Orange County Indus. Development Authority v. State

• Decision Date: 27 January 1983
• Docket Number: No. 62340,62340
• Citation: 427 So.2d 174
• Parties: ORANGE COUNTY INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 174

427 So.2d 174

ORANGE COUNTY INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 62340.

Supreme Court of Florida.

Jan. 27, 1983.

Leighton D. Yates, Jr. and Jonathan D. Rich of Maguire, Voorhis & Wells, P.A., Orlando, for appellant.

Robert Eagan, State Atty. and David S. Glicken, Asst. State Atty., Orlando, for appellee.

EHRLICH, Justice.

This cause is before the Court on direct appeal from a judgment of the circuit court denying validation of industrial development revenue bonds, the proceeds of which are for the construction of a television station. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(2), Fla. Const. We find that the proposed project does not qualify as an industrial or manufacturing plant under Chapter 159, Florida Statutes (1981), nor does the project serve a paramount public purpose and we thus affirm the order of the trial court.

Appellant, the Orange County Industrial Development Authority, sought validation of $9,000,000 of industrial development revenue bonds requested by the Outlet Company and WCPX-TV, Outlet's television station in Orlando. The money would be spent to buy land and build a new 45,000 square feet facility to accommodate two broadcast studios and related offices, as well as to acquire and install machinery, equipment and other appurtenances. The station would not be a completely new project in the Orlando area but rather an expansion of an existing business, since WCPX-TV (formerly WDBO) has for many years been in operation as a commercial television station and the CBS network affiliate in the Orlando area. Executives of WCPX anticipated that a minimum of twenty-five jobs would be created by this project, increasing employment at the station from 110 to 135 persons. A major rationale for the bond money request was the station presently turning away profitable commercial production business due to the size of the present physical facility. It was also claimed that the new facilities would allow the station to increase its local news services as well as the production of public service announcements.

The trial court, in a brief order, found that the proposed project did not qualify as an industrial or manufacturing plant. In addition, that court further found that the project did not serve a paramount public purpose. The trial court then denied the petition for validation.

The starting point for any discussion of industrial revenue bonds is article VII, section 10, Florida Constitution. ¹ Before 1968, that section's predecessor, article IX, section 10 of the Florida Constitution of 1885, ² had been interpreted by this Court as generally proscribing industrial revenue bonds as an invalid lending of public credit for private purposes. See State v. Manatee County Port Authority, 193 So.2d 162 (Fla.1966); State v. Town of North Miami, 59 So.2d 779 (Fla.1952). It was only where the private benefit was strictly incidental to a paramount public purpose did the Court approve such financing. See Panama City v. State, 93 So.2d 608 (Fla.1957); State v. Daytona Beach Racing & Recreational Facilities District, 89 So.2d 34 (Fla.1956); Gate City Garage, Inc. v. City of Jacksonville, 66 So.2d 653 (Fla.1953); State v. Board of Control, 66 So.2d 209 (Fla.1953). See also, Tew, Industrial Bond Financing and the Florida Public Purpose Doctrine, 21 U.Miami L.Rev. 171 (1966). When the 1968 Constitution was adopted, the rule of the 1885 Constitution relating to the advancing of public credit to aid private persons was continued. Nohrr v. Brevard County Educational Facilities Authority, 247 So.2d 304 (Fla.1971). However, the new constitutional provision had a significant limitation on the credit prohibition. Subsection (c) provided, inter alia, that the general prohibition of article VII, section 10 shall not prohibit the issuance and sale of revenue bonds by a special district or other local governmental body to finance the cost of capital projects for industrial or manufacturing plants. To implement this new exception, the legislature passed Chapter 69-104, Laws of Florida, in 1969. See State v. County of Dade, 250 So.2d 875, 877 (Fla.1971). See also § 159.26, Fla.Stat. (1981). Codified as Part II of Chapter 159, Florida Statutes, the "Florida Industrial Development Financing Act" specifically permitted, as does the Constitution, financing of "industrial or manufacturing plants." However, if this Court finds that a contested project does not fall within that authorized type, then the project must "run the gauntlet" ³ and pass scrutiny under the cases decided prior to the 1968 constitutional change to see if it is permissible under article VII, section 10's general rule requiring a paramount public purpose. Only then can the project be validated.

We find that the instant project does not fall within the types authorized by Chapter 159. We do not believe that the legislature intended to define "industrial or manufacturing plant" to include a commercial television station. Several indicators bear this out.

