Florida Power & Light Co. v. Fleitas

488 So. 2d 148, 1 I.E.R. Cas. (BNA) 1456, 11 Fla. L. Weekly 1117, 1986 Fla. App. LEXIS 7783
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedMay 13, 1986
Docket85-607
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 488 So. 2d 148 (Florida Power & Light Co. v. Fleitas) 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 Power & Light Co. v. Fleitas, 488 So. 2d 148, 1 I.E.R. Cas. (BNA) 1456, 11 Fla. L. Weekly 1117, 1986 Fla. App. LEXIS 7783 (Fla. Ct. App. 1986).

Opinion

488 So.2d 148 (1986)

FLORIDA POWER & LIGHT Company, Appellant,
v.
Orlando Fleitas, Jr., Appellee.

No. 85-607.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.

May 13, 1986.

*149 Steel, Hector & Davis and Donald M. Middlebrooks, for appellant.

Whitman, Wolfe, Gross & Schaffel and Manuel M. Rodriguez-Fiol, for appellee.

Before SCHWARTZ, C.J., and HUBBART and BASKIN, JJ.

HUBBART, Judge.

This is an appeal by the defendant Florida Power and Light Co. [FP & L] from a final judgment entered upon an adverse jury verdict in an action allegedly sounding in negligence. The central issue presented for review is whether a negligence action cognizable under Florida law was pled or proven below. For the reasons which follow, we conclude that no such action was established by pleading or proofs herein and reverse.

I

The relevant facts in this appeal are as follows. The defendant FP & L operates a nuclear power installation, located in southern Dade County, Florida, known as Turkey Point Power Plant. Quite understandably, FP & L has a policy against anyone using drugs or alcohol while on the premises of this sensitive installation. As a security precaution, FP & L requires outside contractors, who have agreements with FP & L, to supply documentation on any of the contractors' employees assigned to work at the Turkey Point Power Plant. Upon receiving appropriate documentation, FP & L issues the contractor's employee a badge which permits unescorted access to the plant. FP & L claims an unrestricted right to revoke this access badge at any time.

In October 1982, the plaintiff Orlando Fleitas, Jr. [Fleitas] was hired as a decontamination technician ["deconner"] by the Institute of Resource and Management, Inc. [IRM]. IRM, in turn, assigned the plaintiff Fleitas to work at FP & L's Turkey Point Power Plant, pursuant to an on-going contract which IRM had with FP & L to clean and decontaminate the said plant. IRM supplied necessary documentation to FP & L regarding the plaintiff Fleitas and certified that Fleitas' background had been verified. As a result, FP & L issued Fleitas an unescorted access badge to the Turkey Point Power Plant, and Fleitas commenced work at the plant as a "deconner." He worked in that capacity without incident twelve hours a day, seven days a week for approximately six months.

In March 1983, however, FP & L management received a tip from one of its employees who worked with the plaintiff Fleitas that the latter was using drugs while on the premises at the Turkey Point Power Plant. FP & L immediately revoked Fleitas' unescorted access badge to the plant pending further investigation. Thereafter, an investigation was conducted in which FP & L management determined that the drug accusation against Fleitas was well founded, and, accordingly, the revocation of Fleitas' access badge was made final. IRM then dismissed the plaintiff Fleitas from his job. It is the nature of FP & L's investigation, which (a) led to the revocation of Fleitas' access badge to the Turkey Point Power Plant, and (b) caused the disruption of Fleitas' employment with IRM, that forms the basis of this lawsuit.

On May 25, 1983, the plaintiff Fleitas filed a two-count complaint against the defendant FP & L and the co-defendant IRM in the Circuit Court for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida. Count I of the complaint charged FP & L with defamation of character; count II of the complaint charged IRM with wrongful discharge *150 from employment. On April 17, 1984, the trial court granted FP & L's motion for summary judgment on the defamation count, but gave Fleitas leave to amend in order to plead a negligence cause of action against FP & L. Fleitas took no appeal from this order, and on April 20, 1984, filed an amended complaint in which he changed count I of the complaint to charge FP & L with negligence and realleged in count II the charge of wrongful discharge against the co-defendant IRM. This pleading is the operative complaint in the case.

Count I of the amended complaint alleged that the defendant FP & L denied the plaintiff Fleitas access to the Turkey Point Power Plant "as a result of allegations against him that he was dealing in and/or using ... drugs on the premises of the said nuclear power plant." It was alleged that "the said [drug] accusations have been placed on the personal records of the said [p]laintiff causing him irreparable damage, causing him to lose his employment and ... to be unemployable in his chosen profession." No claim was made, however, that these accusations were defamatory in any sense; indeed, Fleitas' defamation action relating to said accusations had already resulted in a summary judgment for FP & L. Instead, Fleitas pled that "in refusing [p]laintiff access to the said premises as a result of the said allegations," FP & L "did so without proper investigation ... and relied upon uncorroborated accusations by an unknown informant and/or an informant that cannot be located." Fleitas then alleged the following acts of negligence by FP & L: (1) "[t]he [d]efendant negligently, carelessly, recklessly, willfully and wantonly ... refused the [p]laintiff access to the nuclear power plant as a skilled technician [based] on the uncorroborated allegations ... [of plaintiff's illegal drug use and activity while] on the premises of the said [d]efendant," (2) the "[d]efendant, upon receiving the [above] allegations ... should have confronted the [p]laintiff with the said allegations to either admit or deny same or to defend himself against the said allegations," but "failed to do so." Finally, the amended complaint alleged that by accepting these uncorroborated accusations and by denying Fleitas access to the said power plant, FP & L "effectively terminated ... [Fleitas'] employment without giving the said [p]laintiff an opportunity to defend himself against the said allegations" and "[t]hat in so notifying the employer of the [p]laintiff of the said allegations without corroboration and/or proof, the [d]efendant constructively terminated the employment of the [p]laintiff and damaged his reputation." Damages in the form of loss of earnings, both past and future, were claimed as a result of this employment termination; other damages were also pled. A motion to dismiss this count of the amended complaint, for failure to state a cause of action, was denied by the trial court.

On February 4-5, 1985, the cause was tried below by a jury in which both FP & L and IRM were before the court as defendants. The evidence admitted at trial, viewed in a light most favorable to the plaintiff Fleitas, tended to establish the factual allegations of the amended complaint against FP & L.[1] The trial court also limited the plaintiff's damages to loss of past and future earnings as a result of the plaintiff's employment termination. At the conclusion of all the evidence, the trial court directed a verdict in favor of IRM on count II of the amended complaint on the basis of the employment-at-will doctrine, *151 but declined to direct a similar verdict for FP & L, as requested by FP & L in its trial and post-trial motions.

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Bluebook (online)
488 So. 2d 148, 1 I.E.R. Cas. (BNA) 1456, 11 Fla. L. Weekly 1117, 1986 Fla. App. LEXIS 7783, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/florida-power-light-co-v-fleitas-fladistctapp-1986.