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Puhalski v. Brevard County, Florida, and Hartford Accident & Indemnity Company, 428 So2d 375 (1983). Three adult bicyclists were riding in a cross-state bicycle race and were struck by an overtaking automobile. Summary judgment for county affirmed. From the concurring opinion accompanying the majority decision handed down by the Third District Court of Appeals of Florida: "Appellee Brevard County, Florida, built a bicycle path along State Road 520 in Brevard County. Appellants, bicyclists engaged in a cross-state bike race, found the bicycle path so poorly maintained that they abandoned its use and rode on the edge of the highway where they were struck and injured by a vehicle that wandered out of the lane of traffic. ... The good trial judge correctly entered summary judgment for appellee-county not because of the argument about foreseeability but because the county had no duty to provide a bicycle path. The danger of a bicyclist riding on the edge of the pavement on a busy highway being struck by a motorist is so obvious and likely that it should be held foreseeable as a matter of law. That is the very reason bicycle paths are built. However, this does not mean that the failure of a county to provide a bicycle path, or a properly maintained bicycle path, is the legal cause either (1) of the danger of riding a bicycle on the edge of a busy highway, (2) of a bicyclist being exposed to that danger, and (3) of a bicyclist being injured by a car on the highway. The foreseeability of a bicyclist's reaction to an unmaintained bicycle path and the foreseeability of the active efficient 'intervening' negligence of a motorist striking a bicyclist are not the issue because foreseeability alone does not create duty but merely defines the scope of a duty and of the damages considered to have legally resulted from the breach of duty. Whatever duty Brevard County had to maintain the path once provided, the breach of that duty was limited to injuries directly and proximately caused to bicyclists by defects in the path resulting from its improper maintenance.
"... The county's lack of maintenance did not result in defects that proximately caused appellants' injuries but resulted in the county's failure to provide a properly maintained bicycle path. However that did not breach any legal duty owed because the county had no legal duty to provide a bicycle path, well-maintained, unmaintained or at all and, having once provided one, no duty to continue to provide one. There being no legal duty there is no breach of duty and no negligence and no liability." |
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