Court Opinion

ID: 9926237
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-24 15:02:41.623245+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:13.240540
License: Public Domain

FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
                STATE OF FLORIDA
                  _____________________________

                         No. 1D2022-1106
                  _____________________________

TERESA MOON-VILENO, an
individual, and DEBORAH LYNN
FELTY, an individual,

    Appellants,

    v.

FLORIDA ASSOCIATION OF COURT
CLERKS, INC., a Florida not for
profit corporation, FACC
SERVICES GROUP, L.L.C. d/b/a
CIVITEK, a Florida Limited
Liability Company, and CIVITEK
NATIONAL, INC., a Florida profit
Corporation,

    Appellees.
                  _____________________________

On appeal from the Circuit Court for Leon County.
J. Layne Smith, Judge.

                        January 24, 2024

B.L. THOMAS, J.

    Appellants filed a class action complaint seeking a declaratory
judgment that Appellees violated section 215.322(5), Florida
Statutes.
     The complaint asserted that Appellees collected a convenience
fee in excess of the amount needed to pay the lawful service fee
charges for credit card processing services used in collecting
payments to court clerks. * The lower court granted summary
judgment in favor of Appellees, finding that section 215.322(5) did
not apply to private entities. The lower court also found that even
if section 215.322(5) did apply, Appellants had no standing to
enforce the statute because the Legislature did not create a private
right of action.

     Appellee Florida Association of Court Clerks, Inc. (“FACC”),
is a private corporate association with its membership composed
of the Florida Court Clerks. FACC created Appellee FACC
Services Group, LLC, d/b/a Civitek (“FACC Services”) as a wholly-
owned subsidiary in order to provide technical services to state
agencies in Florida and other states. Among these services is
processing for credit card payments made to court clerks for court
filing fees, fines, and other payments.

    Section 215.322(2), Florida Statutes, authorizes a “state
agency” to accept credit cards:

         A state agency as defined in s. 216.011, or the
    judicial branch, may accept credit cards, charge cards,
    debit cards, or electronic funds transfers in payment for
    goods and services with the prior approval of the Chief
    Financial Officer. If the Internet or other related
    electronic methods are to be used as the collection
    medium, the state chief information officer shall review
    and recommend to the Chief Financial Officer whether to

    *  The complaint also included counts seeking findings of
unlawful restraint of trade, unjust enrichment, and a declaratory
judgment that Appellees violated section 112.311, Florida
Statutes, by unlawfully using public office for private gain and not
holding public positions for the benefit of the public. The trial court
entered summary judgment in favor of Appellees on all counts.
Appellants did not seek review of the trial court’s order as to these
other counts.

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    approve the request with regard to the process or
    procedure to be used.

     Section 215.322(3)(b) provides that the Chief Financial Officer
shall adopt rules concerning the acceptance of credit cards,
including

    [p]rocedures that permit an agency or officer accepting
    payment by credit card, charge card, debit card, or
    electronic funds transfer to impose a convenience fee
    upon the person making the payment. However, the total
    amount of such convenience fees may not exceed the total
    cost to the state agency.

(emphasis added).

    Section 215.322(5), Florida Statutes, provides:

         A unit of local government, including a municipality,
    special district, or board of county commissioners or other
    governing body of a county, a consolidated or
    metropolitan government, and any clerk of the circuit
    court, sheriff, property appraiser, tax collector, or
    supervisor of elections, is authorized to accept payment
    by use of credit cards, charge cards, bank debit cards, and
    electronic funds transfers for financial obligations that
    are owing to such unit of local government and to
    surcharge the person who uses a credit card, charge card,
    bank debit card, or electronic funds transfer in payment
    of taxes, license fees, tuition, fines, civil penalties, court-
    ordered payments, or court costs, or other statutorily
    prescribed revenues an amount sufficient to pay the
    service fee charges by the financial institution, vending
    service company, or credit card company for such services.
    A unit of local government shall verify both the validity
    of any credit card, charge card, bank debit card, or
    electronic funds transfer used pursuant to this subsection
    and the existence of appropriate credit with respect to the
    person using the card or transfer. The unit of local
    government does not incur any liability as a result of such
    verification or any subsequent action taken.

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(emphasis added). Section 216.011(1)(ww), Florida Statutes,
defines a “state agency” as

    any official, officer, commission, board, authority, council,
    committee, or department of the executive branch of state
    government. For purposes of this chapter and chapter
    215, “state agency” or “agency” includes, but is not limited
    to, state attorneys, public defenders, criminal conflict and
    civil regional counsel, capital collateral regional counsel,
    the Justice Administrative Commission, the Florida
    Housing Finance Corporation, and the Florida Public
    Service Commission. Solely for the purposes of
    implementing s. 19(h), Art. III of the State Constitution,
    the terms “state agency” or “agency” include the judicial
    branch.

     There is no dispute that FACC is generating a profit from
credit card processing fees. Appellants assert that the vast
majority of Florida clerks use FACC Services to process credit card
payments for government services. Appellants also assert that
FACC Services is the only payment processor in counties that use
FACC Services. In these Florida counties, Appellants contend,
FACC Services typically collects an inflated convenience fee for
credit card processing of 3.5% of the amount charged, whereas the
industry standard convenience fee is 2.5%. Thus, for example, in
almost every credit card payment of a traffic ticket, court filing fee,
or child support payment in this state, Appellants contend FACC
is receiving a 1% profit from the payor. