JOHN MARINO AND JERRY MARINO, D/B/A J. M. INVESTMENTS, APPELLANTS,
v.
JEFFREY WEINER AND DISCO 95, INC., A FLORIDA CORPORATION, APPELLEES

Fla. 4th DCA | 1982-06-23
No. 81-345
ANSTEAD and BERANEK, JJ., concur.
415 So. 2d 149 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fourth District (1982) Caution
Cited by 12 cases

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.

Synopsis

Lessors of a warehouse leased to a discotheque appealed the trial court's directed verdict denying their third-party indemnification claim against the lessee after an employee of the lessee was injured. The court reversed, holding that the contractual indemnification clause was sufficiently clear to cover joint negligence and should have been submitted to the jury.


Holding

The court correctly granted the directed verdict on the common law indemnification claim because lessors' liability was based on their own active negligence, not vicarious liability. However, the trial court erred in granting the directed verdict on the contractual indemnification claim because the lease language 'occasioned wholly or in part by an act or omission of Lessee' clearly manifested the lessee's intent to indemnify lessors for joint negligence.


Headnotes

[1] Common law indemnification requires a legal relationship where liability is vicarious, constructive, derivative, or technical, stemming from the fault of another.

[2] A contractual provision indemnifying a lessor against damages occasioned wholly or in part by the lessee's act or omission may encompass situations of joint negligence be…

Previewing 2 of 4 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Key Quotes

“the contract language "... occasioned wholly or in part by an act or omission of Lessee ..." manifests the lessee's unequivocal intent to indemnify the lessors in cases where the lessors and lessee are found to be jointly negligent.”

Establishes that the lease provision was sufficiently clear to cover joint negligence scenarios and should have gone to the jury.

Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Facts & Procedural History

Appellants owned a warehouse leased to Disco 95, Inc. for use as a discotheque. Appellee Weiner, an employee of the lessee, slipped and fell on water …

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court
OWEN, WILLIAM C., Jr., (Retired) Associate Judge.

OWEN, WILLIAM C., Jr., (Retired) Associate Judge.

The sole issue here is whether the trial court erred in granting a directed verdict against appellants on their third party claim for indemnification. We conclude that it did err, and reverse.

Appellants owned a warehouse which they had leased to appellee Disco 95, Inc. to use as a discotheque. Appellee Weiner, an employee of the lessee, sustained injury when he slipped and fell on a puddle of water on the discotheque’s dance floor.1 Weiner sued the lessors, alleging in substance that his injuries were the proximate result of the lessors’ negligent failure to keep the roof in good repair.2 In turn, lessors brought a third party complaint against the lessee, seeking both common law and contractual indemnification, the latter being predicated upon the following provision in the lease:

17. INDEMNITY: (a) Lessee shall indemnify Lessor and save harmless from suits, actions, damages, liability and expense in connection with loss of life, bodily or personal injury or property damage arising from or out of any occurrence in, upon, at or from the Demised Premises or the occupancy or use by Lessee of said premises or any part thereof, or occasioned wholly or in part by any act or ommission [sic] of Lessee, its agents, contractors, employees, servants, invitees, licenses or concessionaries, including the sidewalks and common areas and facilities within the building development;

(f) Lessee shall also pay all costs, expenses and reasonable attorney’s fees that may be incurred or paid by Lessor in enforcing the terms of this lease, (e.s.)

The lease also contained two separate provisions relative to roof repair. Paragraph 12 obligated the lessors to keep the roof in good repair, provided the lessee gave the lessors seven days written notice of the needed repairs and provided the damage was not caused by lessee. Paragraph 8 included the following provision relative to roof repair:

Should Lessee install a cooling tower or other air conditioning equipment on the roof of the Demised Premises, Lessee shall assume primary responsibility for the maintenance and repair of the roof and such installation, operation and maintenance shall be made in such matter [sic] that the right of Lessor under any roofing bond then in force shall not be affected.

An air-conditioning unit, the cost of which was shared by lessors and lessee, was installed on the roof a week or two before Weiner slipped and fell. There was evidence from which the jury reasonably could have inferred that lessors and lessee were jointly responsible for roof repair necessitated by the installation of the air conditioning unit. There were also factual issues as to whether the roof had leaked prior to the installation of the air conditioning unit, of which lessors had actual (but not written) notice, and whether the water on which Weiner had slipped was from a roof leak caused by faulty installation of the air-conditioning unit, or from some other leak in the roof.

The court granted the lessee’s motion for directed verdict, concluding that lessors were not entitled to either common law or contractual indemnification from the lessee. The jury found Weiner 85% at fault and lessors 15% at fault, upon which verdict judgment was entered. On post trial motions, the judgment and verdict were vacated and a new trial granted on Weiner’s complaint against lessors, but the separate judgment in favor of lessee on the lessors’ third party claim was not disturbed.

