Title: Smith v. City of St. Petersburg
Citation: 302 So. 2d 756
Docket Number: 45077
State: Florida
Issuer: Florida Supreme Court
Date: October 30, 1974

302 So. 2d 756 (1974)
Frank F. SMITH, Jr., Appellant,
v.
The CITY OF ST. PETERSBURG, a Municipality Organized and Existing under the Laws of the State of Florida, Appellee.
No. 45077.

Supreme Court of Florida.
October 30, 1974.
Dennis R. Kuhn of the Law Offices of Eugene P. Spellman, Miami, for appellant.
Thomas G. Wright, Jr., Asst. City Atty., for appellee.
*757 PER CURIAM.
By this direct appeal, appellant contests a ruling of the Circuit Court of Pinellas County, Florida, in a suit for declaratory relief, which essentially upheld the validity of Chapter 72-681, Laws of Florida, upon determination that the title to the "law" under review passed the constititional requirements set forth in Art. III, § 6, Florida Constitution. We have jurisdiction pursuant to Article V, § 3(b)(1), Florida Constitution, and we agree with the trial court.
The title to Chapter 72-681 reads as follows:
Obviously this is a "home rule" Act, and its body specified numerous other acts by title only, thereby converting them into home rule ordinances. Subsequently, the City of St. Petersburg repealed one of these ordinances, formerly Chapter 18,890, Acts of 1937, which had established a city civil service system, and substituted in lieu thereof a personnel management system under the provisions of which the appellant was discharged as a city employee.
Neither the facts nor the merits of appellant's discharge are before us for review. Only the sufficiency of the title of the cited Act is in dispute. The guidelines dispositive of this issue are comparatively clear.
A statute is to be construed in such manner as to ascertain and give effect to the evident interpretation of the Legislature as set forth in the statute, and where any ambiguity in the meaning or context of a statute exists, this must yield to the legislative purpose. Deltona Corporation v. Florida Public Service Commission, 220 So. 2d 905 (Fla. 1969); Beebe v. Richardson, 156 Fla. 559, 23 So. 2d 718 (1945).
In King Kole, Inc. v. Bryant, 178 So. 2d 2 (Fla. 1965), our Court stated:
Then, our Court in City of Ocoee v. Bowness, 65 So. 2d 7 (Fla. 1953), again treating the issue of sufficiency of the title to a Special Act, stated:
For a legislative enactment to fail, the conflict between it and the Constitution must be palpable, however, where by reasonable intent the title can be determined to be sufficiently broad as to include a provision that can be deemed to reasonably connect it with the subject of the enactment, then it should not be declared inoperative and unconstitutional. In other words, the title should reasonably and fairly give notice of what one may expect to find in the body of the enactment. Bird Key Corp. v. City of Sarasota et al., 54 So. 2d 245 (Fla. 1951); Howarth v. DeLand, 117 Fla. 692, 158 So. 294 (1934); State ex rel. Buford v. Daniel, 87 Fla. 270, 99 So. 804 (1924).
The "law" under review passes those tests hereinabove described. Indeed, it cannot be found to have perpetrated any fraud or surprise or enacted with a calculated intention or desire to mislead. Neither does it amend or revise but specifically states that it repeals specified Acts and parts of Acts, converting them into home rule ordinances.
Finding no error in the trial court's determination, the same is hereby affirmed.
It is so ordered.
ADKINS, C.J., and ROBERTS, ERVIN, BOYD, McCAIN, DEKLE and OVERTON, JJ., concur.