Opinion ID: 1610462
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: home venue privilege

Text: We now consider the application of the home venue privilege to this case. The home venue privilege provides that, absent waiver or exception, venue in a suit against the State, or an agency or subdivision of the State, is proper only in the county in which the State, or the agency or subdivision of the State, maintains its principal headquarters. Fla. Pub. Serv. Comm'n v. Triple A Enters., Inc., 387 So.2d 940, 942 (Fla.1980); Carlile v. Game & Fresh Water Fish Com'n, 354 So.2d 362, 363-64 (Fla.1977). The circuit court declined to apply the home venue privilege and the district court affirmed. The district court noted that the records at issue were maintained by DCF in Palm Beach County. Dep't of Children & Families, 839 So.2d at 792. Furthermore, Sun-Sentinel was not seeking a money judgment against DCF, nor a judgment respecting DCF's official, non-record-keeping policies. Id. The court observed that cases applying the home venue privilege almost universally ... involve actions seeking judgment directly against the agency for money damages or for declaratory relief binding the agency in regard to some policy or practice of the agency itself. Id. This case, on the other hand, merely involved a party seek[ing] to exercise its right of access to public records maintained within the jurisdiction of the circuit court. Id. The court thought that it would severely burden the right of access to public records to require that all such actions ... be deemed within the home [venue] privilege of state government. Id. The court also stressed that [n]one of the policies that motivated the adoption of the [judicially created] home [venue] privilege are present in this case. Id. Therefore, the district court found no error with the trial court's denial of a change of venue. Id. The court held that case[s] involving access to public records entirely located in one county ... may be brought where the records are being kept and where access is being denied. Id. at 793. The district court's decision conflicts with the decision in Jacksonville Electric Authority v. Clay County Utility Authority, 802 So.2d 1190 (Fla. 1st DCA 2002), where the First District held that trial courts were bound to apply the home venue privilege unless one of the three recognized exceptions to the privilege was satisfied. The First District reversed the trial court's refusal to apply the home venue privilege even though application of the privilege to that particular case was supported by none of the policy reasons that gave rise to the home venue privilege. Id. at 1193.
Florida's home venue privilege dates back to Smith v. Williams, 160 Fla. 580, 35 So.2d 844 (1948), where this Court distinguished between two different types of suits against state agencies. The first type is those suits in which the primary purpose of the litigation is to obtain a judicial interpretation or declaration of a party's rights or duties under ... rules and regulations [promulgated by the state agency], where no unlawful invasion of a lawful right secured ... by the Constitution or laws of the jurisdiction is directly threatened in the county where suit is instituted. Id. at 846-47. The second type is those suits in which the primary purpose of the litigation is to obtain direct judicial protection from an alleged unlawful invasion of the constitutional rights of the plaintiff within the county where the suit is instituted, because of the enforcement or threatened enforcement by a state agency of rules and regulations alleged to be unconstitutional as to the plaintiff, and where the validity or invalidity of the rules and regulations sought to be enforced comes into question only secondarily and as incidental to the main issue involved. Id. at 847. Unlike those of the second type, which fall under what has now been termed the sword-wielder exception, those of the first type are subject to the state's home venue privilege. The reason for subjecting such suits to the home venue privilege is to promote orderly, efficient, and economical government. Id. The home venue privilege allows for such suits to be defended at a minimum expenditure of effort and public funds. Id. It also allows for a uniformity of interpretation and prevents conflicting judicial rulings in different jurisdictions. Id.; see also Carlile, 354 So.2d at 364 (Such a rule promotes orderly and uniform handling of state litigation and helps to minimize expenditure of public funds and manpower.); Triple A Enters., 387 So.2d at 943 (The common law venue privilege allows for uniform interpretation by one court, thus promoting efficient and uniform rulings, and minimizing expenditure of effort and public funds.). We have recognized only three exceptions to the home venue privilege. One exception exists in cases where the Legislature has by statute waived the privilege. Barr v. Fla. Bd. of Regents, 644 So.2d 333, 336 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994) (citing Henry P. Trawick, Jr., Florida Practice and Procedure, § 5-2 (1993 ed.)). The second exception, known as the sword wielder exception, applies only where direct judicial protection is sought from an unlawful invasion of a constitutional right of the plaintiff, directly threatened in the county where the suit is instituted. Triple A Enters., 387 So.2d at 942. The third exception to the home venue privilege applies in those cases in which the governmental defendant is sued as a joint tortfeasor. Bd. of County Comm'rs v. Grice, 438 So.2d 392, 395 (Fla.1983).
