Florida Marine Fisheries v. Pringle

• Citation: 736 So.2d 17
• Decision Date: 06 April 1999
• Docket Number: No. 98-1500.,98-1500.
• Parties: FLORIDA MARINE FISHERIES COMMISSION (DIVISION OF LAW ENFORCEMENT) and The State of Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Appellants, v. Raymond S. PRINGLE, Jr. and Ronald Fred Crum, Appellees.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

736 So.2d 17

FLORIDA MARINE FISHERIES COMMISSION (DIVISION OF LAW ENFORCEMENT) and The State of Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Appellants, v. Raymond S. PRINGLE, Jr. and Ronald Fred Crum, Appellees.

No. 98-1500.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.

April 6, 1999.

Rehearing Denied May 17, 1999.

Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General; Jonathan A. Glogau, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, for Appellant Marine Fisheries Commission.

John W. Costigan, Deputy General Counsel, Andrew J. Baumann and M.B. Adelson, Assistant General Counsel, for Appellant Department of Environmental Protection.

Ronald A. Mowrey and L. William Porter III of Mowrey & Minacci, P.A., Tallahassee, for Appellees.

BENTON, J.

The Marine Fisheries Commission (MFC) and the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) appeal the judgment of a circuit court which declares that "further restrictions, administrative or legislative, on the use of ... [certain fishing] nets would be in violation of the Florida Constitution, Article X, section 16(b)." We reverse.

We hold that the circuit court erred in reaching the merits of the claims Raymond S. Pringle, Jr. and Ronald Fred Crum brought in circuit court without having exhausted their administrative remedies. The trial court entered declaratory judgment, and enjoined certain net measurement methods, despite the pendency of rule challenge proceedings raising the same issues. Under section 120.56(1) and (2), Florida Statutes (Supp.1996), Messrs. Pringle and Crum initiated a challenge to MFC's proposed rule almost a year before they filed in circuit court on December 4, 1997. The evidentiary hearing on the rule challenge had already taken place on November 6 and 7, 1997.

After Messrs. Pringle and Crum filed their verified complaint for declaratory judgment and preliminary and permanent injunction in circuit court, the administrative law judge entered a final order in the rule challenge proceeding declining to find the changes proposed to Florida Administrative Code Rule 46-4.0081 an invalid exercise of delegated legislative authority. See generally Pringle v. Marine Fisheries Comm'n, 20 F.A.L.R.2061 (Fla. D.O.A.H. Feb. 20, 1998), affirmed, Case No. 98-979, 732 So.2d 395 (Fla. 1st DCA 1999). In contrast, the court below concluded:

Requiring 2 [inch] mesh size throughout the entire net would improperly expand the nets prohibited under the Amendment to include seine nets that have been used since the Amendment's implementation.... A rule which enlarges, modifies, or contravenes a statute constitutes an invalid exercise of delegated legislative authority.

(Emphasis added.) Both in the present proceeding and in the rule challenge proceeding, Messrs. Pringle and Crum "put on evidence ... [about] a net with only fifteen square feet of two-inch mesh and 485 square feet of three-inch mesh (the Pringle-Crum net)." Pringle v. Marine Fisheries Comm'n, Case No. 98-979, 732 So.2d 395 (Fla. 1st DCA 1999). Litigating in two separate forums, Messrs. Pringle and Crum took "two bites at the apple." The diametrically opposed results they obtained have engendered confusion and occasioned expense while, it is now clear, gaining the litigants nothing. The trial court should have granted MFC's motion to dismiss for failure to exhaust administrative remedies. It erred in exercising jurisdiction over matters then under consideration in an administrative forum. See State, Dep't of Transp. v. Hendry Corp., 500 So.2d 218 (Fla. 1st DCA 1986).

It is improper, if administrative remedies are adequate, "to seek relief in the circuit court before those remedies are exhausted." Communities Fin. Corp. v. Department of Envtl. Regulation, 416 So.2d 813, 816 (Fla. 1st DCA 1982); see School Bd. of Flagler County v. Hauser, 293 So.2d 681 (Fla.1974); Bankers Ins. Co. v. Florida Residential Property & Cas. Joint Underwriting Ass'n, 689 So.2d 1127 (Fla. 1st DCA 1997); State, Dep't of Revenue v. Brock, 576 So.2d 848 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991); Friends of the Everglades v. State, Dep't of Envtl. Regulation, 387 So.2d 511 (Fla. 1st DCA 1980); School Bd. of Leon County v. Mitchell, 346 So.2d 562 (Fla. 1st DCA 1977). For one thing, once the administrative process runs its course, the supposed need for judicial intervention may disappear, and judicial resources may be conserved.

We held in Criterion Insurance Co. v. State, Department of Insurance, 458 So.2d 22 (Fla. 1st DCA 1984), that a party is entitled to injunctive relief¹ from administrative action only upon a showing of irreparable harm and a lack of administrative remedies:

[T]he party applying for same must make a showing of the likelihood of irreparable harm; such a showing depends upon the unavailability of an adequate remedy at law, or ... the absence of an adequate administrative remedy to cure allegedly egregious agency error.

