Court Opinion

ID: 9657887
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:40:23.198072+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:49.104259
License: Public Domain

GRIFFIN, J.,
concurring specially.
All of the Florida appellate courts that have considered the meaning of section 443.151(4)(e), Florida Statutes, seem to agree that the logical and most appropriate appellate district to review an order of the commission is the one having the most direct connection with the employment relationship. It appears to be a quirk of Florida unemployment compensation law that appeal by either party to the employment relationship can be filed in diverse locations. See Fla. Admin. Code R. 60BB-6.002. Also, as the majority notes and as we often see, these cases can be connected to multiple locations involving multiple appellate districts. The employee can easily work in one district, live in the adjacent county, which can be within another district, and the employer may be headquartered in a third. That may have contributed to the difficulty with the language of the statute.
The first question I ask myself is whether the logical and appropriate answer can be found anywhere in the words of the statute that we are attempting to interpret. The phrase “appellate district in which the issues involved were decided by an appeals referee” is so odd that it must be odd for a reason. It appears to me as though the purpose of this language is to connect the appellate district to the appeal referee because his or her decision, presumably, would be sited in the place where the application for benefits was made. A case is “decided” in the place where it is pending, not where the referee was physically located at the moment the decision was made or in the place where the referee was located during the hearing. That, I think, is the reason why the phrase, “district in which the issues involved ...” was used. The thought the Legislature was intending to convey was that the commission’s orders are subject to review in the appellate district in which the issues decided by an appeals referee were involved. Use of the word “involved” was not a happy choice because of its lack of precision, but I think the intent to tie the place *1117of the appeal to the situs of the employment issue can be gleaned from the statute.