KEY CITIZENS FOR GOV., INC. v. Florida Keys Aqueduct Auth.

• Decision Date: 12 July 2001
• Docket Number: No. SC01-411.,SC01-411.
• Citation: 795 So.2d 940
• Parties: KEYS CITIZENS FOR RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT, INC., Appellant, v. FLORIDA KEYS AQUEDUCT AUTHORITY, Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

795 So.2d 940

KEYS CITIZENS FOR RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT, INC., Appellant, v. FLORIDA KEYS AQUEDUCT AUTHORITY, Appellee.

No. SC01-411.

Supreme Court of Florida.

July 12, 2001.

Kendall Coffey, Miami, Florida, and Charles P. Tittle of Tittle & Tittle, Chartered, Tavernier, FL, for Appellant.

Robert T. Feldman, General Counsel, Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority, and Grace E. Dunlap and Kenneth A. Guckenberger of Bryant, Miller and Olive, P.A., Tampa, FL, for Appellee.

Joseph A. Morrissey, Assistant County Attorney, Clearwater, FL, for Pinellas County, Florida, Amicus Curiae.

HARDING, J.

Keys Citizens for Responsible Government, Inc., (Citizens) appeals a circuit court judgment validating a proposed bond issue by the Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority (Authority). We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(2), Fla. Const.

The Authority was created by a special act of the Legislature in 1976, which has subsequently been amended and supplemented. See chs. 76-441, 77-604, 77-605, 80-546, 83-468, 84-483, 84-484, 86-419, 87-454, 98-519, Laws of Fla. The Authority's purpose is to obtain, supply, and distribute an adequate water supply for the Florida Keys and to collect, treat, and dispose of wastewater in the Keys. See ch. 76-441, § 1, at 305, Laws of Fla.; ch. 77-605, § 1, at 197, Laws of Fla.; ch. 98-519, § 1, at 294, Laws of Fla. The 1998 amendment also expanded the Authority's powers to include exclusive jurisdiction over wastewater system services in Monroe County, with the exception of specified incorporated areas. See ch. 98-519, § 6, at 298, Laws of Fla.

To counter the environmental dangers to the Florida Keys' ecosystem and water supply, Monroe County's Year 2010 Comprehensive Plan, which was completed in June 2000, calls for the development of a countywide sanitary wastewater master plan. In Executive Order 98-309, then-Governor Buddy MacKay charged various state and local agencies and governmental entities to coordinate with Monroe County to execute the Year 2010 Comprehensive Plan, including the planning and implementing of an improved wastewater management system. See Fla. Exec. Order No. 98-309 (Dec. 30, 1998).

To assist in the implementation of the Master Plan after its adoption, Monroe County entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Authority in May 1998, whereby the Authority would finance and operate a wastewater system throughout the Florida Keys similar to the water supply system that the Authority has operated for many decades. On January 19, 2000, Monroe County enacted an ordinance requiring mandatory connection to any central sewer system thirty days¹ after notification of availability for use and permitting payment of the required connection charges by monthly installments. See Monroe County, Fla., Ordinance No. 04-2000 (Jan. 19, 2000).

On October 18, 2000, the Authority adopted a resolution authorizing the issuance of sewer revenue bonds in various series to finance sewer projects in the Florida Keys. See Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority Resolution No. 00-20 (Oct. 18, 2000). In a second resolution, the Authority authorized the issuance of sewer revenue bonds in the amount of $4,500,000 to finance the first wastewater system to be constructed in the Little Venice area of the Marathon Wastewater District. See Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority Resolution No. 00-21 (Oct. 18, 2000). The bonds will be repaid by the fees of the users who will be required to connect to the system. The Authority filed a complaint in circuit court pursuant to chapter 75, Florida Statutes (2000), requesting validation of the bonds. The circuit judge issued a show cause order and scheduled a hearing for December 21, 2000. Notice of the hearing was published in the Key West Citizen newspaper on November 30 and December 7, 2000. Although the notice listed the wrong case number, it did contain the text of the circuit court's order. Citizens moved for a continuance of the hearing on December 20, which the court denied. However, Citizens was granted intervenor status, and its counsel appeared by telephone at the bond validation hearing on December 21.

Following the hearing, the court entered final judgment validating the bonds. The court's order included two paragraphs requiring all sewer system customers to permit access for connection without payment by the Authority and requiring all property owners in the Authority's geographical jurisdiction to connect to the sewer systems at their own expense. Citizens' motion for reconsideration and amendment of the final judgment was denied.

