Opinion
CIVIL ACTION NO. 03-2512, SECTION "A" (3)
May 19, 2004
MINUTE ENTRY
Before the Court is a Motion to Alter or Amend Judgment and Request for Clarification of Ruling (Rec. Doc. 33) filed by the United States of America. Plaintiffs, Antoinette Marie Jones, on behalf of the minor child Naquita Nicole Jones, and Cynthia Marie Crandle, on behalf of the minor child Gerrinisha Crandle, oppose the motion. The motion, set for hearing on May 19, 2004, is before the Court on the briefs without oral argument.
At the oral hearing held on April 19, 2004, the Court denied without prejudice the United States' motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. In particular, the Court concluded that Plaintiffs should be given the opportunity to obtain certain discovery prior to the Court determining whether the discretionary function exception to the FTCA would apply.
The United States now complains that the Court erred because the FTCA has no application where state law gives the Plaintiffs no cause of action. The Court agrees that a threshold issue in this case is whether Plaintiffs have a cause of action under Florida law. The Court disagrees, however, with the United States' blanket assertion that Florida law gives Plaintiffs no cause of action in this case.
Pursuant to the FTCA, the United States faces potential liability for personal injury or death "caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the Government while acting within the scope of his office or employment, under circumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable to the claimant in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred ." 28 U.S.C.A. § 1346(b)(1) (emphasis added). The parties agree that Florida substantive law governs in this case because any negligent conduct on behalf of federal employees would have occurred at FPC Eglin in Florida. The United States argues, however, that Florida law does not allow recovery against a governmental entity for the criminal acts of an escaped prisoner. Plaintiffs, while conceding that Florida law generally imposes no duty on prison officials to protect the public from escapees, argues that Brown v. Woodham, 840 So.2d 1105 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App. 2003), recognizes an exception to that general rule under certain circumstances. Under Florida law, Plaintiffs cannot recover unless the United States owed them a common law duty of care with respect to the alleged acts of negligence. Henderson v. Bowden, 737 So.2d 532, 535 (Fla. 1999) (citing Pinellas Park v. Brown, 604 So.2d 1222, 1225 (Fla. 1992); Kaisner v. Kolb, 543 So.2d 732, 734 (Fla. 1989); Trianon Park Condo. Ass'n, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, 468 So.2d 912, 917 (Fla. 1985)).
Although the language of the FTCA refers to liability for a "private person," the Supreme Court has held that liability for the government is not excluded for the performance of activities which private persons do not perform. See Indian Towing Co. v. United States, 350 U.S. 61, 64 (1955).
The FTCA creates liability for the United States only if the act at issue is a tort in the state where the conduct occurred. Miles v. Naval Aviation Museum Found., Inc., 289 F.3d 715, 722 (11th Cir. 2002) (citing 28 U.S.C. § 2674). To succeed on a negligence claim in Florida, a plaintiff must "show that the defendant owed a duty of care to the plaintiff, that the defendant breached the duty, that the breach caused plaintiff's injury, and that damages are owed." Id. (quoting Ewing v. Sellinger, 758 So.2d 1196, 1197 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App. 2000)). Thus, where no duty is owed to the plaintiff, there can be no liability. See id. Duty exists as a matter of law and is not a factual question for the jury to decide. Henderson v. Bowden, 737 So.2d 532, 536 (Fla. 1999) (quoting McCain v. Fla. Power Corp., 593 So.2d 500 (Fla. 1992)).
It is well-settled under Florida law that the department of corrections and law enforcement officers have no specific duty to protect individual members of the public from escaped inmates. Vann v. Dep't of Corrections, 662 So.2d 339 (Fla. 1995) (quoting Dep't of Health Rehab. Servs. v. Whaley, 574 So.2d 100 (Fla. 1991)). In other words, a breach of the general duty owed by the government to the public as a whole to protect its citizens is not a basis for liability. Id. (quotingDep't of Corrections v. Vann, 650 So.2d 658, 660 (Fla. Dist Ct. App. 1995)).
However, Florida law has also long recognized that a governmental entity might owe a duty of care to a specific citizen where a special relationship exists between the individual and the governmental entity.See, e.g., Everton v. Willard, 468 So.2d 936, 938 (Fla. 1985); Parker v. Murphy, 510 So.2d 990 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App. 1987) (finding no special relationship where an escaped prisoner attacked a family for the second time). The special duty or special relationship determination will turn on the facts and circumstances of the specific case.