The court did not err in granting the directed verdict as to the claim for common law indemnification. We have not been shown any legal relationship between lessors and lessee such that lessors, because of some vicarious, constructive, derivative or technical liability, could become obligated to Weiner due to some negligence or fault on the part of the lessee. Such a relationship is essential to the right to common law indemnification. Houdaille Ind., Inc. v. Ed wards, 374 So. 2d 490 (Fla.1979). We understand Weiner’s cause of action against lessors to be based upon the latter’s own active negligence in failing to maintain the roof in good repair, not upon any theory of lessors’ vicarious liability for the lessee’s fault.3

However, lessors were entitled to have their claim for contractual indemnification presented to the jury under appropriate instructions. True, the language of the indemnity provision fails to state expressly and with sufficient clarity the intent necessary to allow the contract to be construed as one by which the parties intended for the indemnitees to be indemnified against damages occasioned solely by their own negligence. See Charles Poe Masonry v. Spring Lock Scaffolding Rental Equipment Co., 374 So. 2d 487 (Fla.1979); Leadership Housing Systems of Florida, Inc. v. T & S Electric, Inc., 384 So. 2d 733 (Fla. 4th DCA 1980). But the contract language “... occasioned wholly or in part by an act or omission of Lessee ...” manifests the lessee’s unequivocal intent to indemnify the lessors in cases where the lessors and lessee are found to be jointly negligent. Charles Poe Masonry, Inc. v. Spring Lock Scaffolding Rental Equipment Co., supra; Leonard L. Farber Co. v. Jaksch, 335 So. 2d 847 (Fla. 4th DCA 1976). Thus, if the jury were to find that the water which caused Weiner to slip and fall was occasioned solely by the negligence of the lessors, they would not be entitled to contractual indemnification. On the other hand, if the jury were to find that the water which caused Weiner to slip and fall was occasioned wholly4 or in part by an act or omission of lessee, including the joint negligence of the lessors and the lessee, lessors would be entitled to the indemnity provided by the lease.

The judgment in favor of appellee Disco 95, Inc. on the third party claim by appellants is reversed and this cause remanded for further proceedings. The cost judgment for appellee Disco 95, Inc. is likewise reversed,

ANSTEAD and BERANEK, JJ., concur. . Because Weiner’s injuries arose out of and in the course of his employment, his exclusive remedy against his employer, the lessee, was under the Workers’ Compensation Law.

. That this was the theory of Weiner’s cause of action is implied by the briefs. The limited record before us relates only to the issue of the third party claim for indemnification, and in deciding that issue we do not decide any issue relating to Weiner’s cause of action.

. Had there been any basis upon which Weiner could have imposed vicarious liability on lessors for the lessee’s fault, lessors would have had full protection under the contractual indemnification provision; thus, denial of common law right of indemnification, had it been error, would have been harmless.

. Of course, absent any vicarious liability, lessors would simply be exonerated by the jury if it were to find that the water was occasioned wholly by the negligence of the lessee. See comment in footnote 3 in reference to vicarious liability, should it exist.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • …he record does not show any legal relationship between Prime and Complete which would render Prime vicariously, constructively, derivatively, or technically hable to Welch because of some negligence or fault on Complete’s part. See Marino v. Weiner, 415 So. 2d 149, 150 (Fla. 4th DCA 1982). As cogently explained in Bovis v. 7-Eleven, Inc., 505 So. 2d 661 (Fla. 5th DCA 1987), a property owner does not insure the safety of persons on his property; he is not strictly liable or hable per se for injuries resulting…
  • Mitchell Maint. Sys. v. State of Fla. Dep't OF Transp., 442 So. 2d 276 (Fla. 4th DCA 1983)
    …hich explicitly excluded the lessee from liability that was solely due to the negligence of the lessor. The lessor was granted indemnity even though the injury in question was caused in part by the lessor’s own negligence. See also Marino v. Weiner, 415 So. 2d 149 (Fla. 4th DCA 1982). In our view the contractual provision here is clear and unequivocal and similar to the provisions upheld in Farber and Marino. The clause provides that Mitchell will indemnify D.O.T. for any claim arising out of Mitchell’s perf…
  • …orrectly determined [in Leonard L. Farber Co.] that the ‘in part’ language manifested lessee’s clear and unequivocal intent to indemnify lessor in cases where the lessee and lessor are found to be jointly at fault”). Similarly, in Marino v. Weiner, 415 So. 2d 149 (Fla. 4th DCA 1982), we found that the phrase “occasioned wholly or in part by an act or omission of [ljessee ...” manifested the unequivocal intent to indemnify the lessor where joint negligence existed. Id. at 151; see also Mitchell Maint. Sys. v.…

Previewing 3 of 6 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw