New Testament Baptist Church v. Dot

• Decision Date: 22 October 2008
• Docket Number: No. 4D07-4543.,4D07-4543.
• Citation: 993 So.2d 112
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals
• Parties: NEW TESTAMENT BAPTIST CHURCH INCORPORATED OF MIAMI, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION and Broward County, Appellees.

993 So.2d 112

NEW TESTAMENT BAPTIST CHURCH INCORPORATED OF MIAMI, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION and Broward County, Appellees.

No. 4D07-4543.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.

October 22, 2008.

S. Cary Gaylord and Paul D. Bain of Gaylord Merlin Ludovici Diaz & Bain, Tampa, for appellant.

Alexis M. Yarbrough, General Counsel, and Gregory G. Costas, Assistant General Counsel, Tallahassee, for Appellee-Department of Transportation.

Jeffrey J. Newton, County Attorney, Andrew J. Meyers, Chief Appellate Counsel, and James D. Rowlee, Assistant County Attorney, Fort Lauderdale, for Appellee-Broward County.

STONE, J.

New Testament Baptist Church appeals a final judgment in a condemnation suit brought by Florida Department of Transportation. The sole issue on appeal is whether it was error to grant summary judgment on the church's counterclaim for inverse condemnation, on the basis that the church's claim is barred by the statute of limitations. We affirm, concluding that where the rights of third parties are not affected, a stale claim is limited by the statute. We further find that the subject conveyance was not void ab initio, but merely voidable.

The church's claim was based upon its allegation that a plat dedication required by the county fourteen years earlier was unconstitutional and, therefore, void.

In 1990, the church dedicated 7.5 acres of its 96-plus acre parcel of vacant land to the public for roadway use, as a condition of receiving plat approval from the county to build a church and school. The dedication condition was pursuant to county ordinances. The plat was filed in 1992. Since that time, the church has continued to use the 7.5 acres.

In 2005, this eminent domain proceeding was brought to condemn a separate parcel for a road widening project, and the church's inverse condemnation counterclaim seeks compensation for the department's use of a portion of the previously dedicated 7.5 acre parcel for the road project.

The church claimed it still owned the previously dedicated/platted land because the dedication was an unconstitutional condition of plat approval and, therefore, "void." Specifically, the church argued the dedication was unconstitutional because there was no reasonable connection, or "rational nexus," between the required dedication and the amount of traffic to be generated by the proposed church and school. Conditioning approval of a permit on a dedication or conveyance is an invalid taking in the absence of a rational nexus, reasonable connection, or rough proportionality between the forced exaction and the permit. See Dolan v. City of Tigard, 512 U.S. 374, 114 S.Ct. 2309, 129 L.Ed.2d 304 (1994); Nollan v. Cal. Coastal Comm'n, 483 U.S. 825, 107 S.Ct. 3141, 97 L.Ed.2d 677 (1987).

It is not disputed that a four-year statute of limitations applies to inverse condemnation claims. See § 95.11(3)(p), Fla. Stat.; Heckman v. City of Oakland Park, 644 So.2d 525 (Fla. 4th DCA 1994); Sarasota County v. Ex, 645 So.2d 7 (Fla. 2d DCA 1994); see also Suarez v. City of Tampa, 987 So.2d 681 (Fla. 2d DCA 2008); Szapor v. City of Cape Canaveral, 775 So.2d 1016 (Fla. 5th DCA 2001) (citing Sarasota Welfare Home, Inc. v. City of Sarasota, 666 So.2d 171 (Fla. 2d DCA 1995)).

Although Heckman and Ex do not explicitly address whether the statute of limitations applies to a constitutionally void conveyance, nor do the other cases cited by the department, we deem them instructive. In Ex, 645 So.2d 7, the Second District reversed a finding of inverse condemnation based on an allegedly "involuntary" dedication of land which had occurred some eight years before the landowner filed the action.

In Heckman, 644 So.2d at 526, the plaintiffs sued the city in federal court for wrongful condemnation. The federal court dismissed the claims. Id. The plaintiffs then resurrected their claims in state court. Id. The city successfully argued that claims were now barred due to the applicable four-year statute of limitations. Id. The plaintiffs responded that the statute was tolled during the time they were pursuing the claims in federal court. The state trial court dismissed the suit, and this court also rejected the argument the statute of limitations was tolled and affirmed the dismissal. Id.