First, television stations are not included among the projects specifically designated as permissible under Chapter 159. It is clearly not an agricultural processing or storage facility, a research and development park, a mill, a processing plant, an assembly plant, a fabricating plant, or any of the other enumerated types of project. § 159.27(5), Fla.Stat. (1981).

Second, when this Court looks to the plain language of the statute in its ordinary sense, the words are clear and unambiguous and hence we need not resort to other rules of statutory construction. Plainly, and on its face, an industrial or manufacturing plant does not subsume within it a television broadcast facility. To hold otherwise would be to give the words an unreasonable construction; such unreasonable construction is not entitled to the same deference as a reasonable one. Wakulla County v. Davis, 395 So.2d 540 (Fla.), superseded by statute as stated in Metropolitan Dade County v. Bridges, 402 So.2d 411 (Fla.1981); Gracie v. Deming, 213 So.2d 294 (Fla. 2d DCA 1968).

Third, even with the liberal construction of Chapter 159 mandated by statute, sections 159.43 and 159.53, Fla.Stat. (1981), and by case law, State v. Jacksonville Port Authority, 305 So.2d 166 (Fla.1974), a television station cannot be construed as an "industrial plant." ⁴ The dictionary definition of "industry" includes requirement of the employment of a large personnel as well as capital. WEBSTER'S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY 1155-56 (1976). The relatively small number of persons employed at the broadcast facility hardly qualifies as a large number of personnel. On the other hand, to strictly and liberally follow the dictionary definition of an industrial plant proffered by appellant would be to prove too much; by its definition any business would qualify as a project eligible to receive tax free industrial development revenue bonds.

Federal cases cited by appellant for the proposition that broadcasting is an industry are not persuasive. See FCC v. WNCN Listeners Guild, 450 U.S. 582, 101 S.Ct. 1266, 67 L.Ed.2d 521 (1981); Broadcast Music, Inc. v. Columbia Broadcasting System, 441 U.S. 1, 99 S.Ct. 1551, 60 L.Ed.2d 1 (1979); FCC v. National Citizens Committee for Broadcasting, 436 U.S. 775, 98 S.Ct. 2096, 56 L.Ed.2d 697 (1978); Teleprompter Corp. v. Columbia Broadcasting System, 415 U.S. 394, 94 S.Ct. 1129, 39 L.Ed.2d 415 (1974), superseded by statute as stated in WGN Continental Broadcasting Co. v. United Video, Inc., 693 F.2d 622 (7th Cir.1982); Columbia Broadcasting System v. Democratic National Committee, 412 U.S. 94, 93 S.Ct. 2080, 36 L.Ed.2d 772 (1973); and American Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 191 F.2d 492 (D.C.Cir.1951). Mere references to the "broadcasting industry" in several cases cannot be taken to mean that any facility connected with broadcasting would constitute "an industrial plant" according to that term's everyday meaning, nor is it even persuasive of the level of the legal meaning of the term.

Similarly, decisions cited by appellant from other states are inapposite. See Messenger Publishing Co. v. Board of Property Assessment, 183 Pa.Super. 407, 132 A.2d 768 (1957); City of Pittsburgh v. WIIC-TV Corp., 14 Pa.Commw. 18, 321 A.2d 387 (1974). These cases were taxation cases falling under statutes far different than the one at issue here, and within the context of public policies greatly dissimilar.

Florida cases cited by appellant are likewise no authority for its position. In State v. Orange County Industrial Development Authority, 417 So.2d 959 (Fla.1982), the Court focused on the aspect of whether the proposed hotel project served a paramount public purpose and not on whether the hotel was an industrial or manufacturing plant. Language stating otherwise was dicta. Likewise, State v. Volusia County Industrial Development Authority, 400 So.2d 1222 (Fla.1981), with its bond issue for a nursing home, was also a public purpose case. State v. Leon County, 400 So.2d 949 (Fla.1981), specifically grounded its nursing home project within the framework of paramount public purpose and explicitly stated that "we need not determine whether a nursing home project comes within the definition of 'industrial or manufacturing plants.' " 400 So.2d at 951. These cases, then, did not expand the concept of industrial or manufacturing plants to include hotels and nursing homes (which, by extrapolation according to appellant, should also include a television station); while the concept has been viewed liberally, it has not been obliterated. The furthest this Court has gone in its expansive reading of what constitutes an industrial plant was State v. Jacksonville Port Authority, 305 So.2d 166 (Fla.1974). There, we validated bonds for a food distribution center and an industrial laundry, and only grudgingly found the latter to be an industrial plant. Since that decision, we have not extended the definition of "industrial...