Opinion ID: 1920315
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Heading Rank: 1

Heading: An Unforeseeability Requirement

Text: The first principle I derive from Olive is a requirement of unforeseeability. Olive held that capital collateral counsel may be paid more than the statutory limits when compensation within the statutory cap would be confiscatory of his or her time, energy and talent. 811 So.2d at 654. In cases like this one, where counsel has signed a contract with the Department that incorporates the statutory fee structure, paying him the contractual rate for the foreseeable work cannot be considered confiscatory. I therefore interpret Olive to mean that attorneys who contract with the Department may be given extra compensation only for work that was unforeseeable at the time of contracting. We have long recognized that while there is no such thing as an absolute freedom of contract, nevertheless, freedom is the general rule and restraint is the exception. Larson v. Lesser, 106 So.2d 188, 191 (Fla.1958); see also Bituminous Cas. Corp. v. Williams, 154 Fla. 191, 17 So.2d 98, 101 (1944) (calling it a matter of great public concern that freedom of contract be not lightly interfered with). This freedom empowers parties to join together in pursuit of mutually beneficial ends. But it also includes freedom to make a bad bargain. Posner v. Posner, 257 So.2d 530, 535 (Fla.1972). Courts may not rewrite contracts or interfere with freedom of contracts or substitute [their] judgment for that of the parties to the contract in order to relieve one of the parties from apparent hardships of an improvident bargain. Quinerly v. Dundee Corp., 159 Fla. 219, 31 So.2d 533, 534 (1947). The parties are masters of their own contract, and then servants to its ultimate terms. I certainly do not mean to suggest that because attorneys continue to contract with the Department, the statutory fee schedule must be adequate. Quite the contrary: I believe that, in most cases, the statutory fees fall far below the market rate. Like the caps that we criticized in White, the caps for registry counsel are frequently unrealistic and amount to little more than token compensation. 537 So.2d at 1379-80. But the fact remains that no attorney is ever required to accept a registry appointment. In this case, the attorney, if he found the statutory fee schedule insufficient, could have declined the appointment and sought more profitable work. Conversely, the Department has a right to insist upon hiring only attorneys willing to accept the fee schedule. Yet these parties chose to bind themselves in what they must have regarded as a mutually beneficial relationship. Thus, barring some exception to freedom of contract, they must be held to their word. Olive recognizes a limited exception to freedom of contract for unusual or extraordinary circumstances where a registry attorney's contract with the Department becomes confiscatory of his or her time, energy and talent. 811 So.2d at 654. This standard appears analogous to the commercial frustration doctrine. Under that doctrine, the district courts have sometimes offered relief from contractual obligations where the parties could not provide themselves by the terms of the contract against the happening of subsequent events. Hilton Oil Transp. v. Oil Transp. Co., 659 So.2d 1141, 1147 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995); see also Brink v. Bank of Am., N.A., 811 So.2d 751, 753 (Fla. 1st DCA 2002) (same). But the doctrine does not apply where the intervening event was reasonably foreseeable and could and should have been controlled by the provisions of such contract. Hilton Oil, 659 So.2d at 1147; see also Home Design Ctr.Joint Venture v. County Appliances of Naples, Inc., 563 So.2d 767, 770 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990) (Even under theories which permit a broader application of the doctrine of commercial frustration, the defense is not available concerning difficulties which could reasonably have been foreseen by the promisor at the creation of the contract.). Nor does the doctrine excuse performance that is not impossible but merely inconvenient, profitless, and expensive. Valencia Ctr., Inc. v. Publix Super Mkts., Inc., 464 So.2d 1267, 1269 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985). The words used in Olive to describe its exception to freedom of contractunusual, extraordinary, confiscatoryalso imply a requirement of unforeseeability. The word confiscatory is particularly instructive. To confiscate means [t]o appropriate (property) as forfeited to the government or [t]o seize (property) by authority of law. Black's Law Dictionary 319 (8th ed.2004). Nothing is forfeited or seized when an attorney receives the contractual price for performing foreseeable work that he agreed to perform. It is a voluntary exchange, with benefits and burdens flowing in each direction. Under the Makemson line of cases, as with the commercial frustration doctrine, the mere fact that the attorney's bargain proves less profitable or expedient than he might have hoped is insufficient to relieve him of his contractual obligations. See Sheppard & White, P.A. v. City of Jacksonville, 827 So.2d 925, 931 (Fla.2002) (We do not read Makemson to hold ... that it is unconstitutional to compensate an attorney at a rate that he or she believes will not cover the overhead or at a rate that he or she believes is not in line with his or her experience or reputation in the community.) (quoting Hillsborough County v. Unterberger, 534 So.2d 838, 842 (Fla. 2d DCA 1988)). Thus, Olive strongly suggests that attorneys who sign a contract with the Department that incorporates the statutory fee schedule may recover compensation above the statutory caps only for work that was unforeseeable at the time of contracting. Unless counsel can show that circumstances have somehow changed from the time he signed the contract, and that he should not reasonably have anticipated that change, Olive requires that he be held to the terms of his bargain. In other words, the attorney must show that the work was unforeseeable, not merely unprofitable. Here, the attorney may find it difficult to demonstrate that his work was unforeseeable. He initially defended his request for extra compensation by explaining to the trial court: We got appointed after the denial of the last item in the Florida Supreme Court and consequently had to read the 40 boxes of material in order to prepare the petition for the writ of certiorari to the United States Supreme Court. That's exactly why it took those many hours. While undoubtedly substantial, this work appears to have been entirely foreseeable. The attorney knew it was a postconviction death-penalty appeal, and that we had already remanded once for an evidentiary hearing on an ineffective assistance claim. See Freeman v. State, 761 So.2d 1055 (Fla. 2000). Thus, he knew that the record would be large and that, to understand the issues in the case, he would need to review both the record and the relevant caselaw. He also knew that the case involved issues of federal law and consequently might be reviewable in the United States Supreme Court. The issue that the attorney ultimately emphasized in the certiorari petitionthe retroactivity of Ring also should have been foreseen. Ring was decided in June 2002, more than a year before the attorney accepted the appointment. We began wrestling with its implications almost immediately. See Bottoson v. Moore, 833 So.2d 693, 695 (Fla.), cert. denied, 537 U.S. 1070, 123 S.Ct. 662, 154 L.Ed.2d 564 (2002); King v. Moore, 831 So.2d 143, 144 (Fla.), cert. denied, 537 U.S. 1067, 123 S.Ct. 657, 154 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002). As we have noted, virtually every postconviction appeal filed in this Court since Ring invokes that case. Johnson v. State, 904 So.2d 400, 406 (Fla.2005). Thus, assuming the attorney studied legal developments related to capital cases, as the statute requires registry counsel to do, see § 27.710(1), Fla. Stat. (2005), he should have anticipated such a claim. While I suspect that most, if not all, of the attorney's work in this case was foreseeable at the time of contracting, the record is simply too sparse to know for sure. The trial court will have to evaluate the issue on remand. At the very least, however, before receiving compensation in excess of the statutory fee schedule to which he agreed, the attorney should be required to identify unforeseen circumstances.