BLUE v. WEINERT LLC (2019)

The issue in this case is whether the trial court erred in determining, as a matter of law, that Roderick Weinert was an independent contractor of New Frontiers, LLC, at the time his van struck and injured Lee Blue. In granting summary judgment in favor of New Frontiers, the trial court concluded that the evidence submitted by the parties, including the Painters Agreement between Weinert and New Frontiers, compelled the legal conclusion that Weinert was an independent contractor rather than an employee of New Frontiers.

We conclude that the question of Weinert's status as to New Frontiers is not so crystalized as to warrant a grant of summary judgment. As our supreme court has said:

Summary judgments should be cautiously granted in negligence and malpractice suits. The law is well settled in Florida that a party moving for summary judgment must show conclusively the absence of any genuine issue of material fact and the court must draw every possible inference in favor of the party against whom a summary judgment is sought. A summary judgment should not be granted unless the facts are so crystallized that nothing remains but questions of law.

Moore v. Morris, 475 So. 2d 666, 668 (Fla. 1985) (citations omitted). In this case, the legal conclusion that Weinert was an independent contractor was based on accepting some portions of the Painters Agreement as favorable to that view while discounting other portions as merely “suggestions” or “best practices” rather than enforceable requirements of the parties' understanding.

Given the factual uncertainty in the record as to whether New Frontiers had the right to control painting outcomes or not, it was error to take the matter away from the jury's consideration. Id. (“If the evidence raises any issue of material fact, if it is conflicting, if it will permit different reasonable inferences, or if it tends to prove the issues, it should be submitted to the jury as a question of fact to be determined by it.”); see Nazworth v. Swire Florida, Inc., 486 So. 2d 637, 638 (Fla. 1st DCA 1986) (“The standard for determining whether an agent is an independent contractor is the degree of control exercised by the employer or owner over the agent. More particularly, it is the right of control, and not actual control, which determines the relationship between the parties.”) (citations omitted); Fla. Std. Jury Instr. (Civ.) 401.14(b)(1). (noting that “[a]n independent contractor is a [person] [business] who is engaged by another to perform specific work according to [his] [her] [its] own methods and whose methods of performing the work are not controlled by the person engaging [him] [her] [it] and are not subject to that person's right of control.”).

Reversed.

Per Curiam.

Makar, Bilbrey, and Jay, JJ., concur.