Department of Revenue v. Arvida Corp.
| Decision Date | 02 July 1975 |
| Docket Number | No. 74--1457,74--1457 |
| Citation | 315 So.2d 235 |
| Parties | DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE, State of Florida, Appellant, v. ARVIDA CORPORATION, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Robert L. Shevin, Atty. Gen., and Joseph C. Mellichamp, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, for appellant.
A. Lamar Matthews, Jr., and William G. Lambrecht, Williams, Parker, Harrison, Dietz & Getzen, Sarasota, for appellee.
In this interlocutory appeal we revisit the venue question which was first before us in Department of Revenue v. First Federal Savings & Loan Association. 1 That is to say, the question herein is whether the Department of Revenue can be sued outside Leon County, the situs of its headquarters, in a matter involving its efforts to collect allegedly past-due intangible taxes. The lower court said yes here and we agree.
In the First Federal case, Supra, the Department of Revenue sent a standard form 'formal notice assessment and demand' for delinquent intangible taxes. The notice further advised that the taxes should be paid 'to avoid the service of a tax warrant to effect collection.' Recognizing the general Florida rule that, absent a waiver, a state agency may be sued in a county other than the situs of its official headquarters only when the official action complained of has in fact been or is being performed in the county wherein the suit is filed or when the threat of such action in said county is both real and imminent, we held in that case that the aforesaid 'notice' was a mere naked demand and did not constitute the 'official action,' or imminence thereof, as contemplated by the aforesaid rule. Even if that notice constituted a threat, we said, there was no assertion that a warrant would Certainly be sought, nor was a deadline given therefor. Accordingly, we construed that 'threat' as contingent rather than real and anticipatory rather than imminent. We held, therefore, that venue properly lay in Leon County.
Under the facts in this case, however, after two previous notices were given appellee by appellant (which were similar to that given in First Federal, supra), a third notice was given on May 9, 1974, which stated that a tax warrant and execution Had in truth and in fact already issued. Additionally, the notice further stated that
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