Metropolitan Dade County v. Department of Commerce

• Decision Date: 19 December 1978
• Docket Number: No. 78-333,78-333
• Citation: 365 So.2d 432
• Parties: METROPOLITAN DADE COUNTY et al., Appellants, v. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE et al., Appellees.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 432

365 So.2d 432

METROPOLITAN DADE COUNTY et al., Appellants, v. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE et al., Appellees.

No. 78-333.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.

Dec. 19, 1978.

Stuart L. Simon, County Atty. and Amy N. Dean, Asst. County Atty., for appellants.

Kenneth H. Hart, Jr., and Ollie L. Evans, Tallahassee, for appellees.

Before HENDRY, BARKDULL and KEHOE, JJ.

KEHOE, Judge.

The appellants, plaintiffs below, Metropolitan Dade County, the Public Health Trust of Dade County, and the Miami-Dade Water & Sewer Authority, appeal from an order dismissing their complaint for declaratory judgment and injunctive relief. The complaint was dismissed with prejudice by the circuit court. We now affirm the order dismissing the complaint but remand with directions that the appellants be given an opportunity to amend their complaint to state a cause of action sufficient to accord the circuit court jurisdiction.

The sole issue is whether the circuit court had jurisdiction to entertain the appellants' complaint for declaratory relief from adverse administrative action. We hold that the declaratory judgment and injunctive remedy resorted to herein is applicable only in those extraordinary cases where a party has no other adequate administrative remedy to cure egregious agency errors or where a party's constitutional rights are endangered. In such instances the circuit court has jurisdiction to entertain appropriate declaratory and injunctive relief. Otherwise, the complaint should be dismissed without prejudice to the party's right to judicial review from final agency action.

This appeal began as a disagreement between Metro Dade County and its subordinate agencies, the Public Health Trust of Dade County and the Miami-Dade Water & Sewer Authority, on the one side (appellants), and the Florida Department of Commerce and certain of its officials (the Department), on the other. The controversy arose over certain payments allegedly due the Department from the appellants under the provisions of the Unemployment Compensation Law (Chapter 443, Florida Statutes 1977). Specifically, it was alleged that the Department required the appellants to pay unemployment compensation contributions for former employees in various situations in which no such contributions were authorized. Although the Department asserted that the contributions were required under the provisions of Section 443.08(6), Florida Statutes (1977), the appellants denied that they were required to make any such unemployment compensation contributions under the law in these instances.

The appellants cited a number of examples in which they were required to make unemployment contributions for former employees not authorized by the law. These included cases in which: (1) the employee was still in the appellants' employment; (2) the employee was employed by one of the appellants but his account was improperly charged to another appellant; (3) the employee was employed under a federally funded program; (4) the employee's claim was disallowed by the Department after appeal; (5) the employee voluntarily resigned; (6) the employee was dismissed for misconduct detrimental to his employer; (7) the employee abandoned his unemployment compensation claim without notification to his employer; (8) the employee was never recently employed by any of the appellants; and (9) the employee prematurely filed his claim before separation from employment.

When no resolution was forthcoming after informal consultations between the parties, the appellants filed this action in the circuit court for a declaratory judgment and injunctive relief. Although Section 443.15, Florida Statutes (1977) expressly provided for administrative review of the Department's action, appellants chose not to pursue this avenue of relief and filed this suit instead. Had the appellants proceeded to final agency action, they would have been entitled to judicial review in the district court of appeal pursuant to Section 120.68, Florida Statutes (1977).

The Department moved to dismiss contending that the circuit court did not have jurisdiction to entertain the complaint, citing State ex rel. Department of General Services v. Willis, 344 So.2d 580 (Fla. 1st DCA 1977), and School Board of Leon County v. Mitchell, 346 So.2d 562 (Fla. 1st DCA 1977). As a result, the circuit court found that the appellants had adequate and available administrative remedies under the Administrative Procedure Act (Chapter 120, Florida Statutes 1977) and the Unemployment Compensation Law (Chapter 443, Florida Statutes 1977) and dismissed the complaint with prejudice. ¹ The appellants' petition for rehearing was denied and this appeal followed.

We believe that the circuit court was entirely correct in dismissing the complaint. However, we feel that the appellants should be afforded an opportunity to amend their complaint since it appears that a violation of their constitutional rights may have occurred. We are reluctant on the basis of the record before us to totally foreclose the appellants' opportunity to show constitutional error.

We have carefully read State ex rel. Department of General Service v. Willis and School Board of Leon County v. Mitchell (both cited above). We fully concur with the rationale so eloquently expressed in those opinions that in the vast majority of cases the sole method of challenging agency action is by a petition for review in the appropriate district court of appeal after all administrative remedies have been exhausted, when those remedies are available and adequate. We fully recognize that neither opinion totally precluded resort to the declaratory judgment remedy in those extraordinary cases: (a) where the agency errors complained of are so egregious or devastating...