Samantha Helfrich, individually and etc. v. City of Jacksonville and the Board of etc.

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
FIRST DISTRICT, STATE OF FLORIDA
SAMANTHA HELFRICH, NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO
INDIVIDUALLY AND ON FILE MOTION FOR REHEARING AND
BEHALF OF ALL OTHERS DISPOSITION THEREOF IF FILED
SIMILARLY SITUATED,
CASE NO. 1D15-1095
Appellant,
CORRECTED PAGES: pg 6
v. CORRECTION IS UNDERLINED IN
RED
MAILED: October 4, 2016
CITY OF JACKSONVILLE
BY: KMS
AND THE BOARD OF
TRUSTEES OF THE CITY OF
JACKSONVILLE
RETIREMENT SYSTEM,
Appellees.
_____________________________/
Opinion filed October 4, 2016.
An appeal from the Circuit Court for Duval County.
Hugh A. Carithers, Judge.
S. Douglas Knox, Paul E. Parrish, and Kelli A. Edson of Quarles & Brady LLP,
Tampa, for Appellant.
Craig D. Feiser, Assistant General Counsel, Loree L. French, Senior Assistant
General Counsel, David J. D’Agata, Chief, Commercial Litigation, and Adina
Teodorescu, Assistant General Counsel, of the Office of General Counsel,
Jacksonville, for Appellees.
ON MOTIONS FOR REHEARING, REHEARING EN BANC, and for
CERTIFICATION
PER CURIAM.
We deny appellant’s motions for rehearing, rehearing en banc, and for
certification. We withdraw our earlier opinion, however, and substitute the
following opinion in its place.
Samantha Helfrich (“appellant”) has raised two points in her appeal from a
summary final judgment entered in favor of the City of Jacksonville and the Board
of Trustees of the Jacksonville Retirement System (“appellees,” “the City,” or “the
Board”). Upon careful examination of the issues raised, we conclude the first point
on appeal is dispositive; therefore, we do not reach the second point.
When appellant left her employment with the City of Jacksonville, she had
accumulated just over five years of service to the City and had contributed from
her salary approximately $15,666 to her deferred retirement fund under the
“Defined Benefit Plan” of the City’s “General Employees Retirement Plan” (“the
Plan”). In addition to the contributions from the City’s employees, the Plan also
requires the City to make periodic contributions to the retirement fund “[i]n order
to assure the City’s statutory and constitutional guarantee of the actuarial
soundness of the Plan.” § 120.203(c), Jacksonville Ord. Code. In appellant’s case,
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because she had not reached the designated retirement age of sixty-five when she
left the City’s employ, she was afforded her right under the Plan to elect one of the
following options: (1) she could elect to vest for deferred retirement and leave her
contributions in the fund, or (2) she could elect to rescind her vested rights and
receive a refund of her accumulated contributions. § 120.203(g), Jacksonville Ord.
Code. According to paragraph (A)4.(b) of Part III of the 2005 rules and
regulations adopted by the Board, the body that administers the Plan, “the election
must be made on the prescribed form.” Appellant did not formally elect either of
the options and did not, therefore, submit any election on the “prescribed form.”
Instead, she informed the Board she desired to receive a refund consisting of both
her contributions to the retirement fund and those the City made in order to
maintain the actuarial soundness of the fund during her term of employment. She
was informed by the Board that she was not entitled to any portion of the City’s
contributions, but only to those contributions she personally had made through
payroll deductions. Having received that information, appellant filed the present
declaratory judgment action seeking a declaration from the trial court that the term
“contributions” as used in section 120.203(g) of the Plan included both her own
contributions as well those made by the City. The City filed a motion for summary
judgment and appellant, a cross-motion for partial summary judgment concerning
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the interpretation of the term “contributions.” Following a hearing, the trial court
granted the City’s motion. This appeal followed.
Under her first point on appeal, appellant contends the trial court erred in
deciding it did not have the jurisdiction to consider her claim. We review a trial
court’s ruling on a motion for summary judgment de novo. Fla. Bar v. Greene, 926
So. 2d 1195, 1200 (Fla. 2006). Furthermore, a trial court’s ruling on a
jurisdictional issue is a legal one also subject to de novo review. Aspsoft, Inc. v.
WebClay, 983 So. 2d 761, 765 (Fla. 5th DCA 2008). During the hearing on the
parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment, when the omission of an election
under the Plan was brought to the trial court’s attention, the judge appropriately
announced, “We can probably stop right here. . . . I don’t have a case or
controversy in front of me and I don’t give advisory opinions.” See Polk Cty. v.
