ELEANOR BRIEN, APPELLANT,
v.
18925 COLLINS AVENUE CORP., APPELLEE

Fla. 3d DCA | 1970-04-14
No. 69-709
Before PEARSON, C. J., and CHARLES CARROLL and BARKDULL, JJ.
233 So. 2d 847 Florida District Court of Appeal, Third District (1970) Caution
Cited by 37 cases

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Holding

A property owner is not vicariously liable for the negligent acts of an independent contractor's security guard, especially when the owner exercises no supervision or control over the guard.


Headnotes

[1] A property owner is generally not liable for the negligent acts of an independent contractor hired to guard the property.

[2] The hiring of a security guard service to protect property does not create a nondelegable duty for the property owner to ensure the guard performs tasks non-negligently.

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Facts & Procedural History

A security guard, employed by an independent contractor, shot the appellant's deceased while questioning them at the appellee's motel. The appellant s…

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Opinion of the Court
PEARSON, Chief Judge.

PEARSON, Chief Judge.

The question of law presented by this appeal is whether an owner of real property may be held liable for a negligent act of a security guard committed in the performance of the guard’s duties when the guard is not the employee of the owner but is the employee of an independent corporation which has contracted to guard the owner’s property. The trial court answered that the owner was not liable and we agree.

The question arose from the following facts. Appellant’s deceased was stopped for questioning in the early morning hours *848by a security guard at appellee’s motel. In the process the appellant’s deceased was shot by the guard. The guard was the employee of a Sunny Isles Security Corporation (not a party on this appeal). Ap-pellee, the motel owner, had a contractual arrangement with Sunny Isles under which the corporation agreed for a fee to periodically patrol and protect appellee’s motel. The appellant filed a complaint against four defendants, alleging that the shooting, among other things, was a negligent act of the guard. The appellee’s answer denied liability. Upon the development of the above facts and the submission of a deposition establishing that Sunny Isles was an independent contractor and that the appel-lee exercised no supervision or control over Sunny Isles employees, the trial judge entered summary final judgment for the motel owner.

Appellant admits that there are no genuine issues of material fact as to the employment of the guard. She urges that as a matter of law the independent contractor relationship does not insulate the motel owner from liability under the circumstances set forth.1 Appellant states that when an owner of property employs a security guard service to engage in the activity of protecting the owner’s property, the owner has a nondelegable duty to see that the security guard service and any employee of that service carry out the tasks of the property owner in a non-negligent manner.

Thus appellant, in effect, admits the authority of Washington Avenue Food Center, Inc. v. Modlin, Fla.1968, 205 So.2d 295; Mai Kai, Inc. v. Colucci, Fla.1968, 205 So. 2d 291; and similar cases for the rule that an owner is not ordinarily liable for the negligence of an independent contractor employed by the owner.2 Appellant urges that security guards authorized to carry firearms are an exception to the rule. No case directly holding that there is such an exception has been cited, and we have not found one.

Appellant relies upon an argument by analogy from cases holding that the employer of an independent contractor may be held liable for injuries caused by the failure of an independent contractor to exercise due care with respect to the performance of work which is inherently or intrinsically dangerous. See Bialkowicz v. Pan American Condominium No. 3, Inc., Fla.App. 1968, 215 So.2d 767, 772. In Bialkowicz this court held that the task of installing supporting piles in a building operation to prevent damage to adjacent building was an inherently dangerous activity so that the owner was liable with the contractor as a joint tortfeasor. And see Channell v. Musselman Steel Fabricators, Inc., Fla.1969, 224 So.2d 320. For a list of work held inherently dangerous and not inherently dangerous see 57 C.J.S. Master and Servant § 590, pp. 362-363.

The question thus presented is whether the task of guarding one’s property from possible malefactors by a guard armed with a firearm is so inherently dangerous to third persons that we should hold that the protection of the public from negligent actions of the security guard in the use of the firearm is a nondelegable duty of the owner.

