Foreseeability of third-party crimes.

• Author: Strickland, Wilton H.
• Position: LETTERS - Letter to the editor

As with my December 2009 Journal article discussing premises liability, Mr. James C. Blecke has written a letter to the editor criticizing my second article on the subject from December 2014. I welcome this dialogue because the foreseeability of third-party crimes is an important issue affecting a large number of practitioners and clients throughout the state. That being said, Mr. Blecke's criticism is misplaced.

First, Mr. Blecke asserts that I put more stock in Admiral's Port Condo. Ass'n, Inc. v. Feldman, 426 So. 2d 1054 (Fla. 3d DCA 1983), than I did in Lomillo v. Howard Johnsons Co., 471 So. 2d 1296 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985), the latter supposedly establishing a broader test of foreseeability within the Third District. Mr. Blecke ignores the more recent precedent I cited that demonstrates the ongoing vitality of Admiral's Port and its narrow test of foreseeability within the Third District. There is the 1988 decision in Ameijeiras that applies Admiral's Port, and there are decisions from 1997 (Ivanov) and 2001 (Prieto) that apply Ameijeiras.

Second, Mr. Blecke asserts that I cite Ameijeiras as holding that off-premises crimes are irrelevant to foresee-ability, which he argues is inaccurate because Ameijeiras does not discuss off-premises crime, and also because Ameijeiras was overshadowed by Czerwinski v. Sunrise Point Condo., 540 So. 2d 199 (Fla. 3d DCA 1989). Once again, Mr. Bleck ignores later precedent that embraces Ameijeiras and enforces a strict test of foreseeability as to time, place, and manner of the prior crimes. Ameijeiras itself says that "[t]he landowner's duty arises only when he...