DAVID MASSEY, PETITIONER,
v.
SEABOARD AIR LINE RAILROAD COMPANY, A FOREIGN CORPORATION, RESPONDENT
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The Florida Supreme Court denied petitioner's writ of certiorari in a negligence action against a railroad company, finding no decisive conflict between the lower court's summary judgment and prior case law regarding the 'standing train' doctrine.
The Court held that no requisite decisional conflict existed sufficient to activate its constitutional jurisdiction to review by certiorari. The lower court properly applied the law to the particular facts before it, and any conflict in evidence or inference was not material or determinative to the summary judgment decision.
“None of the cited cases involves facts on all fours with those reflected by this record, and we are not persuaded that judgment for defendant upon the facts which are recited in the opinion of the district court necessarily constitutes the application of a principle of law contrary to any established by those cases.”
Establishes that no conflict with prior case law exists when facts differ materially from precedent
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligencePetitioner Massey brought a negligence action against Seaboard Air Line Railroad Company. The lower court entered summary judgment for the defendant r…
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Writ of certiorari has issued in this cause and argument has been heard on jurisdiction and merits. Petitioner first asserts conflict between this decision, sustaining summary judgment for the defendant railroad in a negligence action, and Brown v. Loftin, 154 Fla. 621, 18 So.2d 540, an application of the “standing train” doctrine, as subsequently modified. Hutton v. Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Co., Fla.1957, 92 So.2d 528; Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Johnston, Fla.1954, 74 So.2d 689; Horton v. Louisville & N. R. Co., Fla.1952, 61 So.2d 406; Goff v. Atlantic Coast Line R. R. Co., Fla.1951, 53 So.2d 777. None of the cited cases involves facts on all fours with those reflected by this record, and we are not persuaded that judgment for defendant upon the facts which are recited in the opinion of the district court1 necessarily constitutes the application of a principle of law contrary to any established by those cases. In short, the decision was reached upon full consideration of those principles and a determination that they did not govern the particular facts at bar. Whether or not the decision of this Court would coincide upon the merits of that question vel non, we are unable to find the requisite decisional conflict on this point sufficient to activate our constitutional jurisdiction to review such decision by certiorari.
Petitioner also asserts conflict with the case of Smith v. City of Daytona Beach, Fla.App., 121 So.2d 440, governing entry of summary judgments. The court concluded however, and properly we think, that such conflict as might exist in evidence or inference was not material or determinative. Testimony as to responsibility for installation of the advance warning sign on the state road right-of-way was uncontroverted, and a finding that the evidence as to skid marks, without regard to any conflicting inferences, was in conjunc*297tion with other recited facts sufficient predicate for application of the doctrine in question, and presented a question of law as opposed to fact, does not in our view directly conflict with the rule announced in Smith.
The writ is accordingly discharged.
ROBERTS, C. J., and THORNAL, O’CONNELL and CALDWELL, JJ., concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
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Webster v. CSX Transp., 725 So. 2d 462 (Fla. 5th DCA 1999)…rsed the judgment notwithstanding the verdicts in favor of the defendant railroad. In the instant case, the trial court entered judgment for FPC based on Massey v. Seaboard Air Line Railroad Co., 132 So. 2d 469 (Fla. 2d DCA 1961), cert. discharged, 142 So. 2d 296 (Fla.1962), in which the court applied Brown instead of Hutton, Goff, and Horton. The deceased’s father alleged that the deceased had been a passenger in an automobile that collided with the 110th, 111th, and 112th ears of a long freight train. It w…
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Fla. Power Corp. v. Webster, 760 So. 2d 120 (Fla. 2000)…y, 132 So. 2d at 471. The petitioner further argues that this limitation on the doctrine’s qualification was recognized by this Court when it discharged the petition for certiorari originally granted in Massey. See Massey v. Seaboard Air Line R.R., 142 So. 2d 296 (Fla.1962). While the post -Brown cases limiting the application of the doctrine all involved accidents with stationary trains, or in the case of Goff, a car and train simultaneously approaching a crossing, reading the Hutton qualification to impli…
Authorities Cited
- Otie Stills v. Weil-Maas, Inc., 121 So. 2d 440 (Fla. 2d DCA 1960)
- Brown v. Loftin, 154 Fla. 621 (Fla. 1944)
- Hutton v. Atl. Coast Line R.R. Co., 92 So. 2d 528 (Fla. 1957)
- Goff v. Atl. Coast Line R. Co., 53 So. 2d 777 (Fla. 1951)
- Atl. Coast Line R. Co. v. Johnston (two cases), 74 So. 2d 689 (Fla. 1954)
- Massey v. Seaboard AIR Line R.R. Co., 132 So. 2d 469 (Fla. 2d DCA 1961)