Monika Fenyvesi v. Suncoast Motel and Apartments, Inc.

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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 22-10496
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________
MONIKA FENYVESI,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
SUNCOAST MOTEL AND APARTMENTS, INC.,
Defendant-Appellee.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Florida
D.C. Docket No. 8:19-cv-03026-TPB-JSS
____________________
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2 Opinion of the Court 22-10496
Before JILL PRYOR, GRANT, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
While staying at a motel in Florida, plaintiff Monika
Fenyvesi fell and was injured. She sued the owner of the motel,
Suncoast Motel and Apartments, Inc., for negligence. The district
court granted summary judgment to Suncoast because Fenyvesi
failed to come forward with evidence establishing that it breached
any duty. After careful consideration, we affirm.
I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND
Fenyvesi, a German citizen, traveled to Florida on vacation
with her husband. They arrived at the motel and went to their
room, which had a balcony facing west toward the Gulf of Mexico.
Upon entering the room, Fenyvesi saw the sun was setting and
wanted to take a picture from the balcony.
Fenyvesi opened the sliding glass door that separated the
room and the balcony. To get to the balcony, she had to step over
a raised threshold, which held the track for the sliding glass door.
Fenyvesi saw the raised threshold and expected the floor of the bal-
cony to be the same height as the floor of the room. But the floors
were not level: the balcony floor was about three inches lower than
the room floor. Fenyvesi claims that because of the light from the
sunset, she was unable to see that the balcony floor was lower than
the room floor. Because she did not anticipate the step down on
the other side of the threshold, Fenyvesi fell and was injured.
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22-10496 Opinion of the Court 3
Fenyvesi sued Suncoast, alleging that it was negligent in fail-
ing to warn her of the unsafe condition created by the step down.
Suncoast moved for summary judgment, arguing that it owed no
duty to warn about the step down because it was an open and ob-
vious condition.
The district court granted Suncoast’s motion for summary
judgment, concluding it owed no duty to warn about the step
down. The court explained that under Florida law a step down was
generally an open and obvious condition that requires no warning.
Although Florida courts had recognized some exceptions that re-
quired an owner to warn of a step down in certain circumstances,
the court concluded that none of the exceptions applied in this case.
This is Fenyvesi’s appeal.
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
“We review de novo the district court’s grant of summary
judgment, construing the facts and drawing all reasonable infer-
ences in favor of the nonmoving party.” Smelter v. S. Home Care
Servs., Inc., 904 F.3d 1276, 1284 (11th Cir. 2018). Summary judg-
ment is appropriate if the record gives rise to “no genuine dispute
as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a
matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). A genuine dispute of material
fact exists when “the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could
return a verdict for the nonmoving party.” Anderson v. Liberty
Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986).
III. LEGAL ANALYSIS
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This premises liability case boils down to the question of
whether under Florida law 1 Suncoast, the property owner, had a
duty to warn Fenyvesi, an invitee, about the step down from the
room to the balcony. We conclude that it owed no duty to warn.
A property owner generally must warn an invitee “of con-
cealed perils which are or should be known to the property owner,
and which are unknown to the invitee and cannot be discovered by
him through the exercise of due care.” Collins v. Marriott Int’l, Inc.,
749 F.3d 951, 957 (11th Cir. 2014) (quoting Fieldhouse v. Tam Inv.
Co., 959 So. 2d 1214, 1215 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2007)). But a property
owner has no duty to warn of an “open and obvious hazard.” Dam-
pier v. Morgan Tire & Auto, LLC, 82 So. 3d 204, 206 (Fla. Dist. Ct.
App. 2012). 2
Under Florida law, a property owner generally does not owe
a duty to warn an invitee of a change in floor level. See Casby v.
Flint, 520 So. 2d 281, 282 (Fla. 1988). Because this “type of construc-
tion is common,” an invitee cannot “assume that the floors” of a
1 The parties agree that we look to Florida law.
2 Separate from the duty to warn, a property owner also has a “duty to main-
tain the property in a reasonably safe condition by repairing conditions that
[it] foresee[s] will cause harm.” Middleton v. Don Asher & Assocs., Inc., 262
So. 3d 870, 872 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2019); see Lomack v. Mowrey, 14 So. 3d
1090, 1092 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2009) (explaining that a property owner owes a
duty to maintain the property in a reasonably safe condition even when it
owes no duty to warn). Because Fenyvasi’s arguments on appeal relate solely
to the duty to warn, we do not address the duty to maintain.
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building “in the same story have the same level, blindly travel on
the presumption, disregard his own safety, stumble, fall, and re-
cover.” Schoen v. Gilbert, 436 So. 2d 75, 76 (Fla. 1983); see also
Casby, 520 So. 2d at 282 (“[I]t is common knowledge that a room
obscured by dim lighting . . . may contain different floor levels”).
There is an exception to this general rule. Florida appellate
courts have recognized that a property owner has a duty to warn
about a step down when the “character, location or surrounding
conditions of the step-down are such that a prudent person would
not anticipate it.” Nw. Fla. Crippled Children’s Assoc. v. Harigel,
479 So. 2d 831 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1985). This exception applies
when the property owner used an “uncommon design or mode of
construction creating a hidden danger.” Casby, 520 So. 2d at 282.
The decisions in Kupperman v. Levine, 462 So. 2d 90 (Fla. Dist. Ct.
App. 1985), and Harigel provide examples of when this exception
applies.
In Kupperman, the court held that homeowners owed a
duty to warn a guest about a change in floor level. 462 So. 2d at 91.
