MILTON L. MATHIS, INDIVIDUALLY AND BY AND THROUGH LILLIE TAYLOR, GUARDIAN OF THE PROPERTY OF MILTON MATHIS, APPELLANTS,
v.
AMERICAN FIRE & CASUALTY COMPANY AND SAMUEL MCKAY, APPELLEES

Fla. 2d DCA | 1987-04-15
No. 86-1011
SCHOONOVER, A.C.J., and HALL, J., concur.
505 So. 2d 652 Florida District Court of Appeal, Second District (1987) Negative Treatment
Cited by 9 cases

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Synopsis

Plaintiff appealed a summary judgment dismissing his negligent entrustment claim against a husband who left a handgun in his wife's car, which the wife later used to shoot plaintiff. The court affirmed, holding that no entrustment occurred because there was no evidence the husband intended the wife to have access to or use the gun.


Holding

The court held there was no entrustment because there was no evidence, express or implied, indicating the husband's intention that the wife would have the gun. Entrustment requires delivering something to another with confidence regarding their care and use of it, which means more than mere possession, custody, or access to property.


Headnotes

[1] Negligent entrustment requires evidence of an intention that the recipient would have the item entrusted.

[2] The definition of 'entrust' involves conferring a trust upon another, delivering something in trust, or committing something to another with confidence regarding its care…

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Key Quotes

“to entrust is "[t]o give over to another something after a relation of confidence has been established. To deliver to another something in trust or to commit something to another with a certain confidence regarding his care, use or disposal of it."”

Establishes the legal definition of entrustment that the court applied to require evidence of intentional delivery with confidence

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Facts & Procedural History

The defendant husband customarily carried a handgun in his car when commuting to work. On the day in question, he forgot to remove the gun from his wi…

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Opinion of the Court
LEHAN, Judge.

LEHAN, Judge.

Plaintiff appeals from a summary judgment in favor of defendant husband on the count of this suit against the husband and his insurer for his negligent entrustment of a handgun to his wife who shot plaintiff. We affirm.

The wife obtained the husband’s gun from the wife's car after the husband had left it in her car following a trip by him in that car to his place of employment. The husband customarily took the gun with him on such trips which were often in his own car. On the occasion in question, when he returned home in the afternoon he forgot to remove the gun from her car and left town later that afternoon. That evening the shooting occurred.

We agree with the trial court’s conclusion that there was no entrustment. There was no evidence expressly or impliedly indicating the husband’s intention that the wife would have the gun. See Black’s Law Dictionary 478 (5th ed. 1979) (to entrust is “[t]o give over to another something after a relation of confidence has been established. To deliver to another something in trust or to commit something to another with a certain confidence regarding his care, use or disposal of it.”); Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 759 (1970) (to entrust is “to confer a trust upon: deliver something to (another) in trust ... to commit or surrender to another with a certain confidence regarding his care, use, or disposal_”). “The word ‘entrust’ ... mean[s] to commit something to another with a certain confidence regarding his care, use or disposal of it ... and ... means more than naked possession or custody of, or access to, the property....” See Mock v. Missouri Union Insurance Co., 328 S.W. 2d 61, 63 (Mo.App.1959). The Florida cases cited to us as involving causes of action for negligent entrustment of guns each, in contrast to the case at hand, concerned whether an entrustment of a gun which unquestionably had been deliberately given by defendant to one who shot plaintiff had been negligent. See Mercier v. Meade, 384 So. 2d 262 (Fla. 4th DCA 1980); Horn v. I.B.I. Security Service of Florida, Inc., 317 So. 2d 444 (Fla. 4th DCA 1975); Acosta v. Daughtry, 268 So. 2d 416 (Fla. 3d DCA 1972); Brien v. 18925 Collins Avenue Corp., 233 So. 2d 847 (Fla. 3d DCA 1970).

Plaintiff, citing Thomas v. Atlantic Associates, Inc., 226 So. 2d 100 (Fla.1969), argues that liability for negligent entrustment does not require the above described type of evidence. In Thomas a genuine issue of fact was found to exist as to whether a father who had been given possession of a corporate car had voluntarily relinquished possession of the car to his 13-year-old daughter by a prior marriage who had recently come to live with the father and her stepmother. The father had left the keys on a dresser accessible to the daughter. The daughter took the keys, drove the car, and caused injuries with it. The issue in Thomas was not whether the father was guilty of negligent entrustment of the car to his daughter but was whether the corporate owner of the car was relieved of liability under the dangerous instrumentality doctrine for the injuries because the daughter had either stolen or converted the car and had not received the car through the father’s voluntary relinquishment of it to her. The daughter had been accustomed to driving the car of her grandmother with whom she had previously lived, and the Florida Supreme Court, under the particular facts of that case, concluded that leaving the keys on the dresser “must have seemed like an open invitation to use the car_” 226 So. 2d at 103. Even if the issue in Thomas had been whether there was negligent entrustment by the father to the daughter, that case is in contrast to the case at hand in which there are no facts indicating any type of an invitation by the husband to the wife that she use the gun.

We therefore need not reach plaintiff’s additional arguments that the entrustment was negligent and that there may be liability from non-negligent entrustment of a gun. As we have said, we conclude that there was no entrustment.

Affirmed.

SCHOONOVER, A.C.J., and HALL, J., concur.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • Dorsey v. Reider, 139 So. 3d 860 (Fla. 2014)
    …s unsecured truck in which the weapon was located and accessible to Noordhoek, and Reider was present and participating in the altercation when the injury was inflicted. The district court below also relied on Mathis v. American Fire & Casualty Co., 505 So. 2d 652 (Fla. 2d DCA 1987), and Keenan v. Oshman Sporting Goods, Co., 629 So. 2d 210 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998), in which the courts held that gun owners had no duty of care to the injured parties when third parties took the owners’ guns and shot the plaintiffs’ d…
  • Foster v. Arthur, 519 So. 2d 1092 (Fla. 1st DCA 1988)
    …99 So. 2d 315 (Fla. 4th DCA 1967), cert. den. 204 So. 2d 331 (Fla.1967) (parents kept loaded pistol in a place where their fourteen-year-old son had access to it during times of unsupervised activity). Cf. Mathis v. American Fire & Casualty Company, 505 So. 2d 652 (Fla.2d DCA 1987) (no entrustment where after using his wife’s car for business purposes, husband inadvertently left his gun in the car). In the present case, Foster brought the gun into the home of Merchant, which he owned and controlled, and kept…
  • Harley Jordan v. Lawson Lamar, 510 So. 2d 648 (Fla. 5th DCA 1987)
    …rror. We affirm. The owner of a firearm is not liable for its negligent or intentional use by a [*649] bailee to injure a third person unless the owner was negligent in entrusting the firearm to the bailee. Mathis v. American Fire and Casualty Co., 505 So. 2d 652 (Fla. 2d DCA 1987); Mercier v. Meade, 384 So. 2d 262 (Fla. 4th DCA 1980); Horn v. IBI Security Service of Florida, Inc., 317 So. 2d 444 (Fla. 4th DCA 1975), cert. denied, 333 So. 2d 463 (Fla.1976); Langill v. Columbia, 289 So. 2d 460 (Fla. 3d DCA 19…

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