverse.

In the landmark case of Hargrove v. Town of Cocoa Beach, supra, the Supreme Court said:

"* * * Affirmatively we hold that a municipal corporation may be held liable for the torts of police officers under the doctrine of respondent superior.
* * * * * *
"* * * we here merely hold that when an individual suffers a direct, personal injury proximately caused by the negligence of a municipal employee while acting within the scope of his employment, the injured individual is entitled to redress for the wrong done." (96 So.2d 130, 133; footnotes omitted)

In Modlin v. City of Miami Beach, supra, decided 10 years after Hargrove, the Supreme Court carefully explained, and to some degree limited the application of, Hargrove, saying:

"* * * we deem it advisable to attempt to define more clearly the boundary of remaining municipal tort immunity.
* * * * * *
"* * * The tort liability of municipal corporations may now be equated with that of private corporations.
* * * * * *
"The Hargrove specification of the legislative and judicial functions as constituting the area of continuing immunity obviously implies that the performance of the executive or administrative function will constitute the area of potential liability. * * *" (201 So.2d 73; emphasis added)

We find therefore from Hargrove and Modlin that a municipality may be held liable for the torts of its employee *21 while acting within the scope of his employment in the performance of executive or administrative functions under the doctrine of respondeat superior, equating that liability with that of private corporations.

The writer of the Modlin opinion carefully distinguished between legislative, administrative, judicial and executive functions. As will be seen from an application of the guidelines there established, the function of the employees of the appellee municipality in the case sub judice was clearly executive.[3]

Since the liability of the municipality is based on the doctrine of respondeat superior, it follows that we must now inquire whether the city employees whose negligence is alleged by appellant to have given rise to a cause of action against their employer would have themselves been liable in tort in the circumstances of this case.[4] In making that determination we must again harken back to Modlin and the authorities therein cited. There we learn that a fundamental element of actionable negligence is the existence of a duty owed by the person charged with negligence to the person injured and that this duty must be something more than the duty which is owed to the public generally. In order for a municipality to be held liable for the acts or omissions of its employee the plaintiff must allege and prove that he has sustained some special or peculiar damage different from that sustained by the public generally and that the injury or damage resulted from a breach of a duty owed by the employee to the plaintiff as distinguished from the public generally.[5]

Following Hargrove, Florida courts have experienced no difficulty in placing a duty of care on a municipality which undertakes the manual operation of a railroad crossing signal toward a motorist attempting to negotiate that crossing[6] or in placing on police officers a duty not to deprive those with whom they come in contact of their constitutional rights of privacy, integrity of person, and so forth.[7]

We turn now to the factual situation alleged in the amended complaints in the cases sub judice.[8]*22 *23 *24

*25 Our first inquiry is whether the amended complaint alleges negligence on the part of municipal employees. We find that it does. Second, had the municipal employees been instead the employees of a private corporation would their negligence have imposed liability upon their private corporate employer? We find that it would.[9] Third, did the plaintiff suffer a special personal damage not common to the community?[10] There can be no question but that under the allegations of the amended complaint it did. Fourth, at the time of the alleged negligence on the part of the municipal employees did they owe a duty to the wards of the plaintiff in any way different from that owed to any other member of the public?[11] We find that they did and that therefore, although we here rely on Modlin, the case sub judice is in that manner distinguishable.

In Modlin, the negligent municipal employee had undertaken no special duty nor responsibility to Mrs. Modlin not common to the public in general and there was no reliance by Mrs. Modlin, apart from her *26 membership in the general public, on the activities the negligent performance of which resulted in her death. Such is not the situation in the cases sub judice. Here, the municipality, through its employees, engaged in an undertaking with reference to the Dobbert children. Other persons[12] all of whom were in positions to have gone to the aid of the Dobbert children but for their reliance upon the municipal employees[13] refrained from rendering aid.

These cases are in no manner analogous to Wong v. City of Miami, supra.

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310 So. 2d 19, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/florida-first-national-bank-v-city-of-jacksonville-fladistctapp-1975.