Opinion ID: 77679
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Appellant's Entire Case May Be Moot If All Citations Are Closed

Text: 13 The record indicates that the City withdrew all of the Notices of Violation that gave rise to this Complaint during negotiations over a possible pre-trial settlement in May of 2004. Defendant City of Miami Beach's Response To Order To Show Cause, May 5, 2002, at 2. The plaintiffs filed their complaint on March 24, 2003, challenging the citations that the City issued between November 2001 and February 2002. They appended a list of the citations to the Complaint as Exhibit A. The City continued to cite L.C. for violating the County noise ordinance after February 2002, however. Yet, L.C. never amended its complaint to include these additional citations. 14 From May 2002 through April 2003, the City cited L.C. for thirteen additional violations of the County noise ordinance, and in August of 2003, it scheduled a hearing to suspend L.C.'s business license on account of these newly alleged violations. 136 Collins Avenue, L.C. Statement of Undisputed Material Facts, March 29, 2004, Composite Exhibit 2. The City scheduled the license suspension hearing for September 11, 2003. On September 8, 2003, L.C. filed for a temporary injunction in the circuit court for Dade County to halt the scheduled licensing proceeding. The circuit court issued a temporary injunction on October 30, 2003. 15 Thereafter, the City rescheduled a special master hearing on the violations for April 22, 2004. This hearing never took place, however. When the parties filed their Joint Pre-Trial Stipulation of the Facts on May 4, 2004, they stated that on or about April 27, 2004 the City had closed the Notices of Violation for all thirteen citations issued between May 2002 and April 2003 and withdrawn the scheduled special master proceedings. Joint Pretrial Stipulation by DA Mortgage, 136 Collins Avenue, City of Miami Beach, Miami-Dade County, May 5, 2004, Part V, ¶ 9, note. According to the parties, the only Notice of Violation concerning section 21-28 of the County Code that remained open at this point was one issued to L.C. on March 22, 2004. Id. 16 The parties make no reference to this citation in their appellate briefs and the record offers no more information on the status of this notice. The City simply maintains that it has withdrawn all citations that it issued to L.C. pursuant to the County noise ordinance. L.C. asserts in its reply brief that one citation— CE05001965—remains open, but concedes in a footnote that based [u]pon information and belief, the open violation is a duplicate of 1[sic] City closed. Appellant's Reply Brief, September 14, 2006, at 1 n.2. The appellant directs this Court to addendum 2 of its reply brief, which consists of a print-out from the search engine on the City Code Compliance database. The search was executed on September 8, 2006, according to the print-out. It shows that CE05001965, which was issued on January 31, 2005, was still OPEN as of September 8, 2006. Id. at addendum 2. 17 Yet addendum 3 of the same appellate brief, which provides a copy of an email from the Assistant City Manager to City Code Compliance personnel, states that noise violation notice CE05001965 issued 1/31/05 has been closed. Id. at addendum 3. It also states that the special master's office has been informed that no further action is required. Id. The City Manager's email predates the print-out from the City Code Compliance database by several weeks. Id. 18 The parties did not clear up the dispute during oral argument. The City insisted that all Notices of Violations issued pursuant to the County noise ordinance had been closed, and if not, that it was the City's intent to withdraw them. The appellant insisted that one notice remained open and that they had standing to challenge the constitutionality of the County noise ordinance based on this one outstanding notice. 19 Since the record is unclear, we proceed with this analysis on the arguable assumption that the City issued L.C. one Notice of Violation with respect to the County noise ordinance that still remains open. 7 20