For instance, in the Brown v. Woodham case, upon which Plaintiffs rely, the appellate court concluded that the alleged facts and pertinent statutory scheme applicable to domestic violence cases created a special duty between the sheriff and the decedent. 840 So.2d at 1108. In Brown, the county sheriff had released William Stroba on bond notwithstanding a court order to the contrary. Stoba was being held on charges of domestic violence. While in custody Stroba had written several letters to his wife threatening additional violence. However, the sheriff's office retained the letters and did not send them out. Immediately after release, Stroba proceeded to his home and found Robert Brown in the company of his wife. The irate Stroba killed Brown.
Brown's estate sued the sheriff for negligently releasing Stroba. The lower court found that the sheriff, as a law enforcement officer, owed no special duty to Brown and dismissed the case. Id. at 1106. In reversing the lower court, the Florida appellate court found that the complaint alleged a statutory duty of care. Id. at 1107. The appellate court found that Florida's domestic violence statutes codified a special duty to any person who the sheriff knows or should know would be placed at risk upon an offender's release from custody. Id. The sheriff knew about the threatening letters Stroba had sent, one of which particularly referred to what would happen if Stroba were to find his wife with another man. More importantly, the sheriff had not informed Stroba's wife of the contents of the letters. The appellate court concluded that these facts along with the domestic violence statutory scheme created a special duty in favor of Brown. Id. at 1108.
The domestic violence statutory scheme was crucial to the holding in Brown because the plaintiff at issue in that case was a random male visitor at the home of Stroba's wife. Thus, in order to find that the sheriff owed a duty to him, a person with whom there had been no prior dealings, the court relied upon the state's domestic violence statutes which directed that the safety of any other person who may be in danger if the defendant is released must be considered before deciding to release an offender. Brown, 840 So.2d at 1107 (quoting Fla. Stat. ch. 741.2902(1) (2000)).
In Henderson v. Bowden, the Florida Supreme Court found that police officers owed a duty to the passengers of an intoxicated driver following a traffic stop. 737 So.2d 532, 537 (Fla. 1999). The driver was arrested and one of the passengers, who was alleged to be obviously intoxicated, was instructed by the police to drive the vehicle and the remaining passengers to a local convenience store. The driver lost control of the vehicle and the passengers were killed. The Henderson court distinguished this case from the principles set out in Everton, supra, because the officers had affirmatively directed the driver to operate the vehicle.Id. at 536 n. 8. Thus, the court found a special duty owed by the officers to the passengers in the vehicle.Id.
In Sams v. Oelrich, 717 So.2d 1044, 1047 (Fla.Dist.Ct. App, 1998), the appellate court concluded that a deputy sheriff owed a duty to persons in a hospital waiting area to protect them from an escapee in his custody. The deputy had taken a young man into custody following a thwarted escape attempt. Following the arrest, the deputy took the prisoner to the emergency room for medical treatment. The prisoner tried to escape again and in doing so injured plaintiff and her daughters. The trial court concluded that the sheriff owed no duty to the plaintiff but the appellate court concluded that a special relationship existed between the deputy and the other persons he had put in harm's way by bringing the escapee to the emergency room. Id. at 1047. The court found that the deputy's actions had created a foreseeable zone of risk to those persons forced to occupy the emergency room with the prisoner. Id. Having created such a zone of risk, the deputy owed a duty to use reasonable care to protect those persons from potential injury occasioned by their close proximity to an escapee with possibly dangerous propensities. Id. TheSams court found Vann and the cases dealing with prison escapees distinguishable because in Sams the prisoner was actually in the custody and control of the deputy when the tortious conduct occurred. Id. at 1048.
Thus, Florida law is consistent in holding that governmental entities owe no duty to protect the public from dangerous persons in their custody absent specific circumstances that give rise to a special duty. Under Florida law, the United States clearly owed no duty to the public at large to protect individual citizens from the harm that Bradford might cause if he escaped. However, it does not necessarily follow that no duty was owed to the Plaintiffs in this case.
After reviewing the complaint, the Court concluded that Plaintiffs had alleged sufficient facts to suggest that the United States owed a duty to Crandle. As explained at the oral hearing, the facts as alleged with respect to Norris are sparse. Consequently, the Court granted Plaintiffs the opportunity to amend their complaint to allege facts sufficient to demonstrate that a special duty was likewise owed to Norris. Naturally, the application of the discretionary function exception to the FTCA, the issue upon which the Court heard oral argument, is a hurdle that both Plaintiffs will have to overcome. Pursuant to the Court's ruling at the oral hearing, Plaintiffs are now pursuing discovery on this issue.
Accordingly;
IT IS ORDERED that the Motion to Alter or Amend Judgment and Request for Clarification of Ruling (Rec. Doc. 33) filed by the United States of America should be and is hereby DENIED.