State, Dept. of Natural Resources v. Antioch University

• Decision Date: 28 October 1988
• Docket Number: 88-1334,Nos. 88-1068,s. 88-1068
• Citation: 13 Fla. L. Weekly 2412,533 So.2d 869
• Parties: 50 Ed. Law Rep. 625, 13 Fla. L. Weekly 2412 STATE of Florida, DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, and the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund of the State of Florida, Appellants, v. ANTIOCH UNIVERSITY, f/k/a, Antioch College, an educational, non-profit corporation organized and existing under the laws of the State of Ohio, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 869

533 So.2d 869

50 Ed. Law Rep. 625, 13 Fla. L. Weekly 2412

STATE of Florida, DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, and the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund of the State of Florida, Appellants, v. ANTIOCH UNIVERSITY, f/k/a, Antioch College, an educational, non-profit corporation organized and existing under the laws of the State of Ohio, Appellee.

Nos. 88-1068, 88-1334.

District Court of Appeal of Florida,

First District.

Oct. 28, 1988.

Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., and Elliott B. Barnett and Mimi Sall-Pritchard, Sp. Asst. Attys. Gen., Ruden, Barnett, McClosky, Smith, Schuster & Russell, P.A., Ft. Lauderdale, for appellants.

Christopher C. Skambis and Ellen S. Camenker, of Foley & Lardner, Van Den Berg, Gay, Burke, Wilson & Arkin, Orlando, for appellee.

MILLS, Judge.

This consolidated case involves an appeal from a non-final order denying appellant's motion to dismiss or to transfer venue and a petition for writ of prohibition seeking to quash the same order as an attempt by the trial court to act outside its jurisdiction. For the reasons stated below, we consider the case properly before us as a petition for writ of prohibition. We issue the writ, quash the trial court's order and remand for transfer to the circuit court with territorial jurisdiction over the real property involved herein.

In 1941, Birch executed a deed to 180 acres of real property in Broward County, Florida to the state for its use as a state park. The deed provided that, if ever the land ceased to be used as a state park for more than one year continuously, the title would revert to Birch's estate. Antioch University is the residual beneficiary of Birch's estate, and in November 1987 filed a two-count complaint in the Second Judicial Circuit in Leon County, the defendants' "residence", Section 47.011, Florida Statutes (1987). Count I of the complaint sought a declaratory judgment that certain enumerated actions by the state had violated the conditions and covenants of the deed, that it had abandoned the land as a state park for more than one year and that the property had reverted to Antioch by operation of the deed so that Antioch held it in fee simple. Count II asked the court to quiet title in the property in Antioch and to eject the state therefrom.

In December 1987, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) moved to dismiss or transfer the action, alleging that suits to quiet title and other causes of action the object of which is action on the property or title to real property are in rem and required by the "local action rule" (LAR) to be brought in the county where the land lies. Section 65.061(2); Publix Super Markets v. Cheesbro Roofing Co., 502 So.2d 484, 487 (Fla. 5th DCA 1987); Royal v. Parado, 462 So.2d 849, 854 (Fla. 1st DCA 1985). The motion acknowledged the court's general jurisdiction over quiet title actions, but argued that to have jurisdiction over a particular quiet title action, the court also had to have "geographical jurisdiction" over the county where the land was located. Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund v. Mobil Oil Co., 455 So.2d 412, 415 (Fla. 2d DCA 1984) aff'd. in part Coastal Petroleum v. American Cyanamid, 492 So.2d 339, 344 (Fla.1986); Georgia Casualty v. O'Donnell, 109 Fla. 290, 147 So. 267 (1933). Arguing that both counts of the complaint required direct action on real property or title thereto, and that the property was located in the geographical jurisdiction of the 17th Judicial Circuit, DNR argued that the Second Judicial Circuit had no subject-matter jurisdiction.

Antioch opposed the motion, arguing that the LAR was a venue rule and that the defendants had waived the issue by not raising it in their responsive pleadings. It next contended that the suit was not subject to the LAR in that suits seeking rescission, cancellation or reformation of a deed or specific performance of a contract to convey land are in personam, Greene v. A.G.B.B. Hotels, 505 So.2d 666, 667, n. 1 (Fla. 5th DCA 1987), and that by this suit it sought only construction of the deed and confirmation that automatic reversion had occurred. With regard to Count II of the complaint, Antioch argued that a declaratory judgment action did not operate in rem, therefore the court needed no jurisdiction over the land to rule on that portion of the complaint. The trial court denied the motion on 31 March 1988, after hearing, holding that the suit was the equivalent of a breach of contract action.

The LAR provides that where land lies outside a circuit court's territorial jurisdiction and the purpose of an action is to determine the question of title to the land, the action is local to the circuit in which the land lies. Coastal Petroleum, supra. While the circuit court has jurisdiction in all cases in equity and in law involving the title of real property, Section 26.012(2)(c), where the cause of action is in rem, the court has subject-matter jurisdiction only if it has both jurisdictional power to adjudicate the class of cases to which the cause belongs and jurisdictional authority over the land which is the subject matter of the controversy. Mobil Oil at 415 (emphasis supplied); Publix Super Markets, Inc. at 487. Further, Section 47.011, the venue statute allowing suit where defendants reside, neither confers extraterritorial jurisdiction on courts nor alters the LAR. Authority to sue in the county of defendants' residence necessarily presupposes that the court has subject matter jurisdiction. Publix at 487. Therefore, the LAR governs subject-matter jurisdiction, not venue, and cannot be waived because subject matter jurisdiction cannot be conferred by waiver or consent. Mobil Oil at 416; Publix at 488. It follows that a petition for writ of prohibition, and not a direct appeal, is the proper vehicle for obtaining review of the instant order, see Committee Note to R. 9.130(a)(3)(C)(i), and it is as such a petition that we rule on this case.

The simple involvement of real property in an action does not render that action in rem and subject to the LAR. Publix at 486; Goedmakers v. Goedmakers, 520 So.2d 575, 578 (Fla.1988). For example, in Royal v. Parado, supra, the plaintiff sought the equitable remedy of rescission of a deed to land on the ground of fraud. The court...