FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL

STATE OF FLORIDA

_____________________________

No. 1D2023-1327

_____________________________

HALIFAX HOSPITAL MEDICAL 

CENTER, d/b/a Halifax Health,

Appellant,

v.

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY 

GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF 

LEGAL AFFAIRS, STATE OF 

FLORIDA, et al.,

Appellees.

_____________________________

No. 1D2023-1394

_____________________________

NORTH BROWARD HOSPITAL 

DISTRICT, d/b/a Broward Health,

Appellant,

v.

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY 

GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF 

LEGAL AFFAIRS, STATE OF 

FLORIDA, et al.

Appellees.
2

_____________________________

No. 1D2023-1481

_____________________________

SOUTH BROWARD HOSPITAL 

DISTRICT, d/b/a Memorial 

Healthcare System,

Appellant,

v.

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY 

GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF 

LEGAL AFFAIRS, STATE OF 

FLORIDA, et al.,

Appellees.

_____________________________

No. 1D2023-1484

_____________________________

SCHOOL BOARD OF MIAMI-DADE 

COUNTY and PUTNAM COUNTY 

SCHOOL BOARD,

Appellants,

v.

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY 

GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF 

LEGAL AFFAIRS, STATE OF 

FLORIDA, et al.,

Appellees.
3

____________________________

No. 1D2023-1500

_____________________________

SARASOTA COUNTY PUBLIC 

HOSPITAL DISTRICT, d/b/a 

Sarasota Memorial Healthcare 

System, Inc.,

Appellant,

v.

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY 

GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF 

LEGAL AFFAIRS, STATE OF 

FLORIDA, et al.,

Appellees.

_____________________________

No. 1D2023-1529

_____________________________

PUTNAM COUNTY SCHOOL 

BOARD,

Appellant,

v.

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY 

GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF 

LEGAL AFFAIRS, STATE OF 

FLORIDA, et al.,

Appellees.
4

_____________________________

No. 1D2023-1570

_____________________________

LEE MEMORIAL HEALTH SYSTEM,

d/b/a Lee Health,

Appellant,

v.

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY 

GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF 

LEGAL AFFAIRS, STATE OF 

FLORIDA, et al.,

Appellees.

_____________________________

On appeal from the Circuit Court for Leon County.

John C. Cooper, Judge.

August 14, 2024

B.L. THOMAS, J.

The Attorney General filed suit on behalf of the State of 

Florida against certain opioid manufacturers, distributors, or 

prescribers (the “Opioid Defendants”) to combat the opioidaddiction epidemic. After the State filed suit, Appellants—school 

boards, legislatively created hospital districts, and Lee Hospital 

System, all “subdivisions” of the state under organic and general 

law—filed separate lawsuits against the Opioid Defendants, 

alleging similar claims but asserting unique and individualized 

damages.
5

The Attorney General ultimately settled the State’s suits 

against the Opioid Defendants, providing for compensation to 

many political subdivisions, but no compensation for Appellants, 

which the Attorney General disavowed representing in the suit. 

The releases in the settlement agreements required, however, that 

the Attorney General would seek to dismiss Appellants’ claims by 

intervening in their cases and filing a motion to dismiss, by 

commencing a declaratory judgment action, or by seeking 

legislation barring the subdivisions from prosecuting their claims. 

The settlement agreements also provided that no entity could 

ultimately receive any portion of the settlements’ remediation 

payment or litigation costs payment unless that entity accepted 

the terms of the settlement agreements. In other words, unless 

Appellants waived all their claims for damages inflicted by the 

Opioid Defendants and dismissed their suits for their individual 

damages claims, the Attorney General would take action against 

Appellants and seek to extinguish their damage claims. As 

Appellant North Broward Hospital District notes, however, “no 

public hospital has signed off on the Attorney General’s 

settlements, and for good reason: no portion of the settlement 

proceeds were allocated to public hospitals.”

In fact, the Attorney General denied any intention of 

quantifying or recovering these damages. Instead, as required by 

the settlement, the Attorney General filed suit against Appellants 

in circuit court seeking a declaratory judgment finding that despite 

this fact, she had the authority under common and general law to 

release the Appellants’ claims against the Opioid Defendants and 

that the settlement agreements accomplished that release. 

