St. Joe Paper Co. v. Florida Dept. of Natural Resources

• Decision Date: 21 December 1988
• Docket Number: No. 87-1929,87-1929
• Citation: 536 So.2d 1119,14 Fla. L. Weekly 25
• Parties: 14 Fla. L. Weekly 25 ST. JOE PAPER COMPANY, a Florida corporation, St. Joseph Land and Development Company, a Florida corporation, and Jacksonville Properties, Inc., a Florida corporation, Appellants, v. FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 1119

536 So.2d 1119

14 Fla. L. Weekly 25

ST. JOE PAPER COMPANY, a Florida corporation, St. Joseph Land and Development Company, a Florida corporation, and Jacksonville Properties, Inc., a Florida corporation, Appellants, v. FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, Appellee.

No. 87-1929.

District Court of Appeal of Florida,

First District.

Dec. 21, 1988.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 30, 1989.

Fred H. Kent, Jr., of Kent, Hayden, Facciolo and McMorrow, Jacksonville, for appellants.

Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., and Eric J. Taylor, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Dana Wiehle, Asst. Gen. Counsel, Dept. of Natural Resources, Tallahassee, for appellee.

BARFIELD, Judge.

Appellants (collectively referred to as "St. Joe" herein) challenge the circuit court's order dismissing their complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction based upon their failure to exhaust administrative remedies. We affirm the dismissal of the complaint.

In 1970, the Florida Legislature enacted section 161.052, Florida Statutes, prohibiting certain construction activities "within 50 feet of the line of mean high water at any riparian coastal location fronting the Gulf of Mexico or Atlantic coast shoreline of the state, exclusive of bays, inlets, rivers, bayous, creeks, passes, and the like." In 1971, the legislature enacted section 161.053, which directed the Department of Natural Resources ("the Department") to establish Coastal Construction Setback Lines (CCSL) "on a county basis along the sand beaches of the state fronting on the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico" for the purpose of protecting the state's beaches and adjacent coastal area dunes from imprudent construction. Chapter 78-257, Laws of Florida, changed the nomenclature to Coastal Construction Control Lines (CCCL).

A CCCL, established only after a comprehensive engineering study and a topographic survey have shown it to be necessary for the protection of upland properties and control of beach erosion and then only after a public hearing, defines "that portion of the beach-dune system which is subject to severe fluctuations based on a 100-year storm surge, storm waves, or other predictable weather conditions," § 161.053(1), Fla.Stat. (1985). Upon establishment, the CCCL is recorded in the public records of the county and thereafter, "no person, firm, corporation, or governmental agency shall construct any structure whatsoever seaward thereof; make any excavation, remove any beach material, or otherwise alter existing ground elevations; drive any vehicle on, over, or across any sand dune; or damage or cause to be damaged such sand dune or vegetation growing thereon seaward thereof, except as hereinafter provided" (i.e., by permit from the Department), § 161.053(2).

While the public hearing on the proposed CCCL must satisfy all the requirements of section 120.54(3), Florida Statutes, the legislature has provided that the rule establishing the CCCL "shall not be subject to a s. 120.54(4) rule challenge or a s. 120.54(17) drawout proceeding, but, once adopted, shall be subject to a s. 120.56 invalidity challenge." The Department explains that this indicates a clear legislative intent to provide a smooth, uninterrupted procedure for adoption of control lines (by prohibiting those rule challenge proceedings which would normally occur prior to the final adoption of a rule) and to provide for a rule challenge under section 120.56 once the CCCL is established, reviewable by the district courts of appeal under section 120.68, Florida Statutes.

Under section 161.053(2), any landowner "who feels that such line as established is unduly restrictive or prevents a legitimate use of his property shall be granted a review of the line upon written request" and the Department's decision "shall be subject to judicial review as provided in chapter 120." The Department points out that a landowner denied the right to use his land in the manner he desires may also challenge the denial of a building permit under section 120.57, that agency decision also reviewable by the district courts of appeal.

The property involved in this dispute lies between Port St. Joe and St. Joe Beach in Gulf County, and was at one time owned by St. Joe Paper Company and its subsidiary, St. Joseph Land and Development Company. As part of a 1985 corporate restructuring, this property was conveyed to another subsidiary of St. Joe, Jacksonville Properties, Inc., which now holds title.