Citizens has appealed the matter to this Court under our mandatory bond validation jurisdiction. The Authority filed a motion to expedite the appeal and to waive oral argument. The Authority argued that the timing of the project financed by the bonds is critical in order to receive over $4 million from a federal grant. This Court granted the Authority's motion to expedite resolution of the case and accepted the case without oral argument.

Bond validation proceedings are governed by chapter 75, Florida Statutes. As this Court explained in State v. City of Miami, 103 So.2d 185, 188 (Fla.1958), the statutes governing bond validation proceedings provide for speedy disposition of these cases. Further, the rules of this Court also recognize the necessity for the prompt disposition of these cases. Compare Fla. R.App. P. 9.110(i) with Fla. R.App. P. 9.110(f) (providing that the appellant's initial brief in a bond validation appeal shall be served within twenty days of filing the notice of appeal whereas initial briefs in other appeals must be served within seventy days of filing the notice). Thus, the "speedy and efficient disposition of bond validation proceedings," which is the purpose of both the statute and the rules, would be seriously impaired if collateral matters were injected into the proceedings. City of Miami, 103 So.2d at 188. This Court has reiterated its position that:

It was never intended that proceedings instituted under the authority of this chapter to validate governmental securities would be used for the purpose of deciding collateral issues or those issues not going directly to the power to issue the securities and the validity of the proceedings with relation thereto.

Id.; see also Noble v. Martin County Health Facilities Auth., 682 So.2d 1089, 1090 (Fla.1996)

; City of Gainesville v. State, 366 So.2d 1164, 1166 (Fla.1979).

The scope of this Court's inquiry in bond validation hearings is limited to the following considerations: (1) determining whether the public body has the authority to issue the bonds; (2) determining whether the purpose of the obligation is legal; and (3) ensuring that the bond issuance complies with the requirements of law. See Murphy v. Lee County, 763 So.2d 300, 302 (Fla.2000)

. Citizens does not question the Authority's power to issue the bonds or that the purpose of the obligation is legal. Instead, Citizens argues that the court's validation of the mandatory connection requirement was beyond the scope of the bond validation proceeding. Citizens raises three issues relating to the mandatory connection requirement in this appeal. Citizens argues that (1) validation of the mandatory connection requirement was not a proper part of the chapter 75 bond validation proceeding and should be stricken from the final judgment; (2) even if the mandatory connection provisions are not removed, the final judgment still should not have a res judicata or collateral estoppel effect on further challenges to the mandatory connection requirement; and (3) the validation proceeding violated its rights to due process.

Section 75.01, Florida Statutes (2000), vests the circuit courts with "jurisdiction to determine the validation of bonds and certificates of indebtedness and all matters connected therewith." (Emphasis added.) It is the meaning of the phrase "all matters connected therewith" which is the crux of the instant appeal. Section 75.09, Florida Statutes (2000), provides that the final judgment in a bond validation proceeding is "conclusive as to all matters adjudicated against plaintiff and all parties affected thereby, including all property owners, taxpayers and citizens of the plaintiff, and all others having or claiming any right, title or interest in the property to be affected by the issuance of said bonds ... and the validity of said bonds ... shall never be called in question in any court by any person or party." If the Court determines that the mandatory connection requirement was a proper matter connected with the bonds, then the final judgment will be conclusive as to that issue and the requirement cannot be challenged in a subsequent proceeding.

Thus, the Court's resolution of issue one necessarily will determine issue two. If the consideration of the mandatory connection requirement is collateral to the bond validation proceeding, then the provisions relating to mandatory connection should be reversed with instructions that they be deleted from the final judgment and further challenges would not be foreclosed. See City of Miami, 103 So.2d at 190 (reversing portions of the judgment addressing two collateral issues with directions that the trial court delete them). If the matter was a proper part of the bond validation proceeding, then the final judgment will necessarily foreclose any further challenges. See § 75.09, Fla. Stat. (2000) (explaining effect of final judgment).

In those instances where issues have been deemed collateral and not the proper subject of a bond validation proceeding, this Court has noted that "the interested parties" to the collateral issue were not parties to the bond validation action and thus the trial court had no jurisdiction to decide the collateral issue in the proceeding. See, e.g., McCoy Restaurants, Inc. v. City of Orlando, 392 So.2d 252, 254 (Fla. 1980)

(finding that validity of airline-aviation authority lease agreements was collateral to bond validation...