Falkinburg v. Village of El Portal , 2016 Fla. App. LEXIS 431 ( 2016 )

Third District Court of Appeal
State of Florida
Opinion filed January 13, 2016.
Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.
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No. 3D15-2335
Lower Tribunal No. 15-8493
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Barbara Falkinburg,
Appellant,
vs.
Village of El Portal, Fullview International Group, LLC, Wealthy
Delight, LLC, and Biscayne Park Acquisition Group, LLC,
Appellees.
An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Thomas J.
Rebull, Judge.
Coffey Burlington and Jeffrey B. Crockett; Legal Services of Greater
Miami, Inc., Evian L. White and Jeffrey M. Hearne; Community Justice Project,
Inc. and Charles F. Elsesser, Jr., for apellant.
Greenspoon Marder, Joseph S. Geller and Jason D. Silver (Fort Lauderdale);
Howard L. Kuker; Kriss & Feuerstein, Jerold C. Feuerstein and Jennifer Tolston
(New York), for appellees.
Before, SALTER, FERNANDEZ and LOGUE, JJ.
FERNANDEZ, J.
Plaintiff Barbara Falkinburg appeals the trial court’s order granting the
defendants’ motions to dismiss. We reverse because the plaintiff’s complaint
alleged a meritorious cause of action under section 723.083, Florida Statutes
(2015), thus the trial court erred in dismissing it.
Falkinburg lives in a 240-lot trailer park in the Village of El Portal in Miami,
Florida called “Little Farm Mobile Home Park.” Little Farm is located along
Biscayne Boulevard, north of 79th Street. The complaint, filed by Falkinburg and
two other co-plaintiffs who are also residents of Little Farm,1 alleges that the
Village of El Portal, a municipality of the State of Florida, did not comply with the
statutory requisites of section 723.083, Florida Statute (2015), when the Village
entered into a Settlement Agreement with the defendants, who were the current
and prospective owners of Little Farm. The terms of the Settlement Agreement
required that the owners start the process to close the mobile home park within
sixty (60) days. The Settlement Agreement, which was attached to Falkinburg’s
complaint, states that the Village of El Portal had determined that the residential
mobile home park is no longer a permitted use of the property under the Village’s
current Land Development Code and that it would be “advantageous to demolish
and remove the mobile homes existing on the site.” The Complaint further alleged
1Of the three plaintiffs that joined in the complaint filed in the trial court, only
Falkinburg appealed to this Court.
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that the Village of El Portal would prefer a mixed use and commercial
development to Little Farm.
In addition, the complaint alleged that the Village of El Portal never made
any findings, determinations, or investigation on the statutorily required issue of
whether “adequate mobile home parks or other suitable facilities exist for the
relocation of the mobile home owners.” The complaint states that no finding of the
existence of comparable alternative housing for the Little Farm residents could be
made. It further sought a declaration to invalidate the Settlement Agreement signed
by the Village of El Portal, an injunction against the closing of Little Farm, as well
as a statutory attorney’s fees award under section 723.068, Florida Statutes (2015).
The four named defendants, the Village of El Portal, Fullview International
Group, LLC, Wealthy Delight, LLC, and Biscayne Park Acquisition Group, LLC
filed motions to dismiss. At the hearing before the trial court on the motions to
dismiss, the issue before the court was whether the complaint and its attached
Settlement Agreement stated a cause of action under section 723.083. The Village
of El Portal conceded that the Settlement Agreement had been approved by its
council members and thus constituted “official action.” It also conceded that the
Village of El Portal had not studied the relocation issue to determine that mobile
home parks or other adequate alternative housing existed for the residents of Little
Farm.
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The trial court dismissed the complaint with prejudice, finding that the
signing of the Settlement Agreement did “not constitute official action which
would result in the closure” of Little Farm. Falkinburg filed a motion for
reconsideration or to amend, which was denied. This expedited appeal followed, as
at least 85 evictions of Little Farm tenants have been filed since the Settlement
Agreement was entered into and a “notice of park closing/change in land use” has
been sent to all residents asking them to vacate Little Farm by February 2016.
We review this case de novo, as it involves a trial court granting a dismissal
with prejudice of a complaint. Morin v Florida Power & Light Co., 963 So. 2d 258,
259 (Fla. 3d DCA 2007). In addition, a reviewing court follows the same
constraints as a trial court when ruling on a motion to dismiss for failure to state a
cause of action, that is, “the trial court must treat as true all of the complaint’s
well-pled allegations, including those that incorporate attachments, and to look no
further than the complaint and its attachments.” Id. at 260. We agree with
Falkinburg that the trial court erred in dismissing the pending complaint with
prejudice.
Section 723.083states:
No agency of municipal, local, county, or state government shall
approve any application for rezoning, or take any other official action,
which would result in the removal or relocation of mobile home
owners residing in a mobile home park without first determining that
adequate mobile home parks or other suitable facilities exist for the
relocation of the mobile home owners.
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Thus, in order to establish a violation of section 723.083, the following elements
need to be satisfied: (1) official action by a municipality; (2) which action would
result in the removal or relocation of mobile home owners; and (3) which action
was taken without a prior determination that adequate facilities exist for relocation
of the residents. Falkinburg alleged all three elements in her complaint.
As Falkinburg points out, there is no dispute as to the first and third
elements. With regard to the first element, the Village of El Portal admitted that the
Settlement Agreement was approved by its council members and, as such,
constituted “official action” by the Village of El Portal. As to the third element, the
Village further admitted that no prior analysis of the relocation issue had been
done, as no relocation study was conducted.
Turning to the second element that Falkinburg must establish to support her
claim of a violation of section 723.083, whether the removal or relocation of the
mobile home owners would result from the municipality’s official action, the
Settlement Agreement required the closure of Little Farm and indicated the need
for the “demolition” of the mobile homes in the park. The Settlement Agreement
specifically requires that the process to close the mobile home park begin within
sixty days of the sale, and Wealthy Delights admits on page six of its Answer Brief
that the Settlement Agreement provides for the closure of the mobile park.
Falkinburg’s complaint alleges that the Settlement Agreement required “removal
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or relocation” of the mobile home residents of Little Farm. These allegations in
Falkinburg’s complaint were sufficient as a matter of law to establish the second
element required under section 723.083. Accordingly, the complaint should not
have been dismissed.
In sum, under section 723.083, the government agency – the Village of El
Portal – before taking any action that would lead to the removal or relocation of
the mobile home residents, had to determine if there existed adequate mobile home
parks or other suitable facilities for Little Farm’s mobile home residents before it
could take “official action.” Because the Village did not comply with the statute,
the allegations in Falkinburg’s complaint were sufficient to state a cause of action
under the applicable statute. Thus, the trial court erred in dismissing Falkinburg’s
complaint, and the case is reversed and remanded to the trial court for expedited
action.2
Reversed and remanded with instructions for expedited consideration by the
trial court of the plaintiff’s complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief.
2 We decline to address the issues regarding whether the other three named
defendants, apart from the Village of El Portal, are proper parties, as these are
issues for the trial court to address on remand.
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