The circuit court entered a declaratory judgment in favor of 

the Attorney General. That court ruled that the Legislature had 

granted the Attorney General the authority to enforce consumer 

protection laws, including the authority to bring an action on 

behalf of consumers or governmental entities. The court concluded 

that the Attorney General had the power to release claims, 

including the Appellants’ legal claims for actual and individual 

damages different than those generally inflicted on the state as a 

whole. The court further concluded that it was legally irrelevant 

that the Attorney General never notified the Appellants of her 

actions to reach a “Global Settlement” that purportedly eliminated 
6 

the Appellants’ legal claims. The circuit court ruled that the 

Attorney General acted as the state sovereign who controlled all 

legal rights and remedies of independent state bodies created by 

the constitution and general law. Thus, the Attorney General could 

waive and eliminate Appellants’ legitimate damage claims against 

the Opioid Defendants. 

We reverse. 

I. 

The opioid-addiction epidemic in the United States has 

directly or indirectly killed approximately 645,000 Americans by 

overdose. This drug epidemic killed more Americans than those 

lost in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, combined. 

In May 2017, Governor Rick Scott declared opioid overdoses a 

public health emergency in Florida. 

One year later, the Attorney General filed a complaint in the 

Sixth Judicial Circuit, against some opioid manufacturers and 

distributors who operated in Florida. The complaint alleged 

violations of Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act 

(FDUTPA), Florida’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt 

Organizations (RICO) Act, public nuisance, and negligence. The 

Attorney General amended the complaint to add claims against 

two pharmacy chains that dispensed opioids in Florida. 

Beginning in 2019, Appellants filed suits against the Opioid 

Defendants. They alleged that they had “incurred massive costs by 

providing uncompensated care as a result of opioid-related 

conditions.” Their claims included violations of Florida’s RICO Act, 

violation of FDUTPA, false and misleading advertising, 

negligence, nuisance, and unjust enrichment. The Attorney 

General neither sought to intervene in any of these suits nor 

notified Appellants of any assertion that she could unilaterally 

extinguish their legitimate legal claims. 

The Attorney General, along with other states’ attorneys 

general and others negotiated with multiple Opioid Defendants. 
7

The Attorney General finalized settlement agreements with seven 

groups of Opioid Defendants, and consent judgments were entered. 

Each of the opioid settlements included the requirement that the 

Attorney General seek to dismiss or otherwise extinguish 

Appellants’ claims:

[I]f any [legal] Action remains pending against one 

or more Releasees after the Effective Date of the 

Agreement or is filed by a Subdivision against any 

Releasee on or after the Execution Date, Plaintiff will 

seek to obtain dismissal of such Action as to such 

Releasees as soon as reasonably possible. Depending on 

facts and circumstances, Plaintiff may seek dismissal, 

among other ways, by intervening in such Action to move 

to dismiss or otherwise terminate the Subdivision’s 

Claims in the Action or by commencing a declaratory 

judgment or other action that establishes a Bar to the 

Subdivision’s Claims and Action. For avoidance of doubt, 

Plaintiff will seek dismissal of an Action under this 

paragraph regardless [of] whether the Subdivision in 

such Action is a Participating Subdivision. 

In the event that the actions required of Plaintiff . . . 

fail to secure the prompt dismissal or termination of any 

Action by any Subdivision against any Releasee, Plaintiff 

shall seek enactment of a legislative Bar as defined in 

Section A(d)(1) and will endeavor to achieve enactment 

as soon as is practicable. Participating Subdivisions 

agree not to oppose any effort by Plaintiff to achieve 

enactment of a legislative Bar.

The agreements defined the legislative bar as follows:

“Bar” means either: (1) a law barring all 

Subdivisions in the State of Florida from maintaining 

Released Claims against Releasees (either through a 

direct bar or through a grant of authority to release 

Claims and the exercise of such authority in full) or (2) a 

ruling by the Florida Supreme Court (or a District Court 

of Appeal if a decision is not subject to further review by 

the Florida Supreme Court) setting forth the general 

principle that Subdivisions in the State of Florida may 
8

not maintain any Released Claims against Releasees, 

whether on the ground of this Agreement (or the release 

in it) or otherwise. For the avoidance of doubt, a law or 

ruling that is conditioned or predicated upon payment by 

a Releasee . . . shall not constitute a Bar. 

