Kelly v. Community Hosp. of Palm Beaches, Inc.

818 So. 2d 469, 27 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 470, 2002 Fla. LEXIS 884, 2002 WL 991933
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedMay 16, 2002
DocketSC00-1255
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 818 So. 2d 469 (Kelly v. Community Hosp. of Palm Beaches, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kelly v. Community Hosp. of Palm Beaches, Inc., 818 So. 2d 469, 27 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 470, 2002 Fla. LEXIS 884, 2002 WL 991933 (Fla. 2002).

Opinion

818 So.2d 469 (2002)

Thomas J. KELLY, etc., Petitioner,
v.
COMMUNITY HOSPITAL OF the PALM BEACHES, INC., etc., et al., Respondents.

No. SC00-1255.

Supreme Court of Florida.

May 16, 2002.

*470 Adam Lawrence of Lawrence & Daniels, Miami, FL; and Law Offices of R. Stuart Huff, Coral Gables, FL, for Petitioners.

Debra Potter Klauber and Kenneth E. White of Haliczer, Pettis & White, Fort Lauderdale, FL; and Peter M. Feaman and Jeffrey T. Royer of Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs, Boca Raton, FL, for Respondents.

LEWIS, J.

We have for review Kelly v. Community Hospital of the Palm Beaches, Inc., 756 So.2d 144 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000), which is a per curiam decision citing Tejada v. Roberts, 760 So.2d 960 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000), quashed, 814 So.2d 334 (2002), which was then pending review in this Court. We granted jurisdiction based on Jollie v. State, 405 So.2d 418, 420 (Fla.1981).[1]

MATERIAL FACTS

Appellants, Thomas J. Kelly, M.D. and Thomas J. Kelly, M.D., P.A. (collectively, "Kelly") filed an action against Community Hospital of the Palm Beaches, Inc. and Humana, Inc. (collectively, "Humana") based upon allegations of fraud in the inducement to locate his adolescent psychiatric program at the hospital. Kelly claimed that, after false promises were made to him to entice the move, his program was terminated, several months after an initial one-year contract had expired. The jury returned a verdict in favor of the respondents, and judgment was entered on the verdict.

Thereafter, Kelly's counsel discovered that certain jurors had grievously failed to provide honest responses during voir dire questioning. A motion for new trial brought these serious matters to the attention of the trial court. Appellant's allegations concerned foreman Truman Skinner and jurors Karen Tarkoff and Robert Dawson. The foreman, Truman Skinner, was a former lawyer who had been suspended by this Court.[2] He had *471 also apparently engaged in conduct which resulted in his ultimate disbarment by the United States Supreme Court.[3] However, during the course of voir dire, he failed to reveal and—representing, instead, that he had "retired"—affirmatively concealed the facts of his suspension and disbarment. As the voir dire process began, the trial judge instructed the prospective jurors to tell the court and counsel about themselves and to include facts concerning occupation. When Skinner was questioned individually by the judge during voir dire, the following colloquy ensued:

COURT: Truman Arnold Skinner. And I didn't recognize you at first. How are you?
SKINNER: Good to see you.
COURT: Good to see you.
SKINNER: ... I am age 61.
. . . .
SKINNER: I practiced law in Miami for 31 years and am now retired.
COURT: Oh, how nice. I didn't know that you had retired. When did you do that?
SKINNER: About two years ago.
COURT: You're either doing a lot of fishing or golf or what have you. Too young to retire though.

Skinner did not respond, or disclose his suspension by this Court or his disbarment by the United States Supreme Court.

Skinner also failed to reveal the nature of his prior criminal charges and lawsuits. During the defendants' voir dire, the following occurred:

COUNSEL: This is a contract case, and I didn't ask you, has anybody ever been involved in a lawsuit involving breach of a contract in any way? Raise your hand. Anybody?....
. . . .
SKINNER: There were allegations with oral modifications in one of them.
COUNSEL: Is that the one where you were the plaintiff or the defendant?
SKINNER: Defendant.

Defense counsel subsequently asked the panel:

Now, I asked you if you had been involved in any contract actions. Let me ask you this, has anybody been involved in a lawsuit, other than those, of course, that I already asked? Just a lawsuit of any kind, ever been involved before, personally?

Another prospective juror—attorney named Minsker volunteered that he had been involved in various lawsuits including a partnership dispute, landlord-tenant disputes, and "commercial business matters." Different panel members disclosed other lawsuits. Skinner added nothing to the limited matters he had previously disclosed, and did not reveal over forty-eight other legal actions in which he was an actual party. Kelly's attorney questioned the prospective jurors further, and accepted Skinner as a juror based on the foregoing questions and responses.

Post-verdict investigation revealed that between 1980 and 1996, Skinner had been a party in over fifty legal proceedings.[4] It *472 is also important to note that several of the cases involved allegations of fraud.[5] Skinner had also been a defendant in both civil and criminal proceedings in federal court.[6]

In one of the cases, Lake Worth Hosp. Corp. v. Skinner, No. 93-23973 (Fla. 11th Cir. Ct. complaint filed Dec. 22, 1993), Skinner had been accused of wrongfully asserting control over the assets of his client, Lake Worth Hospital. Skinner apparently had this specific case in mind during his voir dire. When defense counsel asked the panel collectively whether anyone had faced a "personal experience" which biased them against hospitals, without ever disclosing the legal action, Skinner stated:

SKINNER: Let me ask you this, because I think it could be important. Is Community Hospital of the Palm Beaches located in Lake Worth?
COUNSEL: It's located in Riviera, on 46th Street.
SKINNER: Not on 10th, in Lake Worth.
COUNSEL: No, that's Lake Hospital.
SKINNER: It used to have a corporate name of Community Hospital or something like that.

However, Skinner never disclosed his Lake Worth Hospital action, and it was concealed from the parties and the court.

In addition to the allegations concerning Skinner, Kelly alleged that juror Tarkoff also failed to disclose certain information. The day after Skinner had been questioned during voir dire, a new group of potential jurors submitted to the voir dire process to supplement the panel which had lost several jurors for hardship reasons. One of the supplemental panel members, Karen Tarkoff, in response to plaintiffs' counsel's question to the panel about prior lawsuits, stated only that she had been sued on a contract by a swimming pool contractor. Shortly thereafter, in response to counsel's question about prior lawsuits, another juror asked, "Does divorce count?" Counsel replied, "It does, unfortunately." Several jurors then proceeded to disclose their divorce cases.

Kelly's counsel asked the panel members to reveal anything in their private lives that might affect their fairness as jurors. Defense counsel asked the panel, collectively, whether they had any feelings regarding "fraud" actions "which might predispose [them] to one side or the other?" Tarkoff remained silent, and failed to disclose any other legal matters.

*473 Notwithstanding such silence, post-trial investigation disclosed that Tarkoff was the petitioner in a recently filed divorce action.

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Bluebook (online)
818 So. 2d 469, 27 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 470, 2002 Fla. LEXIS 884, 2002 WL 991933, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kelly-v-community-hosp-of-palm-beaches-inc-fla-2002.