Wild v. Dozier

• Decision Date: 08 February 1996
• Docket Number: No. 85050,85050
• Citation: 672 So.2d 16
• Parties: 21 Fla. L. Weekly S57 The Honorable Joe A. WILD, As Acting Circuit Judge of the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit, Petitioner, v. Robert Lee DOZIER, Respondent.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 16

672 So.2d 16

21 Fla. L. Weekly S57

The Honorable Joe A. WILD, As Acting Circuit Judge of the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit, Petitioner, v. Robert Lee DOZIER, Respondent.

No. 85050.

Supreme Court of Florida.

Feb. 8, 1996.

Rehearing Denied April 11, 1996.

Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General; Joan Fowler, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Chief, West Palm Beach Bureau, and

Georgina Jimenez-Orosa, Senior Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for Petitioner.

Jeffrey H. Garland of Kirschner & Garland, P.A., Fort Pierce, for Respondent.

Louis B. Vocelle, Jr. of Clem, Polackwich & Vocelle, Vero Beach, for Honorable L.B. Vocelle, Chief Judge of the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit, Amicus Curiae.

PER CURIAM.

We have for review Dozier v. Wild, 659 So.2d 1103 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995), wherein the Fourth District Court of Appeal quashed an administrative order of the Chief Judge of the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit assigning a county court judge to circuit court duty and certified the following question to be of great public importance:

MAY A COUNTY COURT JUDGE BE ASSIGNED SUCCESSIVELY AND REPEATEDLY IN SIX MONTH ASSIGNMENTS OVER SEVERAL YEARS TO PRESIDE IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OVER HALF OF ALL FELONY CASES IN A COUNTY?

Id. at 1106. We have jurisdiction ¹ and quash the decision under review.

Since July 1990 the Honorable Joe A. Wild, Judge of the County Court of Indian River County, has been assigned by the various Chief Judges of the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit to serve for six-month periods as an acting circuit court judge to preside over one half of all felony cases in Indian River County. During this period, Judge Wild has continued to handle a county court docket. In January 1994 the Chief Judge assigned a second county judge to preside over the other half of felony cases arising within the county. In April 1994 the respondent, Robert Lee Dozier, sought to disqualify Judge Wild from presiding over his felony case, alleging that the judge had become a "de facto permanent" circuit judge and therefore lacked jurisdiction to hear his case. Judge Wild denied the motion.

Dozier then filed a petition for writ of prohibition in the Fourth District Court of Appeal, claiming that as a county court judge assigned to de facto permanent duty in the circuit court, Judge Wild lacked authority to preside over his case. The district court agreed, granted the writ, and quashed the order denying disqualification along with the administrative order appointing Judge Wild through 1994. 659 So.2d at 1105-06. In holding the assignment invalid, the district court relied on this Court's decisions in Payret v. Adams, 500 So.2d 136 (Fla.1986), and Crusoe v. Rowls, 472 So.2d 1163 (Fla.1985), but certified the above question for our consideration. Judge Wild seeks review. ²

First, Judge Wild claims that the district court lacked authority to quash the administrative order assigning him to circuit court duty. Judge Wild correctly points out that this Court's decisions in Payret and Crusoe, wherein judicial assignments were reviewed by the district court, do not control because the district court's jurisdiction was not challenged in those cases.

After considering the issue, we conclude that this Court has exclusive jurisdiction to review judicial assignments. This authority derives from article V, sections 2(a) and (b) of the Florida Constitution. Article V, section 2(a) gives this Court authority to adopt rules for the administrative supervision of all courts. Article V, section 2(b) gives the Chief Justice of this Court, as the chief administrative officer of the judicial system, power to assign justices or judges to temporary duty in any court for which the judge is qualified and to delegate that power to the chief judges of the judicial circuits.

Delegation of the Chief Justice's assignment power to the chief judges of the judicial circuits is necessary to the proper administration of our court system. This is because, as the administrative officer of all courts within a judicial circuit, ³ the chief judge is best equipped to assess the needs of each trial court and to allocate the judicial labor available within the circuit accordingly. With this reality in mind, Florida Rule of Judicial Administration 2.050(b)(4) expressly authorizes the chief judges of the judicial circuits to "assign any judge to temporary service for which the judge is qualified in any court in the same circuit." We explained in State ex rel. Treadwell v. Hall, 274 So.2d 537, 539 (Fla.1973), that the rule ⁴ delegating the power to assign judges

was designed, in part, to obviate the need for each incoming chief justice to specifically delegate to the twenty chief judges of the circuits the authority to make assignments; it also was designed to obviate the need for specific delegations when the chief judges within the circuits were re-elected or changed. Unless a chief justice indicates otherwise, his desire to continue delegation via the Rule is assumed.

