Opinion ID: 1107655
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: Before deciding these cases, we address a jurisdictional issue. The district courts in these cases only acknowledged, but did not certify, their conflict with the First District. For purposes of our jurisdiction, this is an important distinction. While it is a district court's prerogative to acknowledge rather than certify conflict, such an approach does not give us jurisdiction under article V, section 3(b)(4) of the Florida Constitution (establishing this Court's discretionary jurisdiction to review any decision of a district court of appeal that . . . is certified by it to be in direct conflict with a decision of another district court of appeal) (emphasis added). As already informally recognized, district court opinions accepted [for review as certified conflict cases under article V, section 3(b)(4) of the Florida Constitution] . . . almost uniformly meet two requirements: they use the word `certify' or some variation of the root word `certif.-' in connection with the word `conflict;' and, they indicate a decision from another district court upon which the conflict is based. Harry Lee Anstead, Gerald Kogan, Thomas D. Hall, & Robert Craig Waters, The Operation and Jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of Florida, 29 Nova L.Rev. 431, 529 (2005) (footnote omitted). However, all of the cases  with few exceptions  in which the district court has merely `acknowledged' conflict are treated as petitions for [review based on] `express and direct' conflict [under article V, section (3)(b)(3) of the Florida Constitution], and some are accepted for review on that basis. Id. at 530 (footnote omitted). We thus hold that district court decisions that simply acknowledge, discuss, cite, suggest, or in any other way recognize conflict do not provide a proper basis for a party to seek this Court's review under our certified conflict jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const. To support such review, conflict must be certified. Of course, this does not mean that we lose all jurisdiction to review the case. As occurred with the three cases here, jurisdiction may nevertheless exist under our express and direct conflict jurisdiction, see art. V, § 3(b)(3), Fla. Const. (granting this Court jurisdiction to review district court opinions that expressly and directly conflict with the decision of another district court of appeal or with a decision of the Florida Supreme Court), or on some other basis. The difference is that a certification of conflict provides us with jurisdiction per se. On the other hand, when a district court does not certify the conflict, our jurisdiction to review the case depends on whether the decision actually expressly and directly conflicts with the decision of another court. We therefore advise district courts that when they intend to certify conflict under article V, section 3(b)(4) of the Florida Constitution, they use the constitutional term of art certify.