TAMPA PORT AUTHORITY, APPELLANT,
v.
TAMPA BARGE SERVICES, INC., APPELLEE
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The court held that the trial court properly entered summary judgment resolving an ambiguous lease term regarding rent calculation.
A landlord sued a tenant seeking a declaratory judgment to interpret a lease's definition of "gross business" for rent calculation. The landlord argue…
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LEHAN, Judge.
In this declaratory judgment suit we agree with the trial judge that the definition in the lease involved in this suit of the tenant’s “gross business,” which established the basis upon which to calculate rent, was ambiguous. The record supports the trial court’s resolution of that ambiguity by determining that there was no intent of the parties to the lease to calculate rent on the basis argued for by appellant landlord which would have included in “gross business” certain revenues not received by the tenant from work done by others on the leased premises. Therefore, summary judgment to that effect was properly entered.
Mere contractual ambiguity does not necessarily preclude summary judgment. In this case the trial court correctly concluded that no competent evidence before the court contravened the evidence presented by appellee in support of its mo tion for summary judgment which established the foregoing lack of intent.
Once the movant for summary judgment has met his initial burden of tendering competent evidence demonstrating the nonexistence of any genuine issue of material fact, the opposing party must come forward with counter-evidence sufficient to reveal a genuine issue.
Roberts v. Stokley, 388 So. 2d 1267 (Fla. 2d DCA 1980), quoting from Perry v. Langstaff, 383 So. 2d 1104, 1105 (Fla. 5th DCA 1980). See also Southern Rambler Sales, Inc. v. American Motors Corp., 375 F. 2d 932, 937 (5th Cir.1967). Griffin Builders Supply, Inc. v. Jones, 384 So. 2d 265 (Fla. 2d DCA 1980), contains language which appellant argues would mandate no summary judgment in a case involving the interpretation of an ambiguous contract. However, there was a significantly different situation in Griffin where, in contrast to the case at hand, the record showed that the parties to the contract interpreted it differently. Here the competent evidence showed only one interpretation.
Affirmed.
OTT, A.C.J., and CAMPBELL, J., concur.
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Marco Polo Hotel v. Popielarczyk, 622 So. 2d 104 (Fla. 3d DCA 1993)…Salman, 384 So. 2d 1331 (Fla. 3d DCA 1980); Fla.R.Civ.P. 1.510(e). Further, unambiguous language in the contract itself showed conclusively that the appellee was the statutory employee of the contractor. Tampa Port Auth. v. Tampa Barge Servs., Inc., 463 So. 2d 557 (Fla. 2d DCA 1985). The contractor, as the statutory employer of an injured worker who was covered by workers’ compensation insurance, was entitled to a summary judgment on its immunity defense. Section 440.11(1), Fla.Stat. (1991); Motchkavitz v. L.…
Authorities Cited
- S. Rambler Sales, Inc. v. Am. Motors Corp. & Am. Motors Sales Corp., 375 F.2d 932 (5th Cir. 1967)
- Griffin Builders Supply, Inc. v. Jones, 384 So. 2d 265 (Fla. 2d DCA 1980)
- Perry v. J. M. Langstaff, M.D., 383 So. 2d 1104 (Fla. 5th DCA 1980)
- William T. Roberts as Pinellas Cnty. Sheriff v. Stokley, 388 So. 2d 1267 (Fla. 2d DCA 1980)