The church, however, maintains that the forced "exaction" in the 1992 plat was void from inception as an unconstitutional condition of plat approval because: (1) there was no "essential nexus" between the precondition to development approval and a legitimate state interest; and (2) there was no "rough proportionality" between the forced exaction and the projected impact of the proposed church/school development. As such, the church asserts that the forced exaction had no legal effect and conveyed nothing, and the passage of time could not "breathe life" into a plat dedication that was a nullity. The church also claims that if the statute of limitation applies, the time should not start running until the department commenced to use the parcel as part of a road widening in 2006.

The church filed affidavits in opposition to summary judgment from a certified land planner and from a state licensed engineer, opining that there was no "essential nexus" or "rough proportionality" to support the required dedication.

We conclude that the trial court correctly decided that the church's claim was time-barred. It is undisputed that the church never objected to the dedication or took any action to challenge it, despite the existence of administrative and judicial remedies. Instead, the church made the required dedication in 1992 and proceeded to develop its property. Now, fourteen years later, it asserts for the first time that the dedication was unconstitutional and seeks compensation.

Nollan, 483 U.S. at 837, 107 S.Ct. 3141, held that a permit condition which did not advance a legitimate state interest was a taking where there was no essential nexus between the condition and the state interest.

Later, in Dolan, the Supreme Court held that the burden rests with the government to justify the required dedication. The government must prove "(1) that an `essential nexus' exists between a legitimate state interest and the permit condition exacted by the government; and (2) that the degree of the exactions demanded by the government are `roughly proportional' to the projected impact of the proposed development." 512 U.S. at 386, 114 S.Ct. 2309.

The Court cited the doctrine of "unconstitutional conditions" as the basis for invalidating the exactions:

Under the well-settled doctrine of "unconstitutional conditions," the government may not require a person to give up a constitutional right—here the right to receive just compensation when property is taken for a public use—in exchange for a discretionary benefit conferred by the government where the benefit sought has little or no relationship to the property.

Id. at 385, 114 S.Ct. 2309.

The trial court did not, and we need not, reach the contention that there was no "essential nexus" or "rough proportionality" between the county's forced dedication of 7.5 acres pursuant to the county ordinance and the required dedication.

We note that in both Nollan and Dolan, the landowners, unlike the church, objected to the compelled dedication of their property and timely pursued available remedies to challenge the dedications.

We recognize that although the church "accepted the benefit of the development rights to which the ordinance condition attached, an acceptance of such benefits does not waive the right to contest invalid conditions of development." See Admiral Dev. Corp. v. City of Maitland, 267 So.2d 860, 862 (Fla. 4th DCA 1972). However, we also note that Florida courts have applied the exhaustion of remedies requirement to land use claims, where such would not be deemed "futile." See, e.g., City of Jacksonville Beach v. Prom, 656 So.2d 581, 582 (Fla. 1st DCA 1995).

We also recognize that in Sarasota County v. Taylor Woodrow Homes, Ltd., 652 So.2d 1247 (Fla. 2d DCA 1995), the court declined to apply a statute of limitations bar to a developer's claim that the parties' agreement was invalid when entered in 1974. There, the developer and the county had reached an agreement that authorized the re-zoning and development approval, conditioned on the developer building a private waste water treatment system and dedicating the system to the county. Nevertheless, the court was troubled by the owner's lengthy delay and stated:

We do not suggest that a developer waives these rights by agreeing to conditions, perhaps under protest, and then filing an action to determine the constitutionality of those conditions. We recognize Taylor Woodrow Homes' argument that it had no need to file suit unless and until the County formally requested the dedication. However, we are troubled by the concept that a developer can delay testing the conditions of its permit for a generation under these circumstances. We are concerned that Taylor Woodrow Homes may well have received benefits by not raising these issues in 1975 and that the citizens of Sarasota County may have acted to their detriment over the last twenty years in reliance upon the validity of this contract. If Taylor Woodrow Homes desired an individualized determination of rough proportionality concerning this dedication, the it may have had an obligation to request that determination many years ago.

Id. at 1251-52 (emphasis supplied; footnotes and internal citations omitted). The court's concern was manifested in its provision that, on remand, the county could raise the factual issues of waiver and estoppel in reply to the developer's constitutional challenges.

We deem Taylor Woodrow Homes distinguishable in that it dealt with an anticipated dedication, and at the time of the agreement, a publicly owned system was not available to the development.

It was also anticipated that Taylor Woodrow Homes...