The agreements also provided that a political subdivision could not 

receive any portion of the remediation payment or litigation costs 

payment unless the subdivision accepted the terms of the 

settlement agreements.

Before filing the declaratory action below, the Attorney 

General advocated for legislation recognizing that “[it] is in the 

interest of the state that a single official represent governmental 

entities in civil proceedings in matters of great governmental 

concern to maximize recoveries and minimize costs” and declaring 

that “[t]he Attorney General is the state’s chief legal officer and is 

the official that should be responsible for the prosecution, 

management, and coordination of any civil proceedings brought by 

governmental entities in matters of great governmental concern.” 

Fla. SB 102, § 1 (2021). The proposed legislation would have 

established procedures for the Attorney General to: 1) “institute or 

intervene in any civil proceeding in state or federal court . . . on 

behalf of a governmental entity to seek any relief afforded at law 

or in equity . . . pertaining to a matter of great governmental 

concern”; 2) “consolidate, dismiss, release, settle, or take action 

that he or she believes to be in the public interest in any civil 

proceeding in state or federal court pertaining to a matter of great 

governmental concern”; and 3) declare a matter of “great 

governmental concern,” thereby staying any civil proceeding 

pertaining to the matter unless the Attorney General takes action 

in the proceeding. Id. The legislation also would have made any 

settlement undertaken in a civil proceeding by a government 

entity after the declaration that the case involved a “matter of 

great governmental concern” void if the Attorney General did not 

consent to the settlement. Id. This proposed legislation was not 

approved by the 2021 Legislature. 

In 2022, the Legislature did approve legislation creating the 

Opioid Settlement Clearing Trust Fund within the Department of 

Financial Services, to hold monies from the opioid settlements. 
9

§ 17.42(1), Fla. Stat. The legislation also created a task force to 

operate with local subdivisions to collect information related to 

substance-abuse disorders. § 17.42(4)(b), Fla. Stat. The legislation 

allows funds to be disbursed to the opioid settlement trust funds of 

the various agencies as provided in the General Appropriations 

Act, for use to abate the opioid epidemic. See § 17.42(5), (6), Fla. 

Stat. This fund does not compensate Appellants for losses and 

damages caused by the Opioid Defendants.

After the State’s opioid settlements had been finalized in June 

2022, the Attorney General filed a complaint, later amended, for 

declaratory relief against Appellants. This complaint alleged that 

the Attorney General had the power to release Appellants’ claims 

because the Attorney General exercised Florida’s sovereign 

authority under common law and the Florida Constitution. She 

asserted that Appellants, as administrative “creatures of the 

state,” have jurisdiction to bring certain legal claims, but their 

authority flows only from the State. Thus, where overlapping 

jurisdiction exists, the Attorney General’s asserted claims are 

superior, according to this theory. 

The amended complaint alleged that Appellants’ inferior 

claims placed the Attorney General’s settlements in jeopardy. The 

Attorney General sought the declaratory judgment pursuant to 

sections 86.011, 86.021, and 86.101, Florida Statutes. The 

Attorney General argues that she had the power to release, and 

did release, Appellants’ subordinate claims through the execution 

of settlement agreements and release provisions with the Opioid 

Defendants. She asserts here that the trial court correctly granted 

summary judgment ruling that Appellants could not assert their 

legal claims, despite statutory authority to the contrary granting 

Appellants the right to sue and be sued.

II.

The Attorney General cannot disavow the substantive vested 

rights of Appellants, including the two school boards created under 

the constitution, all of which have the power to sue to protect those 

vested rights and the hospital districts. See Fla. Const. art. IX, §

4(b) (“The school board shall operate, control and supervise all free 

public schools within the school district . . . .”); § 1001.32(2), Fla. 
10

Stat. (“district school boards shall operate, control, and supervise 

all free public schools in their respective districts and may exercise 

any power except as expressly prohibited by the State Constitution 

or general law.”)’; § 1001.41(4), Fla. Stat. (granting district school 

boards the power to sue and be sued); Ch. 2007-299, § 4, Laws of 

Fla. (establishing North Broward Hospital District’s power to sue 

and be sued); Ch. 2004-397, § 4(1)(f), Laws of Fla. (establishing 

South Broward Hospital District’s power to sue and be sued); Ch. 

