ESILDA RIOS, ETC., ET AL., APPELLANTS,
v.
TERESA JUNCO, ALDALBERTO A. MASTOS, ET AL., APPELLEES
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Court affirmed dismissal of negligence action by injured DEA officer and estate of deceased officer against motel owner for failing to prevent drug transactions on premises, holding no actionable premises liability existed due to equal knowledge of danger, lack of proximate causation, and application of the fireman's rule.
No premises liability exists when the plaintiff and landowner have equal knowledge of the danger, there is no proximate relationship between the alleged negligence and the injury, and the fireman's rule applies.
[1] A landowner owes no duty to prevent criminal acts by third parties on the premises when the injured party had equal knowledge of the danger as the landowner.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceA DEA officer and another person were shot and respectively injured and killed by narcotics offenders during an undercover operation at a Miami motel.…
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SCHWARTZ, Chief Judge.
The appellants are a former Federal Drug Enforcement Agency officer and the estate of another who were shot and respectively injured and killed by narcotics offenders when an undercover operation went sour. They sued the present appel-lees, the owner and operator of the Miami motel where the shoot-out occurred, alleging that they had actual knowledge that numerous illegal drug transactions were taking place on their premises but negligently failed to prevent them. For numerous — independently dispositive — reasons, including the threshold absence of any actionable premises liability at all, see Vermont Mutual Insurance Co. v. Conway, 358 So. 2d 123 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978) (no liability when plaintiff and landowner have equal knowledge of danger), the lack of any proximate relationship between the alleged negligence and the incident in question, e.g., Cone v. Inter County Telephone & Telegraph Co., 40 So. 2d 148 (Fla.1949); Pinkerton-Hays Lumber Co. v. Pope, 127 So. 2d 441 (Fla.1961), and the application of the fireman’s rule, Smith v. Markowitz, 486 So. 2d 11 (Fla. 3d DCA 1986) and cases cited,1 it is self-evident that no cause of action existed under the circumstances as a matter of law and that the trial court therefore properly dismissed the amended complaint with prejudice.
Affirmed.
. There would be no liability under these facts even in those jurisdictions which do not apply the fireman’s rule as strictly as does Florida. W. Prosser & W. Keeton, The Law of Torts, § 61 nn. 44-45 & 53 (5th ed. 1984).
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Authorities Cited
- Pinkerton-Hays Lumber Co., Inc. v. Doyle Pope, 127 So. 2d 441 (Fla. 1961)
- Cone v. Inter Cnty. Tel. Tel. Co., 40 So.2d 148 (Fla. 1949)
- Vt. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Conway, 358 So. 2d 123 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978)
- Smith v. Markowitz, 486 So. 2d 11 (Fla. 3d DCA 1986)