Haines City Community Development v. Heggs

• Decision Date: 06 July 1995
• Docket Number: No. 84243,84243
• Parties: 20 Fla. L. Weekly S318 HAINES CITY COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT, d/b/a Parkview Village, Petitioner, v. Leila HEGGS, Respondent.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 523

658 So.2d 523

20 Fla. L. Weekly S318

HAINES CITY COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT, d/b/a Parkview Village, Petitioner, v. Leila HEGGS, Respondent.

No. 84243.

Supreme Court of Florida.

July 6, 1995.

Jerri A. Blair of Blair & Cooney, P.A., Tavares, for petitioner.

Nora Leto, Florida Rural Legal Services, Inc., Lakeland; Cathy L. Lucrezi, Florida Rural Legal Services, Inc., Fort Myers, for respondent.

ANSTEAD, Justice.

We have for review the following question certified to be of great public importance:

AFTER EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT CENTER, INC. v. CITY OF WEST PALM BEACH, 541 So.2d 106 (Fla.1989), DOES THE STANDARD OF REVIEW IN COMBS v. STATE, 436 So.2d 93 (Fla.1983), STILL GOVERN A DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL WHEN IT REVIEWS, PURSUANT TO FLORIDA RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 9.030(b)(2)(B), AN ORDER OF A CIRCUIT COURT ACTING IN ITS REVIEW CAPACITY OVER A COUNTY COURT?

See Haines City Community Dev. v. Heggs, 647 So.2d 855, 857 (Fla. 2d DCA 1994). We have jurisdiction, article V, section 3(b)(4), Florida Constitution, and answer the certified

question in the affirmative by holding that the standards of review announced in Combs and Educational Development Center are the same. We approve the district court decision.

PROCEDURAL FACTS

This case originates from a final judgment entered in county court in favor of petitioner Haines City Community Development, d/b/a Parkview Village (Parkview), evicting the respondent Leila Heggs for non-payment of rent. Upon appeal, the circuit court reversed the county court's judgment. Parkview then sought common-law certiorari review of the circuit court's order in the Second District Court of Appeal, which denied the petition upon the authority of Combs v. State, 436 So.2d 93 (Fla.1983). The district court expressed some concern, however, about the prevailing law defining the standard of review of a district court when reviewing an appellate decision of a circuit court. The court was particularly concerned that we may have recently adopted a different standard for review of administrative proceedings, and it was unclear if the standard was intended to supplant the Combs standard.

LAW & ANALYSIS

History of Common-Law Writ of Certiorari in Florida

Legal historians have told us that the English common-law writ of certiorari was an original writ issuing out of chancery or the King's Bench, directing that an inferior tribunal return the record of a pending cause so that the higher court could review the proceedings. George E. Harris, A Treatise on the Law of Certiorari Sec. 1 (1893). The use of the writ was continued in the American courts, both state and federal. A more recent treatise defines certiorari as a discretionary writ issued by an appellate court to a lower court in cases where an appeal or writ of error was unavailable, directing that the record of the lower court be provided for review to determine whether the lower court has exceeded its jurisdiction or not proceeded according to law. 3 Fla.Jur.2d Appellate Review Sec. 456 (1978). ¹

This Court ² first recognized its common-law certiorari jurisdiction in Halliday v. Jacksonville & Alligator Plank Road Co., 6 Fla. 304 (1855), and defined its use in rather broad and general terms:

[A] writ of certiorari will lie from this court to any of the inferior jurisdictions, whenever an appropriate case may be presented, or it shall become necessary for the attainment of justice.

Id. at 305. In 1882, in an opinion which retains its currency and whose clarity remains a hallmark, we defined the writ in more precise terms:

The question which this certiorari brings here is ... whether the Judge exceeded his jurisdiction in hearing the case at all, or adopted any method unknown to the law or essentially irregular in his proceeding under the statute. A decision made according to the form of law and the rules prescribed for rendering it, although it may be erroneous in its conclusion as to what the law is as applied to facts, is not an illegal or irregular act or proceeding remediable by certiorari.

Basnet v. City of Jacksonville, 18 Fla. 523, 526-27 (1882); see also Edgerton v. Mayor of Green Cove Springs, 18 Fla. 528 (1882).

