Hous. Opportunities Project v. SPV Realty, LC

• Decision Date: 21 December 2016
• Docket Number: No. 3D15–1132,3D15–1132
• Citation: 212 So.3d 419
• Parties: HOUSING OPPORTUNITIES PROJECT, etc., et al., Appellants, v. SPV REALTY, LC, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

212 So.3d 419

HOUSING OPPORTUNITIES PROJECT, etc., et al., Appellants,

v.SPV REALTY, LC, Appellee.

No. 3D15–1132

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.

Opinion filed December 21, 2016

Disability Independence Group and Matthew W. Dietz, for appellants.

Lydecker | Diaz, and Laselve E. Harrison, Stephen Hunter Johnson and Margaret H. Mevers, for appellee.

Legal Services of Greater Miami, Inc., and Jeffrey M. Hearne ; Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County, and Tequisha Y. Myles, Sandra M. Powery and Amanda Kleinrock (West Palm Beach); Florida Legal Services, Inc., and Peter P. Sleasman (Newberry), for the Housing Umbrella Group of Florida Legal Services, Inc., as amicus curiae.

Cheyanne M. Costilla (Tallahassee), General Counsel, for the Florida Commission on Human Relations, as amicus curiae.

Before SUAREZ, C.J., and SHEPHERD and SALTER, JJ.

SHEPHERD, J.

The issue in this case is whether the Florida Fair Housing Act, sections 760.20 –760.37 of the Florida Statutes, requires a private claimant to engage in a statutory conciliation process directed by the Florida Commission on Human Relations as a condition precedent to the filing of a civil action under the statute. We hold that it does. A brief summary of the facts of this case will assist in explaining our decision.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

This case is a sequel to a case filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida styled Housing Opportunities for Excellence, Inc., et al v. SPV Realty, LC , Case No. 1:12–CV–24113–CMA. That case, based on the federal Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C.A. §§ 3601 –3631, was concluded in July 2013 by a Confidential Settlement Agreement and Release between the appellant here, Housing Opportunities Project for Excellence, Inc. ("HOPE")¹ and four named employees, and SPV Realty, LC, the owner of a rental apartment building in Miami–Dade County, Florida. While maintaining that at no point had it engaged in any discriminatory practices, SPV Realty agreed that it would not do so in the future, would make a $10,000 charitable donation to HOPE by a date certain, direct at least $1,000 monthly to affirmatively market its services in African American oriented media, and maintain sign-in sheets reflecting yearly training of SPV Realty employees. The parties agreed that jurisdiction to enforce the agreement would be in state court in Miami–Dade County, Florida.

A year later, on December 23, 2014, HOPE filed suit in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit alleging that SPV Realty had breached all of the promises it made a year earlier, including its promise of non-discrimination in the rental of units to protected classes. In two additional counts, HOPE claimed SPV Realty's post-settlement rental practices violated the Florida Fair Housing Act, and SPV Realty provided false and inaccurate information to potential rental applicants in protected classes, in violation of section 760.23(3) of the Act. The latter two counts were buttressed by detailed allegations of disparate treatment of four testers, similarly situated in all respects except race, sent to the same SPV Realty rental office in the same apartment building near in time to each other to inquire about the availability of the same type of rental units.² The testers were also joined as plaintiffs in the latter two counts. The trial court dismissed these counts for failure of the appellant to engage in the mandatory conciliation process, and both HOPE and the testers have appealed.³

Analysis

It is well settled among the principles of statutory construction that "[i]f the statute is plain and unambiguous and admits of but one meaning, the courts in construing it will not be justified in departing from the plain and natural language employed by the Legislature."

Gough v. State ex rel. Sauls , 55 So.2d 111, 116 (Fla. 1951) (citing Armistead v. State ex rel. Smyth , 41 So.2d 879, 882 (Fla. 1949) ); Lindamood v. Office of State Attorney , 731 So.2d 829, 833 (Fla. 5th DCA 1999) ("The statutory language of § 112.3187 [of the Florida Whistleblower Act) ] is not ambiguous and the plain meaning of the statute must prevail."); Metropolitan Dade County v. Milton , 707 So.2d 913, 915 (Fla. 3d DCA 1998) ("When the language of a statute is clear and unambiguous, the statute must be given its plain and ordinary meaning."); see also 2A Sutherland Statutory Construction § 46:4 (7th ed.) (November 2016 Update) ("Courts do not have the authority to ignore plain and unambiguous language under the guise of interpretation."). It is also apodictic among the canons of judicial interpretation that in making the determination, judicial interpreters should consider the entire text of a statute, including its structure and the physical and logical relation of its many parts, when applying the language of the statute to a set of facts. See Scalia & Garner, Reading the Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts , p. 167 (2012) ("Perhaps no interpretative fault is more common than the failure to follow the whole-text canon, which calls on the judicial interpreter to consider the entire text, in view of its structure and of the physical and logical relation of its many parts.").

