Title: Fla. Dep’t of Children & Families v. Davis Family Daycare Home

State: florida

Issuer: Florida Supreme Court

Document:

Supreme Court of Florida 
 
 
____________ 
 
No. SC13-1668 
____________ 
 
FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILIES, 
Petitioner, 
 
vs. 
 
DAVIS FAMILY DAY CARE HOME,  
Respondent. 
 
[March 26, 2015] 
 
POLSTON, J. 
 
This case is before the Court for review of the Second District Court of 
Appeal’s decision in Davis Family Day Care Home v. Department of Children and 
Family Services, 117 So. 3d 464 (Fla. 2d DCA 2013).  In Davis, the Second 
District certified that its decision is in direct conflict with the First District Court of 
Appeal’s decision in Comprehensive Medical Access, Inc. v. Office of Insurance 
Regulation, 983 So. 2d 45 (Fla. 1st DCA 2008), regarding the evidentiary standard 
of proof that applies in an initial license application proceeding under Florida’s 
 
 
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Administrative Procedure Act.1  For the reasons below, we quash the Second 
District’s decision in Davis holding that the clear and convincing evidence 
standard applies and hold that the preponderance of the evidence standard applies.   
BACKGROUND 
 
Since 2007, the day care has been licensed as a family day care home under 
section 402.313, Florida Statutes.  In 2011, in addition to seeking the renewal of 
this license, the day care submitted an initial application for a large family child 
care home license under section 402.3131, Florida Statutes.  If granted, the new 
license would have allowed the day care to provide care for more children than 
permitted by its existing license.   
In three separate notices of proposed agency action, the Department of 
Children and Families (DCF) notified the day care of its intent to deny the renewal 
of its family day care home license based on several alleged statutory and rule 
violations, of its intent to impose an administrative fine for one of the alleged 
violations, and of its intent to deny the day care’s initial application for the large 
                                          
 
 
1.  We have jurisdiction.  See art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const.  Though the 
Second District also certified conflict with the Fifth District Court of Appeal’s 
decision in Haines v. Department of Children and Families, 983 So. 2d 602 (Fla. 
5th DCA 2008), Haines is distinguishable because it addresses the revocation of a 
foster care license, rather than the denial of an initial application for a professional 
license.   
 
 
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family child care home license based on the day care’s alleged failure to comply 
with the statutes and rules governing its existing license.   
 
As authorized by section 120.57(1), Florida Statutes, the day care petitioned 
for a formal administrative hearing before an administrative law judge (ALJ) 
because it disputed the factual bases for DCF’s proposed actions.  Following the 
hearing, the ALJ recommended that DCF enter a final order (1) imposing the fine 
because the day care had admitted to the underlying violation, (2) renewing the 
family day care home license on a probationary basis, and (3) granting a 
provisional large family child care home license.  The ALJ’s recommended order 
includes the conclusion of law that DCF was required to prove the factual bases for 
all three of its proposed actions by clear and convincing evidence.   
 
In its final order, DCF approved and adopted the ALJ’s recommendations to 
impose the administrative fine and to place the day care’s family day care home 
license on probationary status.  However, DCF rejected the ALJ’s recommendation 
to provisionally grant the large family child care home license without prejudice 
for the day care to reapply following the successful completion of the probationary 
period imposed on its family day care home license.  In so doing, DCF rejected the 
ALJ’s conclusion of law that the clear and convincing evidence standard applied to 
the denial of the day care’s initial license application.  Instead, DCF concluded that 
 
 
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it needed only to produce competent substantial evidence of its stated reasons for 
denying the application and that it had done so.   
 
On appeal, the day care challenged only DCF’s denial of its application for a 
large family child care home license, arguing among other things that DCF erred in 
rejecting the ALJ’s conclusion of law that the clear and convincing evidence 
standard applied since the denial was disciplinary in nature, and that DCF 
improperly substituted an appellate standard of review for an evidentiary burden of 
proof by concluding that it was only required to introduce competent substantial 
evidence of its stated reasons for the proposed denial.  The Second District agreed 
with the day care and reversed and remanded for DCF to enter a final order 
adopting the ALJ’s recommendation to grant the provisional large family child 
care home license, but certified conflict with the First District’s decision in 
Comprehensive Medical Access regarding the proper evidentiary standard of 
proof.2  See Davis, 117 So. 3d at 470. 
 
 
                                          
 
2.  During the course of the litigation, the day care completed its 
probationary period under the family day care home license and reapplied for and 
was granted a large family child care home license.  Nevertheless, we write to 
address the proper evidentiary standard of proof because this controversy is one 
that is “capable of repetition, yet evading review.”  N.W. v. State, 767 So. 2d 446, 
447 n.2 (Fla. 2000).  
 
 
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ANALYSIS 
 
In this case, we decide the evidentiary standard of proof that applies in a 
formal administrative hearing in which the applicant challenges DCF’s notice of 
intent to deny an initial application for a large family child care home license.3  
Our decision in Osborne Stern dictates that the proper standard of proof is 
preponderance of the evidence. 
In Osborne Stern, 670 So. 2d at 933, we answered a certified question of 
great public importance concerning the evidentiary standard of proof that applies to 
an agency’s decisions to impose an administrative fine and to deny a license 
application based upon the applicant’s alleged violation of laws governing the 
profession to which the applicant sought entry.  Specifically, after reaffirming that 
an agency must prove its reasons for revoking a professional license by clear and 
convincing evidence because such a proceeding is penal in nature and implicates 
significant property rights, we extended this reasoning and the clear and 
convincing evidence standard to the agency’s imposition of an administrative fine.  
Id. at 935. 
                                          
 
 
3.  We review this legal question de novo.  See Dep’t of Banking & Fin., 
Div. of Sec. & Investor Prot. v. Osborne Stern & Co., 670 So. 2d 932, 933-34 (Fla. 
1996). 
 
