Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley, P.A. v. State

• Decision Date: 15 July 2015
• Docket Number: No. 4D13–3497.,4D13–3497.
• Citation: 194 So.3d 349
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals
• Parties: SEARCY DENNEY SCAROLA BARNHART & SHIPLEY, P.A. ; Mark Edwards and Mitzi Dee Roden, as parents and natural guardians of Aaron Edwards, a minor; William S. Frates, II, P.A.; Edna L. Caruso, P.A.; Vaka Law Group, P.L.; and Grossman & Roth, P.A., Appellants, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

194 So.3d 349

SEARCY DENNEY SCAROLA BARNHART & SHIPLEY, P.A. ; Mark Edwards and Mitzi Dee Roden, as parents and natural guardians of Aaron Edwards, a minor; William S. Frates, II, P.A.; Edna L. Caruso, P.A.; Vaka Law Group, P.L.; and Grossman & Roth, P.A., Appellants,

v.STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 4D13–3497.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.

July 15, 2015.

Christian D. Searcy and Jack P. Hill of Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley, P.A., West Palm Beach; George A. Vaka of Vaka, Larson & Johnson, P.L., Tampa; and Edna L. Caruso of Edna L. Caruso, P.A., West Palm Beach; for appellants.

Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Allen Winsor, Solicitor General, and Rachel Nordby, Deputy Solicitor General, Tallahassee, for appellee.

FORST, J.

Appellants Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley, P.A. (“Searcy Denney”), et al. appeal the refusal of the guardianship court to authorize payment of $2.5 million in attorneys' fees to the firms involved in the litigation of a medical malpractice lawsuit, the appeal, and a subsequent lobbying effort to secure a claims bill (also deemed a “private relief act”) from the Legislature on behalf of Aaron Edwards and his parents. The legislative claims bill placed a limitation on the use of funds to pay legal fees and costs, and it is this limitation that is the subject of the instant appeal. Although sympathetic to Appellants' situation, we must disagree with their legal arguments based on separation of powers principles, supported by reasoning set forth from the Florida Supreme Court. Accordingly, we affirm the order denying Appellants' motion for attorneys' fees above the $100,000 granted by the Legislature in Aaron's claims bill.

I. Background

In September 1997, Aaron Edwards (“Aaron”) sustained a catastrophic brain injury during his birth as a result of negligence on the part of employees at Lee Memorial Health System. Searcy Denney, a law firm based in West Palm Beach, began its representation of Aaron and his parents in 1999. The law firm and the Edwards family entered into a standard contingency fee agreement, providing for an attorneys' fee of 40% of any recovery if a lawsuit was filed, plus costs. The agreement also provided that “[i]n the event that one of the parties to pay my claim for damages is a governmental agency, I understand that Federal and Florida Law may limit the amount of attorney fees charged by [Searcy Denney, and i]n that event, I understand that the attorney fees owed to [Searcy Denney] shall be the amount provided by law.”

Searcy Denney represented the family in a five-week jury trial in 2007. The jury found that Lee Memorial Health System's employees had been negligent and that their negligence had resulted in damages to Aaron and his parents. The jury awarded Aaron over $28.3 million. His mother was awarded $1,340,000 in damages, and his father was awarded $1,000,000. However, the trial court found that Lee Memorial was an independent special district of the State of Florida and, pursuant to the sovereign immunity damage limitations in section 768.28(5), Florida Statutes (2007), entered a judgment against the hospital in the amount of $200,000.¹ The trial court rulings were affirmed by the Second District Court of Appeal. Lee Mem'l Health Sys. v. Edwards, 22 So.3d 81 (Fla. 2d DCA 2009).

In an effort to obtain additional funds for Aaron and his parents, Searcy Denney submitted a claims bill to the Florida Legislature. In 2012, after a public campaign in support of the bill, the Legislature passed Claims Bill 2012–249, directing Lee Memorial to appropriate $10 million, with an additional $5 million payable in annual installments, “to the Guardianship of Aaron Edwards, to be placed in a special needs trust for the exclusive use and benefit of Aaron Edwards, a minor.” Ch. 2012–249, § 2, Laws of Fla. No monies were appropriated for the use and/or benefit of either parent for their damages. The claims bill also included a stipulation stating “[t]he total amount paid for attorney's fees, lobbying fees, costs, and other similar expenses relating to this claim may not exceed $100,000.” Id. § 3. It is this provision that is the focus of the matter before us.