This case does not fall within any of the recognized exceptions to the home venue privilege. The Legislature has not statutorily waived the privilege for public records petitions. The petition was not filed as a shield against the state's thrust. Fla. Dep't of Ins. v. Amador, 841 So.2d 612, 614 (Fla. 3d DCA 2003). Nor was DCF being sued as a joint tortfeasor. Nonetheless, as the district court recognized, the reasons generally supporting the home venue privilege are not present in this case. It is not clear that requiring all such petitions to be filed and litigated in Leon County would promote orderly, efficient, and economical government. Smith, 35 So.2d at 847. DCF already maintains regional offices at which the records in question are located. The personnel at these offices would be most familiar with the records and the facts of each case. A section 119.07(7)(a) petition does not implicate any of DCF's statewide policies or interests. The good cause proceeding is limited to determining whether the public interest in access outweighs the privacy interests of those who are the subjects of the records. This is necessarily a fact-based, case-by-case analysis. It seems that such inquiries could be conducted most efficiently in the county in which the records are maintained and the DCF personnel familiar with the records, as well as the interested parties, are located. Additionally, requiring such petitions to be brought in Leon County would not promote a uniformity of interpretation nor prevent[ ] conflicting judicial rulings in different jurisdictions. Id. The good cause analysis, by its very nature, requires a fact-specific, case-by-case determination. The determination of a circuit court in one county, determining that good cause exists to make public the particular records sought by the petitioner, will not bind DCF to any statewide policy or practice. Nor could such a decision be said to conflict with the decision of another circuit court that determines, in a different case, that good cause does not exist. In this sense, a section 119.07(7)(a) petition is fundamentally different from a typical lawsuit. The reasons that make the home venue privilege appropriate in those cases simply do not translate into this context. The question, then, is whether the trial court was bound to apply the home venue privilege or whether the trial court could, in its discretion, refuse to apply the privilege in a case where applying the privilege would not further any of the policy reasons that support the privilege. We agree with the decision of the First District in Jacksonville Electric that a trial court must apply the home venue privilege unless one of the exceptions to the privilege is satisfied. However, we also believe that it would be appropriate to create a very narrow fourth exception to address this type of case. In Grice, we created the joint tortfeasor exception to the home venue privilege, which provides that a trial court may refuse to apply the home venue privilege when the state agency is sued as a joint tortfeasor. We held that a trial court has discretion to dispense with the home venue privilege when a governmental body is sued as a joint tortfeasor. The exercise of this discretion must be guided by considerations of justice, fairness, and convenience under the circumstances of the case.... The home venue privilege, although not absolute, should be given substantial consideration in this process along with the other circumstances presented and the interests of the other parties. Id. at 395. We created this exception because we recognized that the beneficial purposes of the home venue privilege promot[ing] orderly and uniform handling of state litigation and help[ing] to minimize expenditure of public funds and manpowerwere not furthered when the governmental defendant is sued as a joint tortfeasor. Grice, 438 So.2d at 394. [T]he objective of minimizing public expenditures in the operation of the courts [was] not furthered when the home venue privilege result[ed] in multiple lawsuits, id. at 395, which was what resulted when trial courts were forced to sever lawsuits that otherwise would have been tried in a single proceeding. For similar reasons, we now adopt a Grice -like exception for cases where a party petitions the court for an order to gain access to public records, and where the records sought are by law confidential and cannot be made public without a determination by the court, pursuant to the petition, that good cause exists for public access. In such cases, trial courts will have the same discretion they have in cases where the governmental defendant is sued as a joint tortfeasor. When such a petition is filed, and the governmental agency invokes the home venue privilege and moves to transfer the case to the county in which it maintains its principal headquarters, the trial court should consider the policy reasons that support the home venue privilege. The court should consider whether and to what extent those policies would be furthered by application of the privilege in the case before the court. Taking those considerations into account, the trial court's discretion should be guided by considerations of justice, fairness, and convenience under the circumstances of the case. Grice, 438 So.2d at 395. Because the facts of this case bring it within this newly created exception, we approve the result reached by the district court below insofar as it is consistent with this opinion.