On December 27, 2017, in
Bechtel v. Batchelor, No. 3D16-2624, the Florida Third DCA reversed a judgment in favor of
the plaintiff in a workplace asbestos exposure case in which the plaintiff
had sued the defendant under a premises liability theory for his mesothelioma.
The defendant, a maintenance contractor for the plaintiff’s employer,
Florida Power and Light (FPL), at FPL’s Turkey Lake nuclear power
facility, disputed that it was sufficiently in control of the facility
to trigger a duty to plaintiff to monitor asbestos levels and take other
actions to protect the plaintiff from a dangerous asbestos condition on
the premises. The Third DCA cited both
Welch v. Complete Care Corp., 818 So. 2d 645, 649 (Fla. 2d DCA 2002) and
Haynes v. Lloyd, 533 So. 2d 944, 946 (Fla. 5th DCA 1988) for the principle that premises
liability is not predicated on ownership of the property; instead, the
duty to protect others from injury resulting from a dangerous condition
on the premises rests on the right to control access to the property.
The Court additionally quoted
Brown v. Suncharm Ranch, Inc., 748 So. 2d 1077, 1078 (Fla. 5th DCA 1999): “[t]he duty to protect
others from injury resulting from a dangerous condition on a premises
rests on the party who has the right to control access by third parties
to the premises, be it the owner, an agent, or a lessee of the property.”
Based on these principles, the Third DCA concluded that the defendant
did not have control over the property because no witness testified or
admitted document stated that FPL ever surrendered control of any part
of the plant to the defendant.
