Key Points

  • The Third District reversed the dismissal of Monroe County's counterclaims seeking a declaration under section 723.024, an injunction barring occupancy of Roy's Trailer Park, and appointment of a receiver.
  • The court held that exhaustion of administrative remedies is a prudential doctrine, not a limit on the circuit court's subject matter jurisdiction.
  • The court held that a county need not exhaust its own local code-enforcement procedures before seeking declaratory or injunctive relief in court, citing section 125.01(1)(d), section 162.13, and Monroe County Code section 8-36.
  • The court distinguished the cases the park relied on as requiring exhaustion only when private parties challenge executive action, and read Palm Lake Partners II as applying the doctrine to claims against municipal agencies, not to a municipality's own enforcement suits.
  • The case was remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings.

A Florida appeals court on Wednesday revived Monroe County's effort to enforce the fire code at Roy's Trailer Park, ruling that the county did not have to send the dispute through its own code-enforcement process before taking it to court.

A three-judge panel of the Third District Court of Appeal reversed a circuit court order that had dismissed the county's counterclaims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Judge Bokor wrote the opinion for the panel, which also included Judges Lindsey and Gooden.

The decision sends back to the trial court the county's request for a declaration that a mobile home park owner can be held responsible for code violations under section 723.024 of the Florida Statutes. It also restores the county's bid for an injunction barring occupancy of the park until its safety problems are fixed, and for the appointment of a receiver. The panel held that exhaustion of administrative remedies does not require a government to use its own enforcement scheme before going to court.

The case traces to a May 2015 fire at the park, which led to the discovery that 14 people were living in one single-wide trailer, according to the opinion. The county obtained an inspection warrant, and the fire marshal and a local enforcement board identified numerous safety issues.

In 2018, Roy's Trailer Park sued the county and two of its tenants in county court. It sought to evict the tenants for fire code violations that endangered the "health, safety and welfare" of others. It also asked for a declaration that a trailer park can't be the "responsible party" for a code violation under section 723.024, which affirms local governments' authority to cite violations at mobile home parks.

The county countersued, seeking the opposite declaration and an injunction prohibiting occupancy until the park's "serious fire and life safety issues" were cured. The case was moved to circuit court at the park's request, and the county later amended its counterclaims to add eighty-six tenants after the park sought dismissal for failure to join them.

In September 2021, the park moved for partial summary judgment. It argued that because the county had adopted a code-enforcement procedure by local ordinance, the court lacked jurisdiction until the county exhausted "its own administrative remedies." The trial court first rejected the argument. On the first day scheduled for a bench trial, the park and the other counter-defendants renewed it in a motion to dismiss, and Circuit Judge Bonnie J. Helms granted it.

The trial court concluded that the exhaustion doctrine applies to any claim "cognizable in the first instance by an administrative agency." Roy's Trailer Park then voluntarily dismissed its own declaratory claim, and the court dismissed the entire action. The county's motion for rehearing was denied, and it appealed.

The appeals court began by quoting its own 1994 precedent for the point that "the doctrine requiring the exhaustion of administrative remedies is not jurisdictional," but a "court-created prudential doctrine." Judge Bokor then separated jurisdiction from exhaustion. "Here, the question isn't whether a circuit court possesses jurisdiction to hear these types of claims. It does," he wrote. "The question is whether the statute triggers an administrative exhaustion requirement before the County can pursue its claim in court. It does not."

The panel acknowledged that the county could have pursued its claims under the local process created by Monroe County Code section 8-2. But it pointed to a state statute giving every Florida county the power to provide "fire protection, including the enforcement of the Florida Fire Prevention Code." It also cited Chapter 162 of the Florida Statutes, which describes local code-enforcement procedures as "an additional or supplemental means of obtaining compliance" and provides that "nothing . . . shall prohibit a local governing body from enforcing its codes by any other means."

The county's own code says the same thing, the court noted. Section 8-36 provides that "[n]othing in this chapter shall be construed to preempt or prohibit the county from enforcing its codes by any other lawfully available means." The panel added that circuit courts can enforce ordinances by injunction and issue declaratory judgments, and that "the parties had filed two directly conflicting claims for declaratory relief over the meaning of section 723.024."

The park's cases, the court said, require exhaustion when someone challenges executive action. "But they don't require the government to go through its own administrative scheme before exercising an otherwise available judicial remedy," Judge Bokor wrote. He cited a 2024 First District decision describing the doctrine as "often viewed as protecting the executive branch from unwarranted judicial interference."

The panel also rejected the trial court's reading of a 2010 First District case, Palm Lake Partners II v. C & C Powerline, which said exhaustion "applies to municipal governmental agencies." The full sentence, the panel noted, says the doctrine applies to them "no less than it applies to state administrative agencies subject to the Administrative Procedure Act." "This doesn't mean that a municipal agency must submit to and exhaust its own administrative procedures," Judge Bokor wrote.

The park's other cases involved private parties, a corporation or a whistleblower suing the government, the court said. "None of the other cases relied on support the proposition that administrative exhaustion means that the government gives up its right to enforce a violation through alternative, lawful means," the opinion said.

Lawyers for Monroe County included Monroe County Attorney Bob Shillinger. Roy's Trailer Park was represented by Van D. Fischer of VDF Law PLLC. The park's residents were separately represented.

The panel reversed and remanded the case to the Monroe County circuit court "for proceedings consistent with this opinion." The opinion is not final until the court disposes of any timely motion for rehearing.