After the first $10 million installment had been paid into Aaron's special needs trust,² the various trial, appellate, and lobbyist firms that had worked on Aaron's case—with support from the Edwards family—petitioned the guardianship court to approve a closing account statement transferring $2.5 million to them. The petition premised this request on a 25% fee cap provision in section 768.28(8) and on the argument that the fees and costs limitation in the claims bill was unconstitutional. Evidence presented at the hearing on the petition showed that the firms had devoted more than 7000 hours to representing the Edwards family at trial, on appeal, and during the claims bill process and had also incurred more than $500,000 in costs during the representation. However, the guardianship court, relying on precedent from this court and the Florida Supreme Court, found that it lacked judicial authority to grant the requested relief in contravention of the language of the claims bill regarding fees and costs.

Appellants now appeal that denial and argue that the language in the claims bill limiting their recovery of attorneys' fees and costs is an unconstitutional impairment of their contract with the Edwards family and should be severed from the otherwise valid private relief act for Aaron. Alternatively, Appellants contend the guardianship court had inherent judicial discretion to depart from the limitation imposed by the Legislature and grant them reasonable fees and costs up to the 25% limit provided by section 768.28(8), Florida Statutes (2007).

II. A Brief History of Sovereign Immunity

The doctrine of sovereign immunity stretches back to the foundations of Anglo–American common law. Espousing the maxim that “the King can do no wrong,” Blackstone explained that “no suit or action can be brought against the King, even in civil matters, because no court can have jurisdiction over him.” 1 William Blackstone, Commentaries *235. However, should a subject of the Crown have “a just demand upon the King, he must petition him in his court of chancery, where his chancellor will administer right as a matter of grace, though not upon compulsion.” Id. at *236.

When the common law was exported to the American continent, sovereign immunity came with it. Although the United States Constitution does not explicitly grant the federal government immunity from suit, sovereign immunity seemingly always has applied. See U.S. v. Lee, 106 U.S. 196, 207, 1 S.Ct. 240, 27 L.Ed. 171 (1882) (“[W]hile the exemption of the United States and of the several states from being subjected as defendants to ordinary actions in the courts has ... been repeatedly asserted here, the principle has never been discussed or the reasons for it given, but it has always been treated as an established doctrine.”).

Unlike the apparently axiomatic immunity of the federal government from suits, the states initially were subjected to liability in federal courts. In Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. (2 Dall.) 419, 1 L.Ed. 440 (1793), the United States Supreme Court held that state governments were amenable to suit in federal courts under Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution. Soon thereafter, however, the Eleventh Amendment expanded the doctrine of sovereign immunity to protect state governments from suit by private citizens in federal court. Amend. XI, U.S. Const. State sovereign immunity, protecting the states from suit in their own courts, existed prior to the ratification of and is not derived from the Eleventh Amendment, but

is a fundamental aspect of the sovereignty which the States enjoyed before the ratification of the Constitution, and which they retain today (either literally or by virtue of their admission into the Union upon an equal footing with the other States) except as altered by the plan of the Convention or certain constitutional Amendments.

Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706, 713, 119 S.Ct. 2240, 144 L.Ed.2d 636 (1999).

After decades of immunity from liability, the federal government abrogated its sovereign immunity by passing the Federal Tort Claims Act in 1946. 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b) ; see also The Federal Tort Claims Act, 56 Yale L.J. 534 (1947). In the years that followed, the states likewise rolled back the protections of state sovereign immunity. In Florida, the state constitution stated, “Provision may be made by general law for bringing suit against the state as to all liabilities now existing or hereafter originating.” Art. X, § 13, Fla. Const. (1968). The Florida Legislature passed an experimental temporary waiver of sovereign immunity for a one year period in 1969 before finally enacting a permanent, limited waiver in 1973. Gerald T. Wetherington & Donald I. Pollock, Tort Suits Against Governmental Entities in Florida, 44 Fla. L.Rev. 1, 6 (1992). However, although 1969 saw the first general waiver of the state's sovereign immunity, legislative relief by means of a claims bill has been available since before statehood—the first claims bill was passed by the Legislative Council of the Territory of Florida in 1833. D. Stephen Kahn, Legislative Claim Bills: A Practical Guide to a Potent(ial) Remedy, 62 Fla. B.J. 23 (April 1988); see also Cauley v. City of Jacksonville, 403 So.2d 379, 381 n. 5 (Fla.1981).

Section 768.28, Florida Statutes, is the codification of the state's limited waiver of sovereign immunity in tort actions. A plaintiff's recovery against the state and its agencies or subdivisions is limited to no more than $200,000 per incident. § 768.28(5), Fla. Stat. (2007).³ Moreover, in cases where a judgment exceeds $200,000, “that portion of the judgment that exceeds these amounts may be reported to the Legislature, but may be paid in part or in whole only by further act of the Legislature.” Id. Subsection 768.28(8) of the same ...