The floor level changed in the middle of the homeowners’ dining
room. Id. They arranged their dining table and chairs to give the
illusion of a level floor. The chair backs and seats were of even
height, but this was only because some chairs had longer legs to
account for the change in floor level. Id. Given “the uncommon
mode of construction—a change of floor level in the middle of a
room—and a choice of furniture designed to create the illusion of
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6 Opinion of the Court 22-10496
a level floor,” the property owners owed a duty to warn their
guests. Id.In Harigel, the court held that a store owed a duty to warn
its customers of a step down from a platform. 479 So. 2d at 832–33.
The store displayed clothing hanging from a pipe that ran above
the platform. Id. at 832. The pipe with the merchandise hanging
extended several feet beyond the edge of the platform. Id. A cus-
tomer who was looking at the clothing on display fell because she
did not see that the platform ended. Id. Because the store had ar-
ranged its merchandise so that a customer’s eyes were focused on
the displayed merchandise, not the edge of the platform, the court
held that the store had a duty to warn of the dangerous condition
created by the step down. Id. at 832–33.
After considering Kupperman, Harigel, and other Florida
step-down cases, we cannot conclude that Suncoast owed a duty to
warn here. Because it is common for there to be a difference in
floor levels, we conclude that the step down from the motel room
to the balcony was not an inherently dangerous condition. And the
exception that requires a property to warn of a step down when
there is an uncommon design or mode of construction does not
apply here. Unlike the property owners in Kupperman, Suncoast
did not create an optical illusion to conceal the change in elevation
between the room and the balcony. See 462 So. 2d at 91. And un-
like the store in Harigel, Suncoast created no distraction that drew
Fenyvesi’s attention away from the step down. See 479 So. 2d at
832–33.
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Fenyvesi nevertheless argues that Suncoast owed a duty to
warn her about the danger associated with the step down even if it
did not create the distraction or circumstances—in this case, the
glare from the sunset—that caused her not to see the step down.
The only case Fenyvesi cites to support her position is Krivanek v.
Pasternack, 490 So. 2d 252 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1986).
In Krivanek, a citizen went to a building to vote in an elec-
tion. Id. After entering the building, she walked toward the room
with the voting machines. Id. A deputy sheriff, who was “acting as
an election official,” opened the door to the room with the voting
machines and said good morning to the citizen. Id. Because the cit-
izen was looking at the deputy sheriff and responding to his greet-
ing, she did not see a several-inch step down and fell over it. Id. at
253. The Florida court concluded that the supervisor of elections
owed a duty to warn about the step down. Id. The court explained
that there “were sufficient circumstances other than just the
change in floor level to sustain the finding of negligence on the part
of” the supervisor of elections and thus the cases applying the gen-
eral rule that an owner had no duty to warn of a step down could
be “distinguish[ed].” Id. at 253.
Fenyvesi says Krivanek established that a property owner
may have a duty to warn of a step down even when a “distraction
was created by someone other than the owner of the premises.”
Appellant’s Br. at 14. But she overlooks that in Krivanek there was
a direct connection between the individual who created the distrac-
tion (the deputy sheriff) and the premises owner (the election
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supervisor). Because the deputy sheriff was “acting as an election
official” when he greeted the citizen and created the distraction
that caused her not to see the step down, the Florida court imputed
his actions to the election supervisor. Krivanek, 490 So. 2d at 252–
53. We thus cannot say that Krivanek supports Fenyvesi’s position
that Suncoast owed a duty to warn her about the danger associated
with the step down even if it did not create the distraction—the
glare associated with the sunset—that caused her not to see the
step down. 3
Fenyvesi also argues that Suncoast owed a duty to warn her
of the step down even if there was no uncommon design or mode
of construction. She maintains that Florida cases recognizing a duty
to warn of a step down only in these narrow circumstances are dis-
tinguishable because those cases involved step downs located in-
side of buildings and did not address whether an owner has a duty
to warn about a step down that requires a person to cross from
inside a building to the outside. But a Florida appellate court has
rejected a similar argument. See Allen v. Young, 807 So. 2d 704,
706–07 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2002).
3 In a footnote, Fenyvesi suggests that Suncoast owed a duty to warn because
the change in elevation associated with the step down violated the local build-
ing code. But we will not consider this argument because Fenyvesi failed to
raise it in the district court. See Access Now, Inc. v. Sw. Airlines Co., 385 F.3d
1324, 1331 (11th Cir. 2004) (“[A]n issue not raised in the district court and
raised for the first time in an appeal will not be considered by this court” (in-
ternal quotation marks omitted)).
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In Allen, a guest was attending a party at a home and fell as
she walked between the patio and pool. Id. at 705. Claiming that
she fell because there was an “unmarked, hard to observe, change
in elevation,” she sued the homeowners for failing to warn her of
the condition. Id. The guest argued that cases recognizing a duty
to warn only when there was an “uncommon design or mode of
construction” that concealed a step down were inapposite because
those cases “involve[d] accidents that occurred inside . . . rather
than outside.” Id. at 705–06. The court rejected this argument, stat-
ing “[w]e can discern no basis for applying different principles to a
patio injury as opposed an injury that occurs inside.” Id. Based on
the reasoning in Allen, we discern no basis for applying different
principles to an injury that occurs due to a step down when an in-
vitee crosses a threshold to pass from inside a building to the out-
side than would apply to an injury that occurs due to a step down
when an invitee moves inside a building.
IV. CONCLUSION
For the reasons set forth above, we affirm the district court’s
grant of summary judgment.
AFFIRMED.