Opinion ID: 1109475
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: conflict between ordinance and statute

Text: The board derives its authority from a Dade County ordinance generally barring discriminatory employment practices. Metropolitan Dade County, Fla., Code ch. 11A, art. III, §§ 11A-2 to 11A-40 (1985). The Florida Human Rights Act of 1977 governs similar misconduct. Dade County's home rule charter specifically provides that the supremacy of state legislation must be preserved. Because section 760.02(6) limits the scope of the Human Rights Act to employers with fifteen or more employees, while the ordinance applies to employers with five or more employees, the union argues that the ordinance conflicts with the statute. In order to accept petitioner's argument we would have to conclude that the legislature intended that sexual discrimination by employers of fewer than fifteen employees was permissible. A more reasonable interpretation is that the legislature left this area open to local regulation. We agree with the following analysis of the district court of appeal: In the regulatory area involved in this case, the test of conflict is whether one must violate one provision in order to comply with the other. Jordan Chapel Freewill Baptist Church v. Dade County, 334 So.2d 661 (Fla. 3d DCA 1976). Putting it another way, a conflict exists when two legislative enactments cannot co-exist. E.B. Elliott Advertising Co. v. Metropolitan Dade County, 425 F.2d 1141 (5th Cir. 1970), pet. dismissed, 400 U.S. 805, 91 S.Ct. 12, 27 L.Ed.2d 12 (1970); Metropolitan Dade County v. Santos, 430 So.2d 506 (Fla. 3d DCA 1983), pet. for review denied, 438 So.2d 834 (Fla. 1983). Neither formulation of the rule applies in a situation like this one in which the identical anti-discrimination requirements are simply imposed by the county upon a wider and broader class of entities than the state. 522 So.2d at 856.