The Gulf County CCCL was originally established in 1975 and was reestablished in 1986 by Florida Administrative Code Rule 16B-26.016. According to the rule, which was recorded in the Gulf County public records, "a permit to alter, excavate or construct on property seaward of the established control line is required from the Department of Natural Resources."

St. Joe had opposed the initial CCCL and again opposed the extension of the line farther inland in 1986, asserting that the Department did not have jurisdiction to impose a CCCL on its land because the property does not "front on the Gulf of Mexico." ¹ The CCCL was adopted by the Cabinet on February 4, 1986, and was recorded in the Gulf County public records the next day.

St. Joe then filed a complaint for declaratory judgment in the Gulf County Circuit Court, alleging that the Department lacked jurisdiction over its property, that the study used to establish the line was "arbitrary and speculative" and was not applied uniformly and "shows on its face that there is no need for a coastal construction control line," that the public hearing violated its due process rights, and that the Department had established "easements" on its property. St. Joe requested the court to declare the Department to be without jurisdiction over its lands, or alternatively, to declare the CCCL to be "improperly imposed" on its lands, and to "quiet title" to its lands as to the "easements" imposed by the Department.

The Department moved to dismiss the complaint for improper venue, or in the alternative, to transfer venue to Leon County. It also moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of jurisdiction, asserting that St. Joe had failed to exhaust its administrative remedies and that the case was not in fact a true quiet title action. In St. Joe Paper Company v. Florida Department of Natural Resources, 507 So.2d 717 (Fla. 1st DCA 1987), this court reversed the circuit court's order granting the motion to transfer venue. The circuit court then dismissed the complaint for lack of jurisdiction, finding that St. Joe had failed to exhaust the available administrative remedies.

The question presented here is one of judicial policy, not judicial jurisdiction. As this court noted in State ex rel. Department of General Services v. Willis,

Using historic injunctive powers the Constitution commits to them as courts of equity, circuit courts had and exercised jurisdiction to enjoin administrative action long before the power to enjoin was endorsed by the 1961 Administrative Procedure Act.

The general power to enjoin thus continues, but it continues subject to judicial restrictions on its use which require prior resort to and exhaustion of administrative remedies when they are available and adequate. The companion doctrines of primary jurisdiction and exhaustion of administrative remedies are not statutory creatures but judicial, together constituting a "doctrine of self-limitation which the courts have evolved, in marking out the boundary lines between areas of administrative and judicial action." The one counsels judicial abstention when claims otherwise cognizable in the courts have been placed within the special competence of an administrative body; the other, when available administrative remedies would serve as well as judicial ones. Even though the legislative power may not presume to characterize an adequate administrative remedy as "exclusive," courts will so regard it.

344 So.2d 580, 589 (Fla. 1st DCA 1977) (citations omitted).

Under this doctrine, the circuit court cannot be said to have lacked subject matter jurisdiction in this case, but only to have chosen to abstain from exercising that jurisdiction in deference to the administrative process. The court's dismissal of the complaint based upon St. Joe's failure to exhaust administrative remedies was therefore proper unless St. Joe did not have available to it an adequate administrative remedy.

St. Joe argues that the provision of section 161.053(2) permitting challenge of the CCCL under section 120.56 must be read in pari materia with the last sentence of section 120.56(5), which states that "failure to proceed under this section shall not constitute failure to exhaust administrative remedies." The Department points out, however, that in Willis and in 4245 Corporation, Mother's Lounge, Inc. v. Division of Beverage, 348 So.2d 934 (Fla. 1st DCA 1977), this provision has been construed as having been addressed not to circuit courts but to district courts of appeal, indicating a legislative purpose "to avoid any appearance of requiring a substantially affected party to initiate duplicative 120.54 or .56 proceedings if his rule challenge is regularly presented with other grievances under 120.57, resulting in final agency action and a petition for judicial review," and was meant to "enhance remedies available under the Act rather than encouraging circuit court intrusion into the administrative process." Willis, 344 So.2d at 592.

St. Joe asserts that it needed to obtain an interpretation of section 161.053(1) which defines the Department's jurisdiction to establish a CCCL "along the sand beaches of the state fronting on the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico" and needed to remove the cloud upon its title imposed by the Department's "easement" over its land under section 161.053(2). It contends that an administrative proceeding under chapter 120 could not afford it the equitable relief it sought because only the circuit court could quiet its title ² and...