2003-374, § 4, Laws of Fla. (establishing Halifax Hospital Medical 

Center’s power to sue and be sued); Ch. 2000-439, § 4, Laws of Fla. 

(establishing Lee Memorial Health System’s power to sue and be 

sued). 

And even to the extent that the Attorney General correctly 

asserts the common-law authority to do so, the Legislature 

removed that authority when it created Appellants and assigned 

the rights of legal representation of claims to Appellants

themselves, not the Attorney General. Cf. Fried v. State, 355 So. 3d 

899, 909 (Fla. 2023) (finding that, by creating statutes imposing 

civil penalties against government entities and individual officers 

for violating a statute preempting firearm and ammunition 

regulation, the Legislature abrogated common-law immunity of 

local-government officials “in the context addressed in the 

Preemption Statute”). If the Legislature can abrogate the longestablished common-law immunity of elected officials, it certainly 

can abrogate any asserted common-law authority of the Attorney 

General to dispose of local entities’ legal claims. Of course, 

Appellants cannot assert any purported legal rights that are 

contrary to superior general law. See id. 

In essence, the Attorney General asserts the unilateral 

substantive authority to dispose of Appellants’ claims on behalf of 

the people of Florida, notwithstanding the enactment of law 

assigning that authority to Appellants. But the Attorney General 

is the “chief state legal officer” of the state, not the client. Fla. 

Const. art. IV, § 4(b), Fla. Const. As the state’s chief legal officer, 

the Attorney General has limited common-law authority as parens 

patriae to litigate claims common to the state at large—and, of 

course, claims authorized by general law, and limited by that 

law—but not to control claims of Appellants who assert unique and 

individual actual damages. The Attorney General has no more 
11

authority to litigate such claims than the claims of a private 

hospital asserting its own individual damages. 

To hold otherwise would make the Attorney General equal to 

the Governor and the Legislature. But the Attorney General is not 

the supreme executive of Florida, who may assert policy 

prerogatives on behalf of the Governor and the Legislature. The 

Governor exercises the supreme executive power: 

The supreme executive power shall be vested in a 

governor, who shall be commander-in-chief of all military 

forces of the state not in active service of the United 

States. The governor shall take care that the laws be 

faithfully executed, commission all officers of the state 

and counties, and transact all necessary business with 

the officers of government. 

Fla. Const. art. IV, § 1(a) (emphasis added). The Governor’s 

supreme executive power authorizes him or her to compel other 

executive officers, including the Attorney General, to perform their 

duty: 

The governor may initiate judicial proceedings in the 

name of the state against any executive or administrative 

state, county or municipal officer to enforce compliance 

with any duty or restrain any unauthorized act. 

Fla. Const. art. IV, § 1(b).

The Legislature exercises the legislative power of the state: 

The legislative power of the state shall be vested in a 

legislature of the State of Florida . . . . 

Fla. Const. art. III, § 1. The Legislature may exercise this power to 

limit the authority of the Attorney General to assert his or her 

authority to exercise the parens patriae power to sue or prohibit 

other governmental entities to sue for damages. As noted by 

Justice Ervin: 

Neither the Legislature nor the courts has ever 

undertaken to delineate or set the outer limits of the 
12

Attorney General’s litigation power, although in a few 

specific instances the Legislature has curtailed his role. 

State ex rel. Shevin v. Yarborough, 257 So. 2d 891, 896 (Fla. 1972)

(Ervin, J., concurring specially) (emphasis added). Here, the 

Legislature did just that by creating Appellants and granting them 

the authority to protect their property interests and to assert legal 

claims in court. 

In addition, by failing to intervene in the Appellants’ suits, the 

Attorney General cannot now circumvent this legislative decision 

by seeking a declaratory judgment to allow her to extinguish 

Appellants’ asserted damage claims: 

If the Legislature had intended to provide that the 

Attorney General would be permitted to intervene as a 

party, with the privilege of filing such pleadings as he 

might see fit, it is reasonable to suppose that the statute 

would have so provided. It did not. The statute provides 

that he should be ‘heard,’ which means that he should be 

heard according to the merits of what he presented at the 

hearing and that he should be amenable to the Court’s 

rulings, as are other petitioners. 

