Premises liability.

• Author: Blecke, James C.
• Position: Letters - Letter to the editor

With respect to Mr. Strickland's cover story ("Premises Liability: A Notable Rift in the Law of Foreseeable Crimes" December 2009) and Mr. Henry's letter (February 2010) regarding premises liability, their defense counsel bias may be excused, but their suggestion that four out of five district courts lack intellectual integrity is inappropriate.

It is not my intent to praise the four courts panned by Mr. Strickland and Mr. Henry, or to criticize the Third DCA. To the contrary, I believe the Florida Supreme Court and all ive DCAs have consistently and compatibly held landowners accountable for failing to protect invitees from reasonably foreseeable criminal misconduct under a totality of the circumstances analysis.

A fair reading of all the Third District decisions demonstrates there is no "divergence" of opinions. Mr. Strickland says the Third treats evidence of off-premises crimes as irrelevant to the foreseeability of a crime in a nonresidential setting. He sees Lomillo v. Howard Johnsons Company, 471 So. 2d 1296 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985) (evidence of off-premises crime relevant to the foreseeability of a criminal attack on nonresidential restaurant premises), as an aberration.

Mr. Strickland does not mention the nonresidential Fernandez v. Miami Jai-Alai, Inc., 454 So. 2d 1060 (Fla. 3d DCA 1984) ("The trial court properly admitted evidence concerning crimes having been committed in the immediate vicinity of the defendant's business premises."). Mr. Strickland overlooks the nonresidential Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc. v. Johstoneaux, 395 So. 2d 599 (Fla. 3d DCA 1981) ("Because of the

extensive evidence concerning the immediate past history of many similar occurrences in the vicinity, and thus of their future foreseeability, we reject Winn-Dixie's contention that it was entitled to a directed verdict in its favor below.").

Mr. Strickland also overlooks the nonresidential Green Companies v. Divincenzo, 432 So. 2d 86 (Fla. 3d DCA 1983), a case where there had never been a prior violent crime...