HOWARD, NEEDLES, TAMMEN & BERGENDOFF, ARCHITECTS AND ENGINEERS, A FLORIDA CORPORATION, APPELLANT/CROSS-APPELLEE,
v.
RONALD CALVIN AND JOAN CALVIN, APPELLEES/CROSS-APPELLANTS
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.
An architect and engineering firm was found 80% liable for negligence in approving an inadequate air conditioning system at Miami International Airport that allowed carbon monoxide fumes to accumulate and injure an employee. The court affirmed the negligence judgment but reversed the 20% comparative negligence finding against the injured plaintiff, holding that the Slavin doctrine relieving contractors of liability after project completion did not apply because the defendant's contractual obligations for ongoing inspections had not been completed.
The court held that the Slavin instruction was properly refused because there was no factual basis for it—the defendant's contractual obligations for detailed annual inspections and recommendations had not been completed and the project had not been fully accepted by the owner at the time of plaintiff's injuries. The court also held that plaintiff was entitled to a directed verdict on comparative negligence because the delay between symptom onset and seeking medical treatment was insufficient to raise an inference of comparative negligence.
[1] A contractor is relieved of liability for injuries to third parties occurring after the owner has accepted the completed project if the owner could have discovered and re…
[2] A jury instruction is properly refused if it is misleading or an incomplete statement of the law.
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“Defendant's contractual duties required it to make "detailed annual inspections" and to "recommend long range improvement programs, if any, requiring consideration by the [Port] Authority."”
Establishes that the defendant's contractual obligations were ongoing and had not been completed, which is critical to rejecting the Slavin doctrine application.
Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceHNTB, an architecture and engineering firm, was retained to design and oversee the air conditioning system at a customs facility at Miami Internationa…
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.
Explore caselaw by topic → Browse Comparative Negligence cases and more on FLexlaw
PER CURIAM.
This appeal is from a judgment entered upon a jury verdict finding defendant, a firm of architects and engineers, 80% liable for negligence in approving or failing to disapprove an air conditioning system which it knew or should have known was inadequate to prevent the accumulation of carbon monoxide fumes in the customs facility at the Miami International Airport.
Defendant contends that failure by the owner of the building to make corrections once it knew of a defect was the proximate cause of plaintiff Ronald Calvin’s injury, and that defendant was entitled to a proximate cause instruction on authority of Slavin v. Kay, 108 So. 2d 462 (Fla.1959). Slavin announced the general rule that a contractor is relieved of liability for injuries to third parties occurring after the owner has accepted the completed project if the owner could have discovered and remedied the dangerous condition. Plaintiffs/appellees make three arguments in response: (1) the Slavin doctrine applies to building contractors but not to engineers; (2) the Slavin rule does not apply where the parties are dealing with inherently dangerous elements; and (3) even if the doctrine applies to engineers and the element dealt with by the parties is not inherently dangerous, the doctrine is still not applicable because defendant had not turned the entire project over to the owner at the time of plaintiffs injuries. We dispose of the Slavin argument on the basis of plaintiffs’ last response.
Defendant’s contractual duties required it to make “detailed annual inspections” and to “recommend long range improvement programs, if any, requiring consideration by the [Port] Authority.” Defendant’s requested jury instruction,1 which was de nied, would have been misleading as it did not require the jury to find whether defendant’s contractual obligations had been completed and the project accepted by the owner as a precondition to exoneration from liability. Because there was no factual basis for the Slavin instruction, and further because the requested instruction .was an incomplete statement of the law, we find no error in refusing to give the instruction.
Plaintiffs’ point on the cross-appeal is controlled by Borenstein v. Raskin, 401 So. 2d 884 (Fla.3d DCA 1981). There was no evidence showing negligence on the part of plaintiff which was a legal cause of his injuries. Plaintiff began working at the customs facility in mid-1975. He began to experience physical and emotional problems caused by the inhalation of carbon monoxide fumes near the end of 1975 or in January, 1976. He first saw a physician in June, 1976, still unaware of the cause of the problems. No direct evidence was presented, nor was there even an inquiry as to whether the delay between the first noticeable symptoms and plaintiff’s first visit to the doctor made any difference in the extent of his injuries. That delay, which defendant relied on for the comparative negligence instruction, was insufficient to raise even an inference of comparative negligence. Plaintiff, in accordance with the indistinguishable Borenstein case, was entitled to a directed verdict on the issue of comparative negligence.
The remaining issues are without merit.
The appeal from a judgment for the plaintiff is AFFIRMED; the cross-appeal from that part of the judgment which assigns 20% comparative negligence to plaintiff is REVERSED and the cause is REMANDED with instructions to enter judgment for the plaintiff for the full amount of his damages.
. Defendant requested the court to instruct the jury as follows:
You are instructed that, if you find that there was a defect in the air-conditioning system but that the owner of the airport, Miami-Dade Port Authority, was aware of such defect and had sufficient time to correct it, you shall find for the defendants, HOWARD, NEEDLES, TAMMEN and BERGENDOFF and BARTLETT CONSTRUCTION, INC.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Authorities Cited
- Slavin v. Sanford KAY, 108 So. 2d 462 (Fla. 1958)
- Borenstein v. Raskin, 401 So. 2d 884 (Fla. 3d DCA 1981)