Opinion ID: 1828490
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Pan-Am as Established Precedent

Text: Finally, the actions of the Legislature in enacting this legislation in 1991 must also be read in the context of this Court's then-existing precedent. Seven years before the 1991 enactment of section 11.066, this Court issued its opinion in Pan-Am Tobacco Corp. v. Department of Corrections, 471 So.2d 4 (Fla.1984). We held there that [w]here the legislature has, by general law, authorized entities of the state to enter into contract or undertake those activities which, as a matter of practicality, require entering into contract, the legislature has clearly intended that such contracts be valid and binding on both parties. Id. at 5. The basis for this holding was our conclusion that [a]s a matter of law, the state must be obligated to the private citizen or the legislative authorization for such action is void and meaningless. Id. This conclusion was also the foundation for our holding in Pan-Am that where the state has entered into a contract fairly authorized by the powers granted by general law, the defense of sovereign immunity will not protect the state from action arising from the state's breach of that contract. Id. In reaching that result, we rejected the State's contention that mutuality of remedy is satisfied by petitioner's opportunity to bring a claims bill before the legislature. Id. DEP urges the Court to find that section 11.066 is a clear reassertion of limited sovereign immunity as to breach of contract judgments and a statutory prohibition of enforcement of those judgments. However, if the Legislature truly intended to reassert sovereign immunity as to breach of contract judgments in section 11.066, and to overrule clear prior precedent that has been relied on for many years by the courts of this state (as well as those entities contracting with the State), we expect that such intent would have been specifically stated within the statutory scheme or, at the very least, in the legislative history and staff analyses pertaining to the enactment  all of which are absent in this case. [9] Although absence of an expression of intent to overrule this Court's precedent is not dispositive in all cases, we presume that the Legislature would not effect so important a measure as the overruling of Pan-Am or the reassertion of sovereign immunity to contract actions without expressing a clear intention to do so. Cf. Knowles v. Beverly Enterprises-Florida, Inc., 898 So.2d 1, 9 (Fla. 2004) (recognizing that the courts must presume that the Legislature will not effect so important a measure as the repeal of a law without expressing an intention to do so). [10] Furthermore, the legislature is presumed to have adopted prior judicial constructions of a law unless a contrary intention is expressed in the new version. Jones, 793 So.2d at 917 (emphasis supplied) (quoting City of Hollywood v. Lombardi, 770 So.2d 1196, 1202 (Fla.2000)). We conclude that section 11.066 does not express a clear intent to nullify our decision in Pan-Am and those decisions that follow it, and does not express a clear intent to reimpose any aspect of sovereign immunity as to express, written contracts entered into by the State or its agencies. Under the principles announced in Pan-Am, a contract that grants one party the right to sue, but also affords the other party the right to declare that it has no legal obligation to pay, is void for lack of mutuality of remedy. See Pan-Am, 471 So.2d at 5. That is essentially the same situation created by an application of section 11.066 to bar payment of a validly obtained judgment arising from breach of an express, written contract. The ability to sue for damages, found to be necessary in Pan-Am to prevent the contract from being illusory, is meaningless without the ability to collect on the resulting judgment. Similar to our holding in Pan-Am that a contract that is not mutually enforceable is illusory, we hold that a contract that provides no remedy by way of enforcement of a valid judgment is also illusory. Based on this principle, we cannot conclude that the Legislature intended for all the express, written contracts entered into by its agencies pursuant to legislatively granted general contracting authority to be illusory. We have long held that the Court should not interpret a statute in a manner resulting in unreasonable, harsh, or absurd consequences. State v. Atkinson, 831 So.2d 172, 174 (Fla.2002); see also State v. Burris, 875 So.2d 408, 414 (Fla. 2004) (A statute's plain and ordinary meaning controls only if it does not lead to an unreasonable result.). [S]tatutory provisions should not be construed in a manner that would lead to an absurd result. State v. Presidential Women's Ctr., 937 So.2d 114, 119 (Fla.2006) (citing Warner v. City of Boca Raton, 887 So.2d 1023, 1033 n. 9 (Fla.2004)). Nor should statutes be construed so as to lead to untenable conclusions. Austin v. State ex rel. Christian, 310 So.2d 289, 293 (Fla.1975). Although the dissent asserts that it is ascribing a plain language meaning to the statute and that the majority thwarts the clear legislative intent, the dissent adds words to subsection (3) that are not contained in the statute by concluding that the only legislative prerogative is to control the timing of payment of the judgment and not the obligation to pay the judgment. We assume that this caveat was added in order to avoid the inescapable conclusion that, without an obligation to pay the judgment, the contract would be wholly illusory. Although this caveat would place constraints on the Legislature, it does so without any standards. How long is too long? Could the Legislature pay in installments? How should or would the Legislature prioritize? What rules would the judgment creditor follow? Would it have to obtain a claims bill? The fact that these questions must be asked further reinforces our conclusion that the Legislature would never have intended the result reached by the dissent, a result that authorizes the State to avoid its validly entered contracts and the monetary consequences resulting from any breach. [11] If we were to interpret section 11.066(3) in isolation as prohibiting payment of valid breach of contract judgments, thereby rendering express, written contracts entered into by the State under legislatively granted authority essentially illusory and unenforceable, that result would be untenable and contrary to the Legislature's overall intent. The sounder and more reasoned interpretation, viewing the statute in its entirety, in light of the overall legislative scheme of encouraging private/public partnerships, and keeping in mind the history of this provision, is that section 11.066 is not applicable to breach of contract judgments.