Opinion ID: 1784672
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Agency's Interpretation

Text: The agency with general regulatory powers under the Money Transmitters' Code is the Department of Banking and Finance, which has express statutory authority to issue and publish rules . . . to interpret and implement the provisions of the code, as well as the discretion to effectuate the purposes, policies, and provisions of the code. § 560.105(3), Fla. Stat. (1997). This authority, however, is limited. The Department may exercise [o]nly such rulemaking power and administrative discretion . . . as is necessary, in order that the supervision and regulation of money transmitters may be flexible and readily responsive to changes in economic conditions, in technology, and in money transmitter practices. Id. § 560.102(2)(h). On many occasions, the Department exercised its authority by evaluating whether the Code authorized deferred presentment transactions. First, in February 1995, the Department wrote to Florida's check-cashing association stating that it saw no reason to object to deferred presentment transactions, provided that they adhered to the Code's fee limitations for check-cashing transactions. See Letter from Jeffrey D. Jones, Asst. Gen. Counsel, Office of Comptroller, to Larry F. Lang, President, Fla. Check Cashiers Ass'n, Inc., at 1 (Feb. 24, 1995). The letter cautioned, however, that it was not a rule, declaratory statement or final order, but rather an informal opinion by which the Department would not consider itself bound. Id. In September 1997, the Department promulgated a formal rule addressing deferred presentment transactions. The rule provided that [a] check casher may accept a postdated check, subject to the fees established in Section 560.309(4), F.S. Fla. Admin. Code R. 3C-560.803 (1997). As a logical corollary, the rule also allowed the check casher to wait until the specified date to cash the check. This is because the customer has the ability, by notifying the bank in writing of the postdated check, to prevent it from being cashed early. § 655.86, Fla. Stat. (1997). Unless the Department intended for check cashers to accept postdated checks without ever cashing them, which seems absurd, it must have intended to allow deferred presentment of postdated checks. The majority dismisses the rule because none of the respondent's transactions involved a postdated check; all of her checks were presently dated. But that is too formalist a reading of the rule. No functional difference exists between a postdated check and a presently dated check whose presentment is deferred. In one case, the agreement to defer is noted on the check itself; in the other, it is contained in a separate document. The agreements are effectively the same. Thus, the most logical reading of the Department's rule is that check cashing encompasses transactions in which the check casher waits for an agreed-upon period before cashing the customer's check. See Betts v. McKenzie Check Advance of Fla., LLC, 879 So.2d 667, 671 (Fla. 4th DCA 2004) (stating that the rule expressly approved deferred presentment transactions subject to certain restrictions). Even if the rule did leave some ambiguity, however, it was clarified a few months later. In a letter of advice to Florida check cashers in May 1998, the Department explained, as the rule implied, that deferred presentment transactions were subject to the Code's check-cashing fee structure. But the Department cautioned that when a deferred presentment transaction is rolled over, extended, or renewed for an additional fee, the additional fee may constitute excessive interest under the usury laws. See Letter from Wm. Douglas Johnson, Asst. Dir., Div. of Banking, Dep't of Banking and Fin., to Billy Webster, President/CEO, Advance Am. Cash Advance Ctrs. of Fla., Inc., at 1 (May 5, 1998). In other words, a deferred presentment transaction only counts as check cashing when it is consummated by the actual cashing of the check or cash redemption. Two years later, the Department asked the Attorney General for his opinion on the matter. We have long recognized that [a]lthough an opinion of the Attorney General is not binding on a court, it is entitled to careful consideration and generally should be regarded as highly persuasive. State v. Family Bank of Hallandale, 623 So.2d 474, 478 (Fla.1993). Reaching the same conclusion as the Department, the Attorney General opined that a check casher registered under the Code may cash personal checks for the fees prescribed in [the Code] without violating the usury laws only if such transactions are concluded and are not extended, renewed or continued in any manner with the imposition of additional fees. Op. Atty. Gen. Fla. 00-26 (2000). Finally, in April 2001, the respondent challenged the Department's rule in an administrative proceeding. The administrative law judge dismissed her petition, explaining that nothing in the Code prohibits the check casher from holding the customer's check for an agreed-upon period of time. Betts v. Dep't of Banking & Fin., No. 01-1445RX at 27 (Fla. Div. Admin. Hearings Sept. 7, 2001). While acknowledging that the Department's rule provides more details than the statute, the judge concluded that it does not enlarge, modify or contravene the language it seeks to interpret. Id. at 30. Accordingly, the judge upheld the rule as a reasonable implementation of the statute. The respondent did not appeal. Shortly thereafter, in light of the 2001 amendments to the Code, the rule was repealed. [8] In summary, the Department has consistently interpreted the Code's term check cashing as including deferred presentment transactions unless they involve a rollover, extension, or renewal for an additional fee. This policy was stated informally in 1995 (one year after the Code's enactment), was formalized into a rule in 1997, was further explained in a formal letter in 1998, was embraced by the Attorney General in 2000, and finally was upheld by an administrative law judge in 2001, just before the Code was amended. The interpretations were consistent. Some of the transactions in this case occurred in 1997, the year before the Department made its position absolutely clear in the formal letter. But the letter did not represent a change in Department policy. It merely confirmed the Department's consistent position, as already expressed (less clearly) in the informal opinion and the formal rule. We have not required that, to be entitled to deference, an agency's statutory interpretation be exhaustively articulated in a formal rule. To the contrary, we have deferred to a rule supported by an affidavit from an agency official who attested after the fact that the Department of Revenue had consistently maintained [a] policy since the inception of a given tax. Dep't of Revenue v. First Union Nat'l Bank of Fla., 513 So.2d 114, 119 (Fla. 1987). Thus, when we have reliable evidence that the implementing agency maintained a consistent interpretation of its statute during the time the statute was in effect  as is the case here  that interpretation should be followed if it meets the requirements for administrative deference. I now address that issue.