PERSONAL INJURY CORNER
UNDERTAKER DOCTRINE
TED BABBITT
Cascante v. 50 State Security Service, Inc., 45
Fla.L.Weekly D8a (Fla. 3d DCA 2019), was a
security case in which a summary judgment
had been rendered on behalf of the security
service. The security service had a contract
with the county to provide security for a
parking garage for the South Miami Metro Rail
and, thus, had undertaken the responsibility to
provide that service by contract. Under Florida
law, the Undertaker Doctrine was established
in Clay Electric Co-op., Inc. v. Johnson, 873
So.2d 1182, 1886 (Fla. 2003):
“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.”
Thus, the responsibility to ‘enact
reasonable security measures’ was
borne solely by the County.”
Thus, the Court concluded that since the
County, and only the County, had retained
responsibility to determine virtually every
aspect of the security plan, the fact that the
plaintiff was injured by being attacked in
the parking garage after hours was not the
responsibility of the security agency but rather
that of the County. A summary judgment was
affirmed.
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In this case, the undertaking was based upon
a contract and, as such, the extent of the
undertaking is defined under the terms of
the contract. McGee By & Through McGee v.
Chalfant, 806 P2d 980, 985 (Kan. 1991):
“Because the defendant’s duties to
the plaintiff are usually based on the
express terms of the contract between
the parties, the contract itself is the best
evidence of the exact nature and extent
of those duties.”
In analyzing the facts of this case, the Third
District holds that not only is a court required to
begin an analysis under these circumstances
with the language of the contract, but if the
language is unambiguous that is where the
inquiry should end.
In this case:
“Here, under the unambiguous contractual
terms, the County alone was charged
with determining ‘the number of security
officers, the shift schedule, and level of
training required’. Indeed, as demonstrated
by the record, for the duration of the
contract, the County never strayed from its
initial determination that the South Miami
Metrorail parking garage only be staffed by
a single roving guard from seven o’clock
a.m. to seven o’clock p.m.
…
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PBCBA BAR BULLETIN
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