Watson v. Claughton, 34 So. 2d 243, 246 (1948) (rejecting Attorney 

General’s argument that a court order denying intervention was 

unlawful). This Court has also held that the Attorney General has 

no standing to appeal, where the Attorney General did not 

intervene below as a party but only represented a party in the 

circuit court. Bondi v. Tucker, 93 So. 3d 1106, 1111–12 (Fla. 1st 

DCA 2012). Here, the Attorney General never intervened in 

Appellants’ suits. 

The Attorney General argues unpersuasively that as the 

state’s chief legal officer, she may bar Appellants from 

representing themselves, while simultaneously denying any 

interest in representing Appellants. The Attorney General argues 

that it is her prerogative to eliminate the value of Appellant’s 

individual claims for harms caused by the Opioid Defendants, as a 

“bargaining chip” to obtain this global financial settlement. Thus, 

the Attorney General asserts that she may disavow these school 
13

boards’ and hospital districts’ actual damages for her own 

negotiating prerogatives. 

We note that the question presented is not whether the 

Department of Legal Affairs, acting by and through the elected 

Attorney General, has the authority as authorized by law and has 

limited parens patriae authority to represent the state in certain 

matters belonging to the public at large. Fla. Const. art. IV, § 4(b) 

(“The attorney general shall be the chief state legal officer.”). 

Section 16.01(2), Florida Statutes (2020), specifies the authority 

and the duties of the Attorney General as “prescribed by the 

Constitution of this state and . . . appropriate to his or her office as 

. . . required of the Attorney General by law or by resolution of the 

Legislature.” These duties may include providing opinions when 

requested by the Governor, and other elected state and local 

officers, including local subdivisions, “relating to the official duties 

of the requesting officer.” § 16.01(3), Fla. Stat. She “shall appear 

in and attend to, in behalf of the state, all suits or prosecutions, 

civil or criminal or in equity, in which the state may be a party, or 

in anywise interested, in the Supreme Court and district courts of 

appeal of this state” as well as in federal court. § 16.01(4), (5), Fla. 

Stat. (emphasis added). The Attorney General shall “have and 

perform all powers and duties incident or usual to such office.” 

§ 16.01(7), Fla. Stat. Under section 16.015, Florida Statutes, the 

“Department of Legal Affairs shall be responsible for providing all 

legal services required by any department, unless otherwise 

provided by law.” (Emphasis added). 

The Attorney General is commanded to study federal 

legislation and its potential impacts on the “constitutional 

integrity of state governments,” and to inform representatives in 

Congress from the state. § 16.52(1), Fla. Stat. In addition, under 

section 922.14, Florida Statutes, the Attorney General is 

authorized to apply to the Florida Supreme Court to issue a death 

warrant in a capital case under certain circumstances. Thus, the 

authority and duties of the Attorney General are broad and 

encompass a varied field of operation in the courts and in civil and 

criminal law enforcement. 

The Legislature has created Trust Funds to provide resources 

to the Attorney General to investigate and prosecute Florida’s 
14

RICO Act, the FDUTPA, the Florida False Claims Act, “or state or 

federal antitrust laws.” § 16.53(1), Fla. Stat.; see generally Barati 

v. State, 198 So. 3d 69, 84–85 (Fla. 1st DCA 2016) (holding that the 

Attorney General has the authority to dismiss a qui tam false 

claims action over relator’s objection despite Attorney General’s 

lack of prior intervention, as such claims are “brought in the name 

of the state” under section 68.083, Florida Statutes, and the 

Attorney General is the real party in interest). 

But there are limits to the authority of the Attorney General. 

See Holland v. Watson, 14 So. 2d 200 (Fla. 1943); Watson v. 

Caldwell, 27 So. 2d 524 (Fla. 1946). In Holland, the supreme court 

unequivocally rejected the proposition that the Attorney General 

had authority under the common law to represent non-Executive 

Branch entities, without their approval: 

[T]he Attorney General filed a bill of complaint in the 

circuit court seeking to restrain the State Board of 

Administration from retaining counsel other than the 

Attorney General. He alleges that under the common law, 

the statutes, and the Constitution of Florida, it is his 

exclusive prerogative to represent the said Board. A 

motion to dismiss the bill was overruled and that 

judgment is here for review under Rule 34 of the Rules of 

this Court.