Id. at 27. The doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies precludes judicial intervention in executive branch decision-making where administrative procedures can afford the relief a litigant seeks. See Key Haven Associated Enters. v. Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund, 427 So.2d 153, 157 (Fla.1982) (limiting litigants wishing to contest the validity of agency action to administrative remedies and direct appeal), superseded on other grounds as noted in Bowen v. Florida Dep't of Envtl. Regulation, 448 So.2d 566, 568-69 (Fla. 2d DCA 1984), approved and adopted, 472 So.2d 460 (Fla. 1985); State ex rel. Dep't of Gen. Servs. v. Willis, 344 So.2d 580, 589 (Fla. 1st DCA 1977); see also Art. V, §§ 5(b) and 20(c)(3), Fla. Const.

"In November 1994, article X, section 16, known as the `net ban' amendment, was adopted through an initiative petition." Lane v. Chiles, 698 So.2d 260, 262 (Fla.1997). Contemplating "establishment by law or pursuant to law of more restrictions on the use of nets," Art. X, § 16(f), Fla. Const. (adopted 1994), the net ban amendment requires at a minimum:

(b) For purposes of catching or taking any saltwater finfish, shellfish or other marine animals in Florida waters:

(1) No gill nets or other entangling nets shall be used in any Florida waters; and

(2) In addition to the prohibition set forth in (1), no other type of net containing more than 500 square feet of mesh area shall be used in nearshore and inshore Florida waters. Additionally, no more than two such nets, which shall not be connected, shall be used from any vessel, and no person not on vessel shall use more than one such net in nearshore and inshore Florida waters.

Art. X, § 16(b), Fla. Const. The MFC is charged with implementing not only statutory provisions, but also the constitutional provisions set out in the net ban amendment. This circumstance does not, however, justify expansion of the very limited role assigned the judiciary in the administrative rule adoption process.²

At the time the Florida Supreme Court decided Department of Environmental Protection v. Millender, 666 So.2d 882 (Fla.1996), the MFC had no authority to promulgate rules implementing the net ban amendment. Although the MFC had certain specified authority to promulgate rules implementing other provisions of chapter 370, the Legislature had delegated no authority with particular regard to the restrictions and prohibitions set out in the net ban amendment, at the time Millender was decided.

After the Millender decision, the Legislature granted the MFC authority to promulgate rules implementing the restrictions and prohibitions of the net ban amendment. See Chs. 97-160, § 39, at 3042 & 97-164, § 21, at 3093, Laws of Fla. (codified at § 370.093, Fla. Stat. (1997)); see also Ch. 98-203, § 6, at 1924-25, Laws of Fla. Now that the MFC has such authority, including the power to set gear specifications and prohibitions, see § 370.027(2), Fla. Stat. (1997), courts must respect the Legislature's allocation of primary jurisdiction³ over these matters to the MFC and refrain from unwarranted intrusions into the administrative process. See Key Haven Associated Enters.,427 So.2d at 157; Butler v. State, Dep't of Ins., 680 So.2d 1103, 1106 (Fla. 1st DCA 1996). Once the Legislature granted the MFC authority to promulgate rules implementing the amendment and the MFC began rulemaking, adequate administrative remedies —remedies Messrs. Pringle and Crum had actually pursued—were available.

The Legislature granted the MFC, not a phalanx of courts, authority to promulgate rules implementing the amendment's restrictions and prohibitions. See Chs. 97-160, § 39, at 3042 & 97-164, § 21, at 3093, Laws of Fla. (codified at § 370.093, Fla. Stat. (1997)); see also Ch. 98-203, § 6, at 1924-25, Laws of Fla. The MFC also has (broad and) exclusive statutory authority to set gear specifications and prohibitions. See § 370.027(2), Fla. Stat. (1997). Premature judicial intervention creates the possibility of contradictory court rulings, which might not be harmonized until (or unless) litigants reached the Supreme Court of Florida. Florida has thirty-five coastal counties lying within eighteen circuits, which lie in turn within all five appellate districts. The statutory scheme is apparently intended to avoid the possibility of numerous, possibly contradictory court decisions on questions the MFC has special expertise to address.

The amended verified complaint for declaratory judgment and preliminary and permanent injunction seeks to avoid the effect of Florida Administrative Code Rule 46-4.0081, as amended. Unlike facial constitutional challenges to statutes,⁴ judicial challenges to administrative rules must await exhaustion of available administrative remedies. See Key Haven Associated Enterprises,427 So.2d at 157-58, where we said:

When the facial unconstitutionality of an agency rule is the focus of an aggrieved party's constitutional claim, the administrative proceedings must be exhausted and the claim presented to the district court. A circuit court should not, as a

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