FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL

STATE OF FLORIDA

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No. 1D2022-1106

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TERESA MOON-VILENO, an 

individual, and DEBORAH LYNN 

FELTY, an individual,

Appellants,

v.

FLORIDA ASSOCIATION OF COURT 

CLERKS, INC., a Florida not for

profit corporation, FACC

SERVICES GROUP, L.L.C. d/b/a

CIVITEK, a Florida Limited 

Liability Company, and CIVITEK 

NATIONAL, INC., a Florida profit 

Corporation,

Appellees.

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On appeal from the Circuit Court for Leon County.

J. Layne Smith, Judge.

January 24, 2024

B.L. THOMAS, J.

Appellants filed a class action complaint seeking a declaratory 

judgment that Appellees violated section 215.322(5), Florida 

Statutes.
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The complaint asserted that Appellees collected a convenience 

fee in excess of the amount needed to pay the lawful service fee 

charges for credit card processing services used in collecting 

payments to court clerks.* The lower court granted summary 

judgment in favor of Appellees, finding that section 215.322(5) did 

not apply to private entities. The lower court also found that even 

if section 215.322(5) did apply, Appellants had no standing to 

enforce the statute because the Legislature did not create a private 

right of action.

Appellee Florida Association of Court Clerks, Inc. (“FACC”), 

is a private corporate association with its membership composed 

of the Florida Court Clerks. FACC created Appellee FACC 

Services Group, LLC, d/b/a Civitek (“FACC Services”) as a whollyowned subsidiary in order to provide technical services to state

agencies in Florida and other states. Among these services is 

processing for credit card payments made to court clerks for court 

filing fees, fines, and other payments. 

Section 215.322(2), Florida Statutes, authorizes a “state 

agency” to accept credit cards:

A state agency as defined in s. 216.011, or the 

judicial branch, may accept credit cards, charge cards, 

debit cards, or electronic funds transfers in payment for 

goods and services with the prior approval of the Chief 

Financial Officer. If the Internet or other related 

electronic methods are to be used as the collection 

medium, the state chief information officer shall review 

and recommend to the Chief Financial Officer whether to 

* The complaint also included counts seeking findings of 

unlawful restraint of trade, unjust enrichment, and a declaratory 

judgment that Appellees violated section 112.311, Florida 

Statutes, by unlawfully using public office for private gain and not 

holding public positions for the benefit of the public. The trial court 

entered summary judgment in favor of Appellees on all counts. 

Appellants did not seek review of the trial court’s order as to these 

other counts.
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approve the request with regard to the process or 

procedure to be used.

Section 215.322(3)(b) provides that the Chief Financial Officer 

shall adopt rules concerning the acceptance of credit cards, 

including

[p]rocedures that permit an agency or officer accepting 

payment by credit card, charge card, debit card, or 

electronic funds transfer to impose a convenience fee 

upon the person making the payment. However, the total 

amount of such convenience fees may not exceed the total 

cost to the state agency.

(emphasis added).

Section 215.322(5), Florida Statutes, provides:

A unit of local government, including a municipality, 

special district, or board of county commissioners or other 

governing body of a county, a consolidated or 

metropolitan government, and any clerk of the circuit 

court, sheriff, property appraiser, tax collector, or 

supervisor of elections, is authorized to accept payment 

by use of credit cards, charge cards, bank debit cards, and 

electronic funds transfers for financial obligations that 

are owing to such unit of local government and to 

surcharge the person who uses a credit card, charge card, 

bank debit card, or electronic funds transfer in payment 

of taxes, license fees, tuition, fines, civil penalties, courtordered payments, or court costs, or other statutorily 

prescribed revenues an amount sufficient to pay the 

service fee charges by the financial institution, vending 

service company, or credit card company for such services. 

A unit of local government shall verify both the validity 

of any credit card, charge card, bank debit card, or 

electronic funds transfer used pursuant to this subsection 

and the existence of appropriate credit with respect to the 

person using the card or transfer. The unit of local 

government does not incur any liability as a result of such 

verification or any subsequent action taken.
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(emphasis added). Section 216.011(1)(ww), Florida Statutes, 

defines a “state agency” as

any official, officer, commission, board, authority, council, 

committee, or department of the executive branch of state 

government. For purposes of this chapter and chapter 

215, “state agency” or “agency” includes, but is not limited 

to, state attorneys, public defenders, criminal conflict and 

civil regional counsel, capital collateral regional counsel, 

the Justice Administrative Commission, the Florida 

Housing Finance Corporation, and the Florida Public 

Service Commission. Solely for the purposes of 

implementing s. 19(h), Art. III of the State Constitution, 

the terms “state agency” or “agency” include the judicial 

branch.