In Basnet and its progeny we refined the nature and scope of certiorari. We described certiorari as appellate in character in the sense that it involves a limited review of the proceedings of an inferior jurisdiction. Basnet, 18 Fla. at 527. "It is original in the sense that the subject-matter of the suit or proceeding which it brings before the court are not here reinvestigated, tried and determined upon the merits generally as upon In Jacksonville, T. & K.W. Railway Co. v. Boy, 34 Fla. 389, 393, 16 So. 290, 291 (1894), we reviewed a circuit court decision affirming a county court judgment, and, while repeating certain language from Basnet, we also stated that we have the power to review and quash, on common-law certiorari, the proceedings of an inferior tribunal when it proceeds without jurisdiction or when its procedure is illegal, unknown to the law, or essentially irregular. Id. at 392, 16 So. 290. Further, in examining the scope of review in other states, we endorsed the practice in Illinois where the superior court determines "whether the inferior court had jurisdiction, or had exceeded its jurisdiction, or had failed to proceed according to the essential requirements of the law." Id. at 393, 16 So. 290 (emphasis added). In conclusion, we found that "[t]he judgment of affirmance in the record before the Circuit Court was such an essential irregularity and departure from prescribed rules of procedure in such cases as to require that it be quashed, and a judgment will therefore be entered accordingly." Id. at 396, 16 So. 290.

                appeal at law or writ of error."  Id.  This explanation, stated another way, importantly emphasizes that certiorari should not be used to grant a second appeal. 3  Id.;  Kennington v. Gillman, 284 So.2d 405, 406 (Fla. 1st DCA 1973). 4
                

In Mernaugh v. City of Orlando, 41 Fla. 433, 27 So. 34 (1899), this Court explicitly incorporated the "essential requirements of law" language into our standard:

The rule established here is that the Supreme Court has power to review and quash, on the common-law writ of certiorari, the proceedings of inferior tribunals when they proceed in a cause without jurisdiction, or when their procedure is essentially irregular and not according to the essential requirements of law, and no appeal or direct method of reviewing the proceeding exists.

Id. at 442, 27 So. 34 (emphasis added).

CONSISTENCY IN APPLICATION

It has been correctly noted that despite the announcement of a narrow standard of review, the scope of substantive review by certiorari actually applied was often, for all practical purposes, fully as broad as review by appeal. William H. Rogers & Lewis Rhea Baxter, Certiorari in Florida, 4 U.Fla.L.Rev.

                477, 498, 500 n. 90 (1951). 5  This tendency was so apparent that the discussion in Florida Jurisprudence noted that in many certiorari cases "it may appear that an error on which the reviewing court questions the lower court's judgment is no more fundamental or in violation of an essential requirement of the law than what otherwise would be reversible error on appeal."   Haddad, supra, at 221 n. 113. 6  Throughout the years, Florida courts have also used many terms interchangeably to describe a "departure from the essential requirements of law." 7  Beginning in the early 1960's, however, a more consistent practice seemed to emerge of "restricting the scope of review so that the reality of the extent of review on certiorari was to a large degree commensurate with the rhetoric of limited review."   Haddad, supra, at 221 (footnote omitted). 8
                

Despite this "all over the waterfront" picture, some opinions should be noted for their tight and lucid language in capturing the essence of the appropriate use of the writ. In State v. Smith, 118 So.2d 792 (Fla. 1st DCA 1960), Judge Wigginton explained:

Certiorari is a common-law writ which issues in the sound judicial discretion of the court to an inferior court, not to take the place of an appeal, but to cause the entire record of the inferior court to be brought up in order that it may be determined from the face thereof whether the inferior court has exceeded its jurisdiction, or has not proceeded according to the essential requirements of law. Confined to its legitimate scope, the writ may issue within the court's discretion to correct the procedure of courts wherein they have not observed those requirements of the law which are deemed to be essential to the administration of justice.... Failure to observe the essential requirements of law means failure to accord due process of law within the contemplation of the Constitution, or the commission of an error so fundamental in character as to fatally infect the judgment and render it void. ...

It seems to be the settled law of this state that the duty of a court to apply to admitted facts a correct principle of law is such a fundamental and essential element of the judicial process that a litigant cannot be said to have had the remedy by due course of law [guaranteed by the Florida Constitution], if the judge fails or refuses to perform that duty.

Id. at 795 (footnote omitted) (emphasis added).

In 1985, Chief Justice Boyd also captured the essence of the standard:

The required "departure from the essential requirements of law" means something far beyond legal error. It means an inherent illegality or irregularity, an abuse of judicial power, an act of judicial tyranny perpetrated with disregard of procedural requirements, resulting in a gross miscarriage of justice. The writ of certiorari properly issues to correct essential illegality but not legal error.

Jones v. State, 477 So.2d 566, 569 (Fla.1985) (Boyd, C.J., concurring specially).

Combs

In Combs v. State, 436 So.2d 93 (Fla.1983), this Court held that the district court had applied too narrow...