Sofka, 702 So. 2d 1243, 1245 (Fla. 1997) (holding that “courts are bound to take
notice of the limits of their authority and if want of jurisdiction appears at any
stage of the proceedings, original or appellate, the court should notice the defect
and enter an appropriate order”); Marion Cty. Hosp. Dist. v. Akins, 435 So. 2d
272, 273 (Fla. 1st DCA 1983) (“It is a long-standing rule of appellate jurisprudence
that the court will not undertake to resolve issues which, though of interest to the
bench and bar, are not dispositive of the particular case before the court.”). In its
summary final judgment, the trial court expressly found: “Significantly, Helfrich
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has yet to rescind her vested election in the Plan in order to invoke her right to any
refund.” It then directly addressed the consequence of appellant’s failure to make
an election. It held, because appellant failed to make her election, her request for a
declaration from the court was one merely “seeking an advisory opinion based
upon a hypothetical state of facts which are contingent, uncertain, and rest in the
future.” Consequently, the trial court held it lacked the jurisdiction to consider her
claim for declaratory relief.
A circuit court’s power to render a declaratory judgment rests on whether it
can clearly be “‘made to appear that there is a bona fide, actual, present practical
need for the declaration; that the declaration should deal with a present, ascertained
or ascertainable state of facts or present controversy as to a state of facts.’” Bryant
v. Gray, 70 So. 2d 581, 584 (Fla. 1954) (quoting May v. Holley, 59 So. 2d 636,
639 (Fla. 1952)). In fact, “[t]he relief sought should not merely be legal advice by
the courts or to give an answer to satisfy curiosity. [Rather,] there must be a bona
fide dispute between the contending parties as to a present justiciable question.”
Id. (citing Local No. 234 v. Henley & Beckwith, Inc., 66 So. 2d 818 (Fla. 1953)).
Likewise, “[t]he relief sought should not merely be legal advice by the courts or to
give an answer to satisfy curiosity.” Id. The trial court certainly understood these
principles when it cited to Bryant in its summary final judgment.
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In Bryant, the Florida Supreme Court ruled the trial court lacked jurisdiction
to enter a declaratory judgment in favor of the plaintiff, who had only expressed a
“desire” to be a candidate in an election to fill the term of a deceased governor; the
plaintiff was not sure; and “[i]n order that he might be assisted in making up his
mind in coming to a decision, the petition for declaratory decree was filed, praying
for a decree which [might] or [might not have], materialize[d].” Id. (emphasis
added). Similarly, in Okaloosa Island Leasholders Association v. Okaloosa Island
Authority, 308 So. 2d 120 (Fla. 1st DCA 1975), also cited by the trial court, we
recognized that “[w]hile the existence of an actual controversy is not necessarily a
prerequisite to the activation of the court’s jurisdiction over a declaratory judgment
action, it is clear that there must be a bona fide dispute between contending parties
as to a present justiciable issue in order to invoke the declaratory judgment act.”
Id. at 121. More recently, in Apthorp v. Detzner, 162 So. 3d 236 (Fla. 1st DCA
2015), we considered the question whether the plaintiff sufficiently claimed a
justiciable issue when he sought to have the trial court declare unconstitutional, as
a violation of Florida’s Sunshine Amendment, a statute authorizing the use of
qualified blind trusts by public officials with regard to financial disclosures
required by law. The trial court granted the motion and declared the statute
constitutional. In vacating that ruling and dismissing the appeal, we agreed with
the defendant that the plaintiff wholly failed to plead a present controversy simply
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because he failed to allege that any public officer had in fact filed a financial
disclosure containing a qualified blind trust as defined by the statute. We therefore
“decline[d]” the plaintiff’s invitation “to render an advisory opinion,” id. at 242,
stating that a “present controversy based on articulated facts which demonstrate a
real threat of immediate injury” was necessary to invoke our jurisdiction. Id. at
240-41.
We now hold, consistent with Bryant, Okaloosa Island, and Apthorp, that
appellant’s request for a declaratory judgment posed nothing more than a
hypothetical question raised to assist her in deciding which election to make under
the Plan, and did not state a “definite and concrete assertion[] of right.” Apthorp,
162 So. 3d at 241. The trial court was eminently correct in holding appellant’s
request for a judicial declaration was one simply seeking an advisory opinion.
Because appellant failed to present a justiciable controversy, the trial court lacked
jurisdiction to issue a declaratory judgment. Thus, since the trial court correctly
determined it lacked jurisdiction, it should have dismissed appellant’s complaint
without also reaching its merits. Accordingly, we are compelled to DISMISS the
appeal, VACATE the final judgment entered below, and REMAND to the trial
court with directions to dismiss appellant’s complaint with prejudice. Id. at 242
(citing Philip J. Padovano, Florida Appellate Practice, § 1:2 (2015 ed.)
(acknowledging the appellate court’s duty to correct a lower court’s unlawful
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exercise of jurisdiction by vacating or quashing an order entered without
jurisdiction)).
ROBERTS, C.J., BILBREY, and JAY, JJ., CONCUR.
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