There is no dispute that FACC is generating a profit from 

credit card processing fees. Appellants assert that the vast 

majority of Florida clerks use FACC Services to process credit card 

payments for government services. Appellants also assert that 

FACC Services is the only payment processor in counties that use 

FACC Services. In these Florida counties, Appellants contend, 

FACC Services typically collects an inflated convenience fee for 

credit card processing of 3.5% of the amount charged, whereas the 

industry standard convenience fee is 2.5%. Thus, for example, in 

almost every credit card payment of a traffic ticket, court filing fee, 

or child support payment in this state, Appellants contend FACC 

is receiving a 1% profit from the payor. Appellants claim that the 

FACC has never sought requests for proposals to provide credit 

card processing services from any other credit card payment 

processor.

The FACC has also formed a separate wholly owned, for-profit 

entity called Civitek National that subcontracts with FACC 

Services to provide payment processing services to non-Florida 

jurisdictions. Civitek National charges a 2.5% convenience fee.

Appellants contend that 25% to 30% of FACC Services’ 

business consists of credit card processing. For just the website 

www.myfloridacounty.com, which is owned and operated by FACC 

Services, Appellees earned a total of $8.4 million for convenience 

fees and similar charges. Profits are transferred from FACC 
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Services to FACC in the form of dividends. For the fiscal year 

ending in June 2019, FACC Services and Civitek National 

transferred $2.9 million to FACC. In the fiscal year ending in June 

2020, FACC’s assets totaled $24 million with $19.3 million in 

equity, and it earned $3.4 million in revenue from the e-filing 

authority convenience fees.

Appellants assert that FACC uses its profits to cover various 

activities that it could not subsidize if it relied solely on its annual 

dues totaling around $136,000. For example, FACC uses the 

dividends for continuing education and to subsidize three annual 

conventions that it holds for its members. FACC also uses profits 

from FACC Services to pay for lobbying services and a public 

affairs team. In the fiscal year ending in 2020, FACC used profits 

from FACC Services to pay $270,000 for lobbying services and 

between $400,000 and $500,000 for “public affairs,” according to 

Appellants.

Appellants’ argument that Appellees are violating section 

215.322(5), Florida Statutes, invokes the long-standing legal 

principle that public officials cannot do indirectly what the law 

prohibits them from doing directly. See Cummings v. Missouri, 71 

U.S. 277, 288 (1866) (“[W]hat cannot be done directly cannot be 

done indirectly.”); State ex rel. Powell v. Leon Cnty., 182 So. 639, 

642 (Fla. 1938) (“It is fundamental and elementary that the 

legislature may not do that by indirect action which it is prohibited 

by the Constitution to do by direct action.”); Green v. Galvin, 114 

So. 2d 187, 189 (Fla. 1st DCA 1959) (“Certainly a public official 

cannot do indirectly that which he is prohibited from doing 

directly.”).

While Appellants have made a strong case that Appellees 

have violated section 215.322(5), we cannot reach the merits of this 

case because under Article V of the Florida Constitution, there is 

no justiciable controversy, as there is no private cause of action. 

See May v. Holley, 59 So. 2d 636, 639 (Fla. 1952) (“Before any 

proceeding for declaratory relief should be entertained it should be 

clearly made to appear . . . that the relief sought is not merely the 

giving of legal advice by the courts or the answer to questions 

propounded from curiosity.”); MacNeil v. Crestview Hosp. Corp., 

292 So. 3d 840, 843 (Fla. 1st DCA 2020) (providing that, to state a 
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cause of action for declaratory judgment, a plaintiff must show “a 

justiciable question as to the existence or nonexistence of some 

right, status, immunity, power or privilege, or as to some fact upon 

which existence of such a claim may depend” (quoting Ribaya v. 

Bd. of Trs. of the City Pension Fund for Firefighters & Police 

Officers in the City of Tampa, 162 So. 3d 348, 352 (Fla. 2d DCA 

2015))). The Legislature has not provided a cause of action in the 

statute to afford Appellants a judicial remedy in this case.

At oral argument, Appellants contended that they sought 

monetary damages as “supplemental relief,” which allowed them 

to seek declaratory judgment. Section 86.011(2), Florida Statutes, 

explicitly states, “Any person seeking a declaratory judgment may 

also demand additional, alternative, coercive, subsequent, or 

supplemental relief in the same action.” (emphasis added). We 

agree with Appellees that section 86.011 does not authorize a party 

to seek as supplemental relief a remedy that it could not otherwise 

obtain, where the Legislature declined to provide a private cause 

of action. Cf. Y Person v. X Corp., 606 So. 2d 1219, 1220 (Fla. 2d 

DCA 1992) (explaining that any entitlement to supplemental relief 

arises from and depends upon the declaratory judgment action).

AFFIRMED.

RAY and M.K. THOMAS, JJ., concur.

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Not final until disposition of any timely and 

authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or 

9.331.

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Debra L. Rosenbluth, Debra Rosenbluth Law, PLLC, Winter Park; 

Jeffrey M. Liggio, Jason Cornell, Liggio & Cornell, P.A., West Palm 

Beach; Philip M. Burlington, Adam Richardson, Burlington & 

Rockenbach, P.A., West Palm Beach, for Appellants.

Barry Richard, Greenberg Traurig, P.A., Tallahassee, for 

Appellees.