Williams Island Ventures, LLC v. De La Mora, 3D15–2037

• Decision Date: 25 April 2018
• Docket Number: No. 3D15–2037,3D15–2037
• Parties: WILLIAMS ISLAND VENTURES, LLC, et al., Appellants, v. Marcus Saiz DE LA MORA, in his capacity as Miami–Dade County Tax Collector, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

246 So.3d 471

WILLIAMS ISLAND VENTURES, LLC, et al., Appellants,

v.Marcus Saiz DE LA MORA, in his capacity as Miami–Dade County Tax Collector, Appellee.

No. 3D15–2037

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.

Opinion filed April 25, 2018.

Rennert Vogel Mandler & Rodriguez, P.A., Thomas S. Ward and Jill Nexon Berman, Miami, for appellants.

Abigail Price–Williams, Miami–Dade County Attorney, and Jorge Martinez–Esteve and Daija Page Lifshitz, Assistant County Attorneys, for appellee.

Before SUAREZ, FERNANDEZ, and SCALES, JJ.

FERNANDEZ, J.

Plaintiffs Williams Island Ventures, LLC; Merrick Park LLC; Northwestern Capital Corporation; Sunshine Gasoline Distributors, Inc.; Sunshine Dade Investments, LLC; Coral Gables Luxury Holdings, LLC; Baptist Health South Florida, Inc.; Terra Grove Communities, LLC; Terra Doral Commons Commercial, LLC; and Terra Doral Commons Residential, LLC (collectively, "the taxpayers") appeal the trial court's Final Order Granting Marcus Saiz de la Mora's Motion to Dismiss Second Amended Complaint with Prejudice. We reverse and remand because we agree with the taxpayers that they pled legally sufficient claims which should not have been dismissed with prejudice on a motion to dismiss.

Before July 1, 2011, a Miami–Dade County taxpayer was not required to pay any taxes in order to challenge an ad valorem tax assessment. The Florida Legislature then enacted section 194.014, Florida Statutes (2011), effective July 2011, which required taxpayers filing petitions to challenge a tax assessment to pre-pay at least 75% of the ad valorem taxes they were challenging. Section 194.014(1)(a), Fla. Stat. (2011), reads in part: "A petitioner before the value adjustment board who challenges the assessed value of property must pay all of the non-ad valorem assessments and make a partial payment of at least 75 percent of the ad valorem taxes...."

The section further provided that a taxpayer is entitled to receive interest on the pre-paid ad valorem taxes that were due, if a taxpayer succeeded in obtaining a reduction of an assessment. Section 194.014(2), Fla. Stat. (2011), stated:

If the value adjustment board determines that the petitioner owes ad valorem taxes in excess of the amount paid, the unpaid amount accrues interest at the rate of 12 percent per year... until...paid. If the value adjustment board determines that a refund is due, the overpaid amount accrues at the rate of 12 percent per year...until a refund is due. ^{[1 ]}

When section 194.014 became effective, Fernando Casamayor was the Miami–Dade tax collector. After taxpayers filed petitions, Casamayor remitted taxpayers 12% interest on refunds resulting from assessment reductions. The refunds were triggered by a ruling of the Value Adjustment Board ("VAB") special magistrate after a hearing, as well as a reduction in assessments that resulted from the execution of a Petition Withdrawal Agreement without a hearing. Thus, the phrase in the statute, "determines that a refund is due" by the VAB, applied whether or not there was a formal hearing.

On May 1, 2014, Marcus L. Saiz de la Mora succeeded Casamayor as the Miami–Dade tax collector. In 2014, Saiz de la Mora unilaterally decided that he would pay taxpayers interest on refunds only if an assessment was reduced after: 1) a formal VAB hearing, and 2) the issuance of a formal, written VAB ruling reducing the assessment. Consequently, in 2014, Saiz de la Mora stopped paying interest on refunds owed to taxpayers who executed Petition Withdrawal Agreements, reasoning that the VAB in these cases had not "determined" that a refund was due. Saiz de la Mora stopped paying interest on refunds related to petitions for the 2011, 2012, and 2013 tax years, even when the taxpayers' assessments were reduced during the time that the previous tax collector, Casamayor, was in office.

Starting in January 2015, Saiz de la Mora further unilaterally decided that interest payments paid to taxpayers who executed Petition Withdrawal Forms when Casamayor was the tax collector were paid erroneously. Saiz de la Mora sent written demand letters demanding these taxpayers refund the interest payments to Saiz de la Mora (the "clawback taxpayers") and threatening "additional collection enforcement" actions if the clawback taxpayers failed to refund the interest payments. Saiz de la Mora also listed the interest payments he sought to claw back on the tax collector's website as taxes owed by the taxpayer. These interest payments show up in title searches and are clouds on the title of taxpayers' real property.