 
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However, we expressly “decline[d] to extend the clear and convincing 
evidence standard to license application proceedings.”  Id. at 934 (emphasis 
added).  In so holding, we explained that the denial of the application based upon 
violations of a statute governing the profession “is not a sanction for the 
applicant’s violation of the statute, but rather the application of a regulatory 
measure,” and that applying the clear and convincing evidence standard would be 
“inconsistent with the discretionary authority granted by the Florida legislature to 
administrative agencies responsible for regulating professions under the State’s 
police power.”  Id.; see also Astral Liquors, Inc. v. Dep’t of Bus. Regulation, 463 
So. 2d 1130, 1132 (Fla. 1985) (“[D]iscretionary authority is particularly necessary 
where an agency regulates occupations which are practiced by privilege rather than 
by right and which are potentially injurious to the public welfare.”) (internal 
quotation omitted).  Accordingly, though we recognized in Osborne Stern that the 
applicant has the ultimate burden of persuasion to prove entitlement to the license, 
we explained that where the agency proposes to deny the license because the 
applicant is unfit, it has the burden to prove the applicant’s unfitness.  See Osborne 
Stern, 670 So. 2d at 934 (“[T]he Department had the burden of presenting evidence 
that appellants had violated certain statutes and were thus unfit for registration.”). 
In this case, the Second District correctly recognized that “[t]he holding of 
Osborne [Stern] was that the preponderance of the evidence burden of proof, not 
 
 
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the clear and convincing burden, is applicable to license application proceedings.”  
Davis, 117 So. 3d at 469.  However, the Second District concluded that DCF’s 
proposed denial of the day care’s application implicated the clear and convincing 
evidence standard of proof because it was “disciplinary in nature.”  Id.  The 
Second District so held because DCF included what it has acknowledged were 
“inartful” references to its statutory disciplinary authority in the notice of intent to 
deny the application.  See id. (concluding that “the ALJ appropriately applied a 
more onerous standard than the preponderance of the evidence” standard since 
DCF “self-proclaimed” the proceeding as disciplinary, which under the plain 
language of section 120.57(1)(j), Florida Statutes, implicates “a standard other than 
the preponderance of the evidence”).   
 
Though this Court’s decision in Osborne Stern does not address a situation 
in which the agency erroneously references its disciplinary authority in the context 
of noticing its intent to deny an initial license application, this factual distinction is 
one without a difference.  In Osborne Stern, this Court clarified that it is the nature 
of the agency’s action and the underlying rights implicated by the action that 
govern the applicable evidentiary standard—and it did so in a case that, like this 
one, involved both a disciplinary action and the denial of an initial application for a 
license in which the applicant holds no property interest.  See Osborne Stern, 670 
 
 
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So. 2d at 934-35.  Accordingly, the Second District erred in holding that the clear 
and convincing evidence standard applies in this proceeding.4 
CONCLUSION 
 
Because the preponderance of the evidence standard of proof applies in this 
initial license application proceeding, we quash the Second District’s decision in 
Davis holding that the clear and convincing evidence standard applies. 
 
It is so ordered. 
LABARGA, C.J., and PARIENTE, QUINCE, and PERRY, JJ., concur. 
LEWIS, J., concurs in result. 
CANADY, J., dissents with an opinion. 
 
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION, AND 
IF FILED, DETERMINED.   
 
CANADY, J., dissenting. 
 
As the majority acknowledges, a family day care home license has now been 
granted to the Respondent by the Department of Children and Families.  The 
                                          
 
 
4.  We agree, however, with the Second District’s conclusion that the 
competent substantial evidence standard is a standard of review rather than an 
evidentiary standard of proof.  See Davis, 117 So. 3d at 467 (“DCF has misused a 
standard of review as a burden of proof.”).  But, unlike the Second District, we do 
not read the First District’s decision in the certified conflict case Comprehensive 
Medical Access as holding to the contrary.  Instead, without specifically addressing 
the preponderance of the evidence standard of proof, the First District reversed the 
denial of an application because the agency failed to introduce proof of the alleged 
basis for the denial.  See Comprehensive Medical Access, 983 So. 2d at 46-47 
(reversing because the agency’s basis for denying the application was not 
supported by competent substantial evidence and the applicant was otherwise 
qualified).   
 
 
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controversy in this case therefore is now moot.  Since there is no longer a live 
controversy between the parties to this case, I would discharge the case as moot.  
Accordingly, I dissent. 
I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that this case falls in the category 
of cases that are “capable of repetition, yet evading review.”  See Weinstein v. 
Bradford, 423 U.S. 147, 149 (1975) (“[I]n the absence of a class action, the 
‘capable of repetition, yet evading review’ doctrine [is] limited to the situation 
where two elements combine[]: (1) the challenged action was in its duration too 
short to be fully litigated prior to its cessation or expiration, and (2) there [is] a 
reasonable expectation that the same complaining party would be subjected to the 
same action again.”). 
Application for Review of the Decision of the District Court of Appeal - Certified 
Direct Conflict of Decisions 
 
 
Second District - Case No. 2D12-1191 
 
 
(Polk County) 
 
Gregory Donald Venz, Assistant General Counsel, Florida Department of Children 
and Families, Tallahassee, Florida, 
 
 
for Petitioner 
 
Charlann Jackson Sanders of Charlann Jackson Sanders, P.A., Lakeland, Florida, 
 
 
for Respondent