The pertinent portions of the Florida Fair Housing Act necessary for us to decide the issue raised are found in section 736.34 of the Act, titled "Enforcement." They read as follows:

(1) Any person who claims to have been injured by a discriminatory housing practice or who believes that he or she will be injured by a discriminatory housing practice that is about to occur may file a complaint with the commission.... Within 100 days after receiving a complaint, or within 100 days after the expiration of any period of reference under subsection (3), the commission shall investigate the complaint and give notice in writing to the person aggrieved whether it intends to resolve it. If the commission decides to resolve the complaint, it shall proceed to try to eliminate or correct the alleged discriminatory housing practice by informal methods of conference, conciliation, and persuasion.

....

(4) If, within 180 days after a complaint is filed with the commission or within 180 days after expiration of any period of reference under subsection (3),^[4]the commission has been unable to obtain voluntary compliance with ss. 760.20 –760.37, the person aggrieved may commence a civil action in any appropriate court against the respondent named in the complaint or petition for an administrative determination pursuant to s. 760.35 to enforce the rights granted or protected by ss. 760.20 –760.37.

(Emphasis added.) Only the Florida Commission on Human Relations is exempt from complying with the exhaustion requirement in the Act. Section 760.34(7)(a) of the Act provides:

The commission may institute a civil action in any appropriate court if it is unable to obtain voluntary compliance with ss. 760.20 –760.37. The commission need not have petitioned for an administrative hearing or exhausted its administrative remedies prior to bringing a civil action.

A plain reading of the Florida Fair Housing Act reveals it admits of just one meaning, that a private citizen or entity may not pursue a civil action for a violation of the Florida Fair Housing Act prior to filing a complaint with the Commission and affording the Commission the opportunity to resolve the complaint informally. Section 736.34(1) of the Act authorizes a person who considers himself aggrieved to file a complaint with the Commission. The Commission then has up to one-hundred days (or one-hundred days from the date of reference to a local agency under subsection (3) of section 736.34) to resolve the complaint. Thereafter, "[i]f within 180 days ... the commission has been unable to obtain voluntary compliance, the person aggrieved may commence a civil action in any appropriate court .... § 760.34(4). Only the Commission may circumvent this procedure. § 760.34((7)(a). To hold, as HOPE would have us do, that the prescribed administrative process and a civil action may run concurrently would render meaningless subsection (4) of the "Enforcement" section of the law—a judicially interpretive "no-no" under the principle that a construction of a statute which renders superfluous, meaningless or inoperative any of its provisions should not be adopted by the courts. State v. Goode , 830 So.2d 817, 824 (Fla. 2002). It also would run afoul of the often overworked,⁵ but here appropriate, interpretive doctrine, expresio unius est exclusio alterius —the expression of one thing implies the exclusion of the other. See Gay v. Singletary , 700 So.2d 1220, 1221 (Fla. 1997). In the case before us, the Legislature expressly lists from whom and when administrative exhaustion is not required, but does not include individuals or fair housing organizations within the list. We conclude from the plain text of the statute, its structure and the relation of its parts that it admits of just one meaning, that the Legislature intended that all persons and entities except the Florida Commission on Human Relations must comply with and exhaust the statutory conciliation process before they may commence a civil action under the Florida Fair Housing Act. Until the person or entity does so, the trial court lacks subject matter jurisdiction to hear the case.

The only other court that has considered whether the Florida Fair Housing Act contains an administrative exhaustion requirement is the Fourth District Court of Appeal in Belletete v. Halford , 886 So.2d 308 (Fla. 4th DCA 2004). In that case, Wayne Belletete sued an apartment building owner for rental discrimination under the Florida Fair Housing Act, for violating his civil rights under sections 760.01–760.11 of the Florida Civil Rights Act, and for discrimination on the basis of his HIV-positive condition under section 760.50 of the Florida Statutes,⁶ after he voluntarily vacated an apartment at the request of the apartment building owner when one of the other occupants of...