The question presented is whether or not the 

Attorney General is under the law the duly authorized 

legal representative of the State Board of Administration 

or may the said Board in its discretion retain other 

counsel to represent it.

. . .

In our view, the very terms of Section 16 of Article 

IX of the Constitution, the magnitude of the power 

granted, the scope and character of the labor required in 

its execution, and its importance to the fiscal policy of the 

counties and special taxing districts force the conclusion 

that the State Board of Administration is authorized to 

employ counsel to assist it. The very fact that it creates the 

Board a body corporate with power to sue and be sued and 
15

provides the means for it to liquidate a bonded 

indebtedness for the counties and special road and bridge 

districts running into hundreds of millions of dollars and 

extending over a period of fifty years with power to issue 

refunding bonds and gasoline anticipation certificates 

would seem to foreclose the question. Since we find no 

intent on the part of the legislature to extend the duties 

of the Attorney General to that of representing the Board, 

we are of the opinion that it may employ other counsel to 

represent it.

14 So. 2d at 200–03 (emphasis added).

In Watson, the Supreme Court stated that the Board of 

Trustees had the authority to retain legal counsel, and the 

Attorney General did not have the authority to represent the 

Trustees over that choice. 27 So. 2d at 529. In part, the Court relied 

on the implied authority of the Trustees to sue and be sued, and 

further noted that in eighty years the organic law had not 

delegated this exclusive authority of legal representation to the 

Attorney General:

The Governor and other administrative officers of 

the Executive Department of the State named in the act 

were constituted Trustees of the Internal Improvement 

Fund by Chapter 610 Acts of 1855. Section 2 of that Act 

contemplated the conduct of law suits and legal actions, 

and, therefore, the act necessarily implied that the 

Trustees should have power and authority to employ 

counsel to represent them in connection with the 

performance of the duties with which they were and are 

charged. Every Act of the Legislature from that time 

down to the present has recognized the power and 

authority of the Trustees of the Internal Improvement 

Fund to prosecute and to defend law suits and to engage 

in transactions which would require the services of an 

attorney. . . .

. . .

This provision of the statute clearly indicates that 

the Attorney General is expected to be drawn into 
16

litigation as attorney in cases affecting the powers and 

duties of the Trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund 

only when and if the State of Florida joins with the 

Trustees in any action or suit where such intervention is 

deemed necessary and that in those cases he should come 

in representing the State of Florida as differentiated from 

representing the Trustees.

So, our conclusion is that the Trustees of the Internal 

Improvement Fund are authorized to employ counsel to 

represent and advise the Trustees in any matter or 

matters which may be incident to their duties as such 

Trustees.

27 So. 2d at 528–29. And here, the Attorney General asserts far 

more legal authority than did the Attorney General in 1943 and 

1946. Unlike in Holland and Watson, here, the Attorney General 

does not even purport to have represented the Appellants, whereas 

in those cases, the Attorney General asserted the authority, and 

the interest, in representing the Board of Trustees and the State 

Board of Administration. 

The Attorney General thus could not seek to disavow actual 

and individual damages for Appellants as subsumed by her own 

suit against the Opioid Defendants. Appellants are not ExecutiveBranch entities somehow subordinate to the Attorney General’s 

legal control.

III.

As noted, the Florida Constitution creates the office of the 

Attorney General but limits that office’s authority to powers 

conferred by the constitution or assigned in general law or by 

resolution of the Legislature. The specific authority assigned in 

organic law relates to matters such as the responsibility to seek 

advisory opinions from the Florida Supreme Court regarding the 

validity of constitutional initiatives proposed pursuant to Article 

IX, section 3 of the Florida Constitution. See Fla. Const. art. IV,

§ 10. But even this responsibility is limited as “directed by general 

law.” Id. Nowhere does the organic law authorize the Attorney 

General to represent without consent, or decline to represent and 

then attempt to disavow the damages of Appellants. 
17

As Appellant North Broward Hospital District correctly 

summarizes the question presented here, the Attorney General 

can only represent interests common to the public under her 

parens patriae common-law authority, not specific damages unique 

to the district, authorized and created by the Legislature with the 

power to sue to protect those unique interests not common to the 

public. Nor can the Attorney General rely on consumer-protection 

statutes—which have specific requirements for making victims 

whole, including Appellants—to obtain funds from a settlement 

without their consent, and without compensating them for their 

suffered harms, for the general purposes of “opioid abatement,” 

