Crystal L. Arocha secured a favorable summary judgment in the 12th Judicial Circuit in and for Manatee County, Florida, for a nationwide property owner/developer. MMP&S successfully demonstrated that, despite catastrophic injuries and more than a million dollars in hard economic damages, no legal duty to the plaintiff was owed or breached. The plaintiff was a trainee professional engineering inspector, hired to inspect active construction sites, including the duty to identify and report on safety issues. Plaintiff and his supervisor arrived early, didn’t see or check in with anyone, entered a home under construction, climbed a ladder to the second floor, and began conducting inspections of tie beams, by walking around on the second floor while using a mirror on a long pole. Plaintiff fell through the same stairway opening he had climbed up through. His claim was that the opening lacked guardrails on the second floor. If this was a safety issue, then it was plaintiff’s duty to recognize, identify and report on it. The trial court followed the line of cases holding that a construction subcontractor is not owed a duty to warn of, or protect against, hazards inherent to his field of expertise or occupation. The court also found the ‘hazard’ was open and obvious, and best known to the plaintiff who encountered it previously, and so there was no duty to warn.
Practice Areas: Construction Accidents