Third District Court of Appeal
State of Florida
Opinion filed February 16, 2022.
Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.
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Nos. 3D20-1539, 3D20-1661, and 3D20-1662
Lower Tribunal No. 19-29261
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Town of Miami Lakes, etc.,
Appellant,
vs.
Miami-Dade County, etc., et al.,
Appellees.
Appeals from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Mark
Blumstein, Judge.
Weiss Serota Helfman Cole & Bierman, P.L., and Edward G. Guedes;
Gastesi Lopez & Mestre, PLLC, and Lorenzo Cobiella, Raul Gastesi, Jr., and
Raul Lopez, for appellant.
Geraldine Bonzon-Keenan, Miami-Dade County Attorney, and Annery
Pulgar Alfonso, Bruce Libhaber, and Dale P. Clarke, Assistant County
Attorneys; Bowman and Brooke, LLP, and Elizabeth M. Hernandez,
Stephanie Simm, and Lorena Bravo; Holland & Knight, LLP, and Christopher
Bellows and Lee P. Teichner; Diego-Paolo De Pani, for appellees.
Before FERNANDEZ, C.J., and EMAS and BOKOR, JJ.
PER CURIAM.
In these consolidated appeals, the Town of Miami Lakes appeals from
three related orders dismissing with prejudice its three-count, second
amended complaint against Miami-Dade County, City of Hialeah, Lennar
Homes, LLC, and Downrite Engineering & Development Corporation,
defendants below. We affirm in part and reverse in part.
The relevant factual allegations contained in the operative complaint1
include the following:
In 2003, Miami-Dade County and the Town of Miami Lakes entered
into a written document entitled “Road Transfer Agreement,” by which Miami-
Dade County transferred and conveyed, to the Town of Miami Lakes,
ownership and control of certain “Road Segments” which were part of the
County’s road system. Included in the transfer of these Road Segments was
a portion of Northwest 170th Street located within the municipal boundaries
of the Town of Miami Lakes.
The Agreement provided that the “County and Town have determined
that it is in the best interest of the parties that responsibility for the operation,
maintenance, planning, design and construction of the Road Segments and
of any future improvements thereto be transferred to the Town.” The
1
When reviewing a final order dismissing a complaint, the appellate court is
required to accept as true all well-pled allegations of the operative complaint.
See GVK Int’l Bus. Grp., Inc. v. Levkovitz,
307 So. 3d 144, 146 (Fla. 3d DCA
2020).
2
Agreement further provided that the Town of Miami Lakes “agrees to accept
legal rights, responsibilities, and obligations with respect to the Road
Segments, including but not limited to the planning, design, construction,
improvement, and maintenance of the Road Segments.”
In 2017, the Miami-Dade County Board of County Commissioners
passed a resolution for the opening of an existing east-west bridge over I-75
at Northwest 170th Street. To connect this bridge to 170th Street, Lennar
entered into an agreement with the City of Hialeah by which Lennar would
engage in the construction of a roadway on the bridge traversing I-75 at
Northwest 170th Street, connecting the roadway on the west side of the
expressway to the Town’s Road Segment of Northwest 170th Street on the
east side.
In 2019, construction and improvement of the bridge was underway.
Downrite Engineering, acting at the request of Lennar (pursuant to Lennar’s
development agreement with the City of Hialeah), under a permit issued by
the County and the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), but
without any permit from the Town of Miami Lakes, excavated and defaced a
segment of NW 170th Street belonging to the Town. The Town of Miami
Lakes filed suit, seeking injunctive relief for an alleged breach of the Road
Transfer Agreement, as well as damages for trespass.
3
Each defendant filed a motion to dismiss one or more counts of the
operative complaint, and the trial court entered separate orders dismissing
all counts of the complaint against all defendants, with prejudice.
We do not reach the merits of the complaint, nor offer any opinion on
whether the Town of Miami Lakes can ultimately prevail on its allegations.
However, given the well-pleaded allegations of the operative complaint, and
the procedural posture and relative infancy of the lawsuit, we hold that the
trial court erroneously dismissed the complaint at this stage, and reverse and
remand for further proceedings. As this court aptly noted in Williams Island
Ventures, LLC v. de la Mora,
246 So. 3d 471, 475 (Fla. 3d DCA 2018):
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.
We do affirm that portion of the trial court’s order which found that the
Town of Miami Lakes failed to join an indispensable party (FDOT) but
4
nevertheless erred in dismissing the complaint with prejudice for said
failure.2
Affirmed in part, reversed in part and remanded for further
proceedings.
2
We disagree with defendants’ contention that dismissal with prejudice was
proper because Miami Lakes “refused” to amend the complaint to join FDOT
as a party. While it is true the Town of Miami Lakes maintained below (and
here on appeal) that FDOT was not an indispensable party, it did not refuse
to join FDOT in the face of the trial court’s dismissal order. Rather, the Town
of Miami Lakes contended—correctly—that amending the complaint to join
FDOT would be a futile act, given the trial court’s dismissal of the entire
complaint, with prejudice, on an entirely independent basis. See Haimovitz
v. Robb,
178 So. 827, 830 (Fla. 1937) (noting the well-established principle
that one is “not required under the law to do a vain and useless thing.”);
Hoshaw v. State,
533 So. 2d 886, 887 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988) (observing: “The
law does not require futile acts.”)
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