*849A firearm is a dangerous instrumentality. Skinner v. Ochiltree, 148 Fla. 705, 5 So.2d 605, 140 A.L.R. 410 (1942); Walker v. National Gun Traders, Inc., Fla. App.1960, 116 So.2d 792; Seabrook v. Taylor, Fla.App.1967, 199 So.2d 315; Edwards v. Johnson, 269 N.C. 30, 152 S.E.2d 122, 25 A.L.R.3d 502 (1967). However, the courts have held the owner of a firearm liable for injury only if there was negligence in the entrustment of the firearm. See Seabrook v. Taylor, above; cf. Sixty-Six, Inc. v. Finley, Fla.App.1969, 224 So.2d 381. We do not think a lawful activity involving the use of firearms is an inherently dangerous activity. See Orser v. Vierra, 252 Cal.App.2d 660, 60 Cal.Rptr. 708, 715, 717.

There is nothing pleaded here to suggest that the owner of the property was in any way guilty of negligence. We therefore hold that in the absence of an allegation that the owner had or ought to have had notice of the dangerous propensities of the guard employed by the security corporation, the owner will not be liable for consequences of the allegedly negligent manner in which the employee of the independent contractor performed his duties. Cf. Mai Kai, Inc. v. Colucci, Fla.1968, 205 So.2d 291.

We conclude that an owner of real property is not vicariously liable for harm allegedly caused by the negligent discharge of a firearm by an employee of the independent contractor security corporation the owner hires to protect his property. If such an owner is to be held vicariously liable the holdings in Tamiami Gun Shop v. Klein, Fla.App.1959, 109 So.2d 189, 192, approved, Fla., 116 So.2d 421; Williams v. Youngblood, Fla.App.1963, 152 So.2d 530; and Bass v. Flowers, Fla.App.1965, 177 So. 2d 239 (involving §§ 790.18, 790.22, and 790.17, Fla.Stat, F.S.A., respectively), suggest that legislative action is necessary.

Affirmed.


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Citator

Cited By (19 total)

  • Webb v. Priest, 413 So. 2d 43 (Fla. 3d DCA 1982)
    …ason to know that the independent contractor would not perform in a satisfactory manner, see, e.g., Williams v. Wometco Enterprise, Inc., 287 So. 2d 353 (Fla. 3d DCA 1974), cert. denied, 294 So. 2d 93 (Fla.1974); Brien v. 18925 Collins Avenue Corp., 233 So. 2d 847 (Fla. 3d DCA 1979), or (5) where the independent contractor had apparent authority to act on behalf of the owner/employer, Stuyvesant Corp. v. Stahl, infra; Thomkin Corp. v. Miller, 156 Fla. 388, 24 So. 2d 48 (1945). In Florida an employer is not he…
  • Kitchen v. K-Mart Corp., 697 So. 2d 1200 (Fla. 1997)
    …148 Fla. 705, 5 So. 2d 605 (1941); Foster v. Arthur, 519 So. 2d 1092 (Fla. 1st DCA 1988); Horn v. I.B.I. Sec. Service of Florida, Inc., 317 So. 2d 444 (Fla. 4th DCA 1975), cert. denied 333 So. 2d 463 (Fla.1976); Brien v. 18925 Collins Avenue Corp., 233 So. 2d 847 (Fla. 3d DCA 1970); Seabrook v. Taylor, 199 So. 2d 315 (Fla. 4th DCA), cert. denied, 204 So. 2d 331 (Fla. 1967). . The author, a circuit court judge in Illinois, published the following statement in this Chicago Bar Record article after presiding o…
  • U.S. Sec. Servs. Corp. v. Ramada INN, Inc., 665 So. 2d 268 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995)
    …dent contractor’s tort duty to conduct itself in a reasonably safe manner so as not to injure third parties. Williams v. Wometco Enters., 287 So. 2d 353 (Fla. 3d DCA 1973), cert. denied, 294 So. 2d 93 (Fla.1974); Brien v. 18925 Collins Avenue Corp., 233 So. 2d 847 (Fla. 3d DCA 1970). In the instant case, however, Ramada has quite properly been held legally responsible for the independent contractor USS’s negligent failure to protect the plaintiff from a criminal attack by a third party on Ramada’s premises.…

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