Thereafter, on March 24, 2015, ten clawback taxpayers and one interest-owed taxpayer filed a class action suit in the trial court against Saiz de la Mora on behalf of all similarly situated taxpayers. The interest-owed taxpayers sued for: (i) declaratory judgment (Count I); (ii) breach of contract (Count IV); and (iii) promissory estoppel (Count VI). The clawback taxpayers sued for: (i) declaratory judgment (Count II); (ii) injunction (Count III); (iii) breach of contract (Count IV); (iv) slander of title (Count V); and (v) promissory estoppel (Count VI). The class of affected taxpayers, approximately 30,000, was defined as "(i) all taxpayers who should have received interest from the Tax Collector for overpayment of their 2011, 2012, and 2013 assessments and (ii) all taxpayers who received interest for these tax years and should not be required to repay such interest to the [Current] Tax Collector." That same day, the taxpayers filed a request for production on Saiz de la Mora and subpoenaed the records of the Miami–Dade Property Appraiser records custodian.

In response, Saiz de la Mora filed a "Motion for Entry of a Protective Order Regarding Subpoena of Non–Party Property Appraiser, Motion for Order Related to Costs, or Motion for Status Conference," seeking to stay the property appraiser's deposition so that the trial court could first determine some underlying issues. However, with this motion, Saiz de la Mora did not move to stay any discovery the taxpayers propounded on him. After the hearing on this motion, the trial court granted the current tax collector's motion for protective order and entered a stay "barring discovery related to the putative class until the underlying legal issues raised in the plaintiffs' amended complaint are resolved." The taxpayers moved for reconsideration of the stay order. Saiz de la Mora moved for clarification of the stay order and filed a motion to dismiss the amended complaint. The trial court also stayed all discovery until the court ruled on the tax collector's motion to dismiss the amended complaint.

After the taxpayers filed a memorandum in opposition to Saiz de la Mora's motion to dismiss, the trial court granted the tax collector's motion to dismiss without prejudice. The taxpayers then filed their Second Amended Complaint. Saiz de la Mora moved to dismiss this complaint, which the trial court granted, this time with prejudice.

The taxpayers now appeal the trial court's final dismissal order and seek reinstatement of Counts I, II, III, V and VI. They contend on appeal that they pled legally sufficient claims and that their claims should not have been dismissed with prejudice on a motion to dismiss.

We review orders granting a motion to dismiss under a de novo standard of review. Grove Isle Ass'n, Inc. v. Grove Isle Assocs., LLLP, 137 So.3d 1081, 1089 (Fla. 3d DCA 2014). "A motion to dismiss is designed to test the legal sufficiency of the complaint, not to determine factual issues...." The Fla. Bar v. Greene, 926 So.2d 1195, 1199 (Fla. 2006). When ruling on a motion to dismiss, a trial court must accept all factual allegations as true. Minor v. Brunetti, 43 So.3d 178, 179 (Fla. 3d DCA 2010). The trial court must construe all reasonable inferences in favor of the pleader. Id. Statutory construction is also reviewed de novo . Zingale v. Powell, 885 So.2d 277, 280 (Fla. 2004).

The taxpayers argue that section 194.014 entitled the interest-owed taxpayers to interest on all their appeals of overpayment of ad valorem taxes, and that section 194.014 does not state that a condition precedent to the interest-owed taxpayers' entitlement is the VAB's issuance of a written "decision" granting a taxpayer's petition. The taxpayers also contend that Saiz de la Mora was not authorized to claw back any interest payments that he (or Casamayor) had already made to the taxpayers as a result of a reduction in the taxpayers' assessments after they filed petitions challenging their tax assessments.

We find that the taxpayers base their claims on a valid interpretation of section 194.014. Section 194.014(1)(a), states that taxpayers must file petitions and pay 75% of their ad valorem taxes to be eligible to receive 12% interest on all overpaid amounts. Before it was amended in 2016, section 194.014(2) further stated, "[i]f the value adjustment board determines that a refund is due...." However, section 194.014 does not define what action constitutes a VAB "determination" for purposes of triggering an entitlement to interest. Section 193.122(1), Florida Statutes (2014), makes only the VAB responsible for making the final certification of the tax roll. As the taxpayers correctly contend, when reading these two statutes together, it is evident that it is the VAB's action of certifying the final tax roll that determines the assessments of each property. This then determines the amount of taxes that the tax collector is entitled to collect and the taxpayers' entitlement to interest under section 194.014.

In addition, the final tax roll requires taxpayers to take certain steps to collect their reimbursement and includes assessments that are reduced by the taxpayers' written agreements with the VAB and the property appraiser. The reduction occurs after taxpayers file petitions challenging their assessments but before the VAB hearings are held. The Broward County tax collector and, until recently, the Miami–Dade tax...