When a chief judge exercises this delegated assignment authority, the judge is acting under the Chief Justice's constitutional power to make temporary judicial assignments to ensure the speedy, efficient, and proper administration of justice within the various circuits. Because of the vital role temporary judicial assignments play in the administration of our court system, this Court must have exclusive jurisdiction to review such assignments under its article V, section 2(a) authority to oversee the administrative supervision of all courts. This grant of exclusive authority ensures this Court's plenary control over the state's court system and avoids the disruptive effect allowing district courts to quash judicial assignments would have on that system. Moreover, there is nothing in our Constitution to indicate that district courts are to share in the administrative supervision of our trial courts, and we decline to read our Constitution to sanction the disruption to the judicial system inherent in such shared authority.

Accordingly, we hold that a litigant who is affected by a judicial assignment made by a chief judge of a judicial circuit must challenge the assignment in the trial court and then seek review in this Court by way of petition for writ of prohibition or petition for relief under the "all writs" power. ⁵ See Art. V, § 3(b)(7), Fla. Const. (this Court "may issue writs of prohibition to courts and all writs necessary to the complete exercise of its jurisdiction"); accord State ex rel. Treadwell v. Hall, 274 So.2d 537 (Fla.1973) (challenge of assigned judge's jurisdiction raised in trial court, followed by petition for writ of prohibition filed in this Court).

Accordingly, we hold that the district court of appeal lacked authority to review the administrative order assigning Judge Wild to circuit court duty. However, we treat the petition for writ of prohibition filed in the district court as if it had been filed in this Court ⁶ and address the certified question in an attempt to further define the parameters of a proper temporary assignment under rule 2.050(b)(4).

In Treadwell we approved an order appointing a county judge to act as a circuit judge in DeSoto County "in all matters of probate, guardianship, incompetency, trusts, proceedings under the 'Florida Mental Health Act' and all juvenile proceedings, dissolutions of marriage, and all uncontested civil matters in circuit court." 274 So.2d at 538. Likewise, in Crusoe v. Rowls, 472 So.2d 1163 (Fla.1985), we upheld the successive and repetitive assignment of county court judges to hear all petitions to enforce child support orders that directed support payments to be made through the child support section of the sheriff's office. In addressing whether the assignment was proper, we explained that an assignment is "temporary" under rule 2.050(b)(4) if it is not "permanent:"

"Temporary" is an antonym for "permanent." It is a comparative term. It can be said that if a duty is not permanent it is temporary. If a county judge is assigned to perform solely circuit court work, the assignment must be for a relatively short time for it to be temporary. If a county judge is assigned to spend a portion of his time performing circuit work, the assignment can be longer, but the assignment cannot usurp, supplant, or effectively deprive circuit court jurisdiction of a particular type of case on a permanent basis.

472 So.2d at 1165 (footnotes omitted). Where a county judge is assigned solely to perform circuit court duties, we suggested that a sixty-day assignment was acceptable; where the judge is ordered to spend only a portion of his time performing circuit court work, we suggested that a six-month assignment was acceptable. Id. at 1165 nn. 2-3. These time periods were suggested with the recognition that chief judges must be given flexibility to effectively utilize available judicial labor. Id. at 1165.

Although the successive assignments at issue in Crusoe totalled two-and-one-half years, we upheld them as proper temporary assignments in part because the county judges were assigned only a limited class of support orders and the assignment was to "supplement and aid the circuit judges rather than to replace them." Id.

Shortly after the decision in Crusoe, this Court was asked to further define the parameters of a temporary judicial assignment under rule 2.050(b)(4). In Payret v. Adams, 500 So.2d 136 (Fla.1986), the Court held that a county court judge may not be indefinitely assigned, by successive orders, circuit court duties in a specially created jury district. The county judge in Payret had been annually reassigned for a five-year period to be the acting circuit judge for a specially created district of the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit. We noted:

Rather than being assigned to aid or assist the circuit judges in a limited class of cases, respondent has been assigned to hear all circuit court matters in the Glades district. Indeed, responden...