without providing any remedies to Appellants for their unique 

damages inflicted by the Opioid Defendants. See § 501.2101(2), 

Fla. Stat. (stating that monies received by an FDUTPA enforcing 

authority that are not for attorney fees or litigation and 

investigation costs “shall accrue to the state and be deposited” in 

the General Revenue Fund); § 895.09(1)(d), Fla. Stat. (providing 

that, for distribution of monies obtained from a judgment of 

forfeiture in an action under Florida’s RICO Act, claims for 

restitution by victims of the racketeering activity are given priority 

over distributions to a Department of Legal Affairs trust fund).

The Attorney General does not have the legal authority to 

unilaterally dismiss, for example, actual and individual damages 

incurred by the two school boards for increased harms and 

expenditures for compliance with federal law for special 

educational needs for disabled students—disabled allegedly by the 

actions of the Opioid Defendants that caused the students or their 

parents to become addicted to prescription opioids. And this is but 

one example. The Special Hospital Districts also assert individual 

and actual damages separate from the general public for harms 

allegedly inflicted by the Opioid Defendants that caused these 

hospitals to have to provide specialized medical care for opioidaddicted and harmed patients. 

It is not within the Attorney General’s power to make such 

decisions. While it may be in the interest of the Opioid Defendants 

to see Appellants’ claims extinguished, it is not in the public 

interest of the children and parents of a certain district: “Through 

a settlement term, the Attorney General has allowed the Opioid 

Defendants to usurp her authority, which is designed as a shield 
18

for the citizens of Florida, and use it as a sword to defeat certain 

local entities’ claims.” Miami-Dade School Board Init. Br. 10.

In conclusion, we do agree with the Attorney General that res 

judicata and preemption doctrines are not relevant here. (“The 

issue here is whether the Attorney General has the power to 

release the claims of Florida’s political subdivisions. If she does not 

have that power, then her release was without effect and cannot 

bind the subdivisions—through res judicata or otherwise.”). 

Because we reject the assertion that the Attorney General has the 

authority to somehow prohibit Appellants from exercising their 

constitutional and statutory authority to sue to recover damages 

from the Opioid Defendants, we need not address arguments based 

on res judicata or preemption. And, of course, the Legislature has 

not preempted Appellants claims. 

No doubt the global settlement achieves many laudable goals. 

But it cannot deprive Appellants of their legal rights to be made 

whole for their unique losses. The circuit court erred as a matter 

of law in granting summary judgment for the Attorney General in 

the declaratory judgment action. We reverse with direction to 

enter judgment for all Appellants.

REVERSED.

BILBREY and WINOKUR, JJ., concur.

_____________________________

Not final until disposition of any timely and 

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

9.331.

_____________________________

Barry Richard, Tallahassee, for Appellant Halifax Hospital 

Medical Center.

George T. Levesque, Jason L. Unger, Stephen K. Varnell, 

GrayRobinson, P.A., Tallahassee, for Appellant North Broward 

Hospital District.
19

Frank P. Rainer, Office of General Counsel, Memorial Healthcare 

System, Hollywood, for Appellant South Broward Hospital District.

Joseph W. Jacquot, Derek K. Mountford, Gunster, Yoakley & 

Stewart, P.A., Jacksonville, for Appellant School Board of MiamiDade County.

Steven W. Teppler, Mandelbaum Barrett PC, Roseland, New 

Jersey; Timothy M. Hartley, Hartley Law Offices, PLC, Fort 

Lauderdale; David A. Wallace, Morgan R. Bentley, Corinna S. 

Coser, Bentley Goodrich Kison P.A., Sarasota, for Appellants 

Sarasota County Public Hospital District and Lee Memorial 

Health System.

John Wayne Hogan, Terrell Hogan Yegelwel, P.A., Jacksonville, 

for Appellant Putnam County School Board.

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, John Guard, Chief Deputy 

Attorney General, Gregory S. Slemp, Special Counsel, Office of the 

Attorney General, Tallahassee; Henry C. Whitaker, Solicitor 

General, Daniel W. Bell, Chief Deputy Solicitor General, David M. 

Costello, Deputy Solicitor General, Office of the Solicitor General, 

Tallahassee, for Appellee Office of the Attorney General.