The primary purpose of tort law is that wronged persons should be compensated for their injuries and that those responsible for the wrong should bear the cost of their tortious conduct. Forcing tortfeasors to pay for the harm they have wrought provides a proper incentive for reasonable conduct. In Clay Elec. Co-Op, Inc. v. Johnson, 873 So. 2d 1182 (Fla. 2003), the Florida Supreme Court applied this principal in the context of streetlights not being properly maintained.

The facts of the case were these:

While fourteen-year-old Dante Johnson was walking to his school bus stop during the early morning darkness on September 4, 1997, he was struck and killed by a truck in an area where a streetlight was inoperative. Dante’s grandmother, Delores Johnson, who was Dante’s caregiver, came upon the boy’s “mangled, bloodied body” at the scene and fainted. She later filed a negligence claim against the following defendants: the truck’s driver (“Ganas”), the truck’s owner (“Lance”), and the streetlight maintenance company (“Clay Electric”). Dante’s estate also filed suit against the same defendants and the two cases were consolidated.

Clay Electric filed an answer to the plaintiffs’ complaint and subsequently moved for summary judgment, which was granted by the trial court, which found:

The undisputed material facts, for purposes of this Order, after all reasonable inferences are resolved in favor of the other parties opposing the pending motion, are as follows:

(A) The decedent, Dante Johnson, was struck by a motor vehicle being driven by Defendant Larry Ganas. The collision occurred while the decedent walked on or near a public street.

(B) The collision occurred during the early morning hours while it remained very dark. The decedent was wearing dark clothing and was walking in the same direction that Defendant Ganas was driving.

(C) Defendant Ganas was alert and operating his vehicle in a prudent manner and his headlights were on and operating properly. His vision was not impaired or obstructed. Despite these facts, he was unable to see the decedent in time to take evasive actions that would have avoided the collision due to the extreme darkness at the site of the collision.

(D) Several years before the subject collision, the Jacksonville Electric Authority had installed lights along the street where the decedent was struck and killed…. Also, several years before the subject collision, Defendant Clay Electric entered into a contract with the Jacksonville Electric Authority which required that Defendant Clay Electric maintain the lights. That contract remained in force at the time of the collision and Defendant Clay Electric had been paid to maintain the lights.

(E) If the lights had been operating properly, Defendant Ganas would have seen the decedent in time to avoid the collision. The light nearest the site of the collision was not illuminated and it had not been illuminated for [some time] prior to the collision. Defendant Clay Electric, although being contractually obligated to maintain the light and having been paid to do so, failed to maintain the light. Defendant Clay Electric never instituted a system to regularly inspect the lights at night or to determine which lights needed replacement bulbs or repairs.

(F) The Court, having read the cases cited by the parties, concludes the Defendant Clay Electric did not have a legally recognized obligation to maintain the subject light for the benefit of the decedent.

Both Johnson and Dante’s estate appealed, and Lance filed a separate appeal.

On appeal to the Florida Supreme Court, the issue was whether, for purposes of the motion for summary judgment, Clay Electric owed the plaintiffs a legally recognized duty to use reasonable care in maintaining the streetlights. The Florida Supreme Court held the answer was yes.

Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.510 at the time stated the following standard for granting summary judgment:

The judgment sought shall be rendered forthwith if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.

Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.510(c).

A summary judgment, said the court, deprives a party of his or her right to trial and must be exercised with restraint; any doubts must be resolved in favor of the nonmoving party.  The court noted that although the cases involved an alleged contract between Clay Electric and the Jacksonville Electric Authority (“JEA”), the suits themselves were based on an allegation of negligence, and the claims thus sounded in tort. Traditionally, said the court, a cause of action based on negligence comprises four elements:

1. A duty, or obligation, recognized by the law, requiring the [defendant] to conform to a certain standard of conduct, for the protection of others against unreasonable risks.

2. A failure on the [defendant’s] part to conform to the standard required: a breach of the duty….

3. A reasonably close causal connection between the conduct and the resulting injury. This is what is commonly known as “legal cause,” or “proximate cause,” and which includes the notion of cause in fact.

4. Actual loss or damage….

Prosser and Keaton on the Law of Torts 164-65 (W. Page Keeton ed., 5th ed.1984).

The principle of “duty” is linked to the concept of foreseeability and may arise from four general sources:

(1) legislative enactments or administration regulations; (2) judicial interpretations of such enactments or regulations; (3) other judicial precedent; and (4) a duty arising from the general facts of the case.

McCain v. Fla. Power Corp., 593 So. 2d 500, 503 n. 2 (Fla. 1992). The cases before the court fell within the fourth category, i.e., the duty arose “from the general facts of the case.” To the extent the parties rely on an alleged contract between Clay Electric and JEA to support the proposition that Clay Electric owed, or did not owe, a legal duty to Dante, said the court, the contract itself was but one facet of the general facts of the case.

The court noted that whenever one undertakes to provide a service to others, whether one does so gratuitously or by contract, the individual who undertakes to provide the service—i.e., the “undertaker”—thereby assumes a duty to act carefully and to not put others at an undue risk of harm. This maxim, termed the “undertaker’s doctrine,” applies to both governmental and nongovernmental entities. The doctrine further applies not just to parties in privity with one another—i.e., the parties directly involved in an agreement or undertaking— but also to third parties. Florida courts have applied the doctrine to a variety of third-party, contract-based negligence claims and ruled that the defendants could be held liable, notwithstanding a lack of privity.

Section 324A of the Restatement sets forth the following standard for assessing liability in such cases:

One who undertakes, gratuitously or for consideration, to render services to another which he should recognize as necessary for the protection of a third person or his things, is subject to liability to the third person for physical harm resulting from his failure to exercise reasonable care to protect his undertaking, if

(a) his failure to exercise reasonable care increases the risk of such harm, or

(b) he has undertaken to perform a duty owed by the other to the third person, or

(c) the harm is suffered because of reliance of the other or the third person upon the undertaking.

Restatement (Second) of Torts § 324A (1965).

The Florida Supreme Court used the above standard in Union Park Memorial Chapel v. Hutt, 670 So. 2d 64 (Fla. 1996), wherein a husband and wife sued a funeral home after the wife was injured in a traffic accident while participating in a funeral procession. The court determined that the funeral home’s actions in supervising the procession implicated both subsections (a) and (c), relating to “increased risk” and “reliance” respectively. The court then held that, notwithstanding a lack of privity between the plaintiffs and the funeral home, the funeral home owed the plaintiffs a legal duty to act with reasonable care.

In the cases being decided in Clay Elec., the Florida Supreme Court concluded that the trial court erred in granting Clay Electric’s motion for summary judgment. Viewing the record, the undisputed facts, and all reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to the nonmoving parties, the court held that the plaintiffs had adequately shown that Clay Electric assumed a specific, legally recognized duty to the plaintiffs to act with due care in maintaining the streetlights. The court explained its rationale:

First, long before the present accident took place, the City of Jacksonville determined that the 8500 block of Collins Road needed lighting, and streetlights subsequently were installed. When Clay Electric undertook the maintenance of those lights, the company should have foreseen that proper maintenance was necessary for the protection of the plaintiffs. The streetlight at issue was located in a residential neighborhood, on a major roadway, and on the pathway to a school bus stop. There were no sidewalks in the area and the local children, on a daily basis, walked in the early morning darkness in the grassy strip along the roadway’s edge directly past the streetlight on their way to the bus stop.

Second, Clay Electric neglected to exercise due care in maintaining the streetlights. As noted above, the trial court found:

(E) If the lights had been operating properly, Defendant Ganas would have seen the decedent in time to avoid the collision. The light nearest the site of the collision was not illuminated and it had not been illuminated for [some time] prior to the collision. Defendant Clay Electric, although being contractually obligated to maintain the light and having been paid to do so, failed to maintain the light. Defendant Clay Electric never instituted a system to regularly inspect the lights at night or to determine which lights needed replacement bulbs or repairs.

Thus, at the time of the accident, Clay Electric had not instituted even the most rudimentary maintenance procedures.

And third, both the “increased risk” and “reliance” subsections are implicated here. Clay Electric’s failure to exercise due care in maintaining the streetlights caused the roadway to be cast in darkness, thus increasing the risk that Ganas would be unable to see Dante. Further, Clay Electric, in undertaking to maintain the streetlights, arguably caused Delores Johnson to rely on the fact that the lights would be operating properly and that Dante’s pathway to the school bus stop would be lighted. On this record, both “increased risk” and “reliance” pose viable issues to be decided by the trier-of-fact.

The opinion included a strongly worded dissent, which concluded:

The issue in this case is whether Clay Electric Cooperative, Inc., having maintained streetlights in the Jacksonville area, owed a duty to the public to replace nonfunctioning lightbulbs. In concluding that Clay Electric owed such a duty, the majority relies not on any contractual obligation to maintain the streetlights, but on the “undertaker’s doctrine” found in section 324A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts (1965). The majority misapplies that doctrine, and in doing so places Florida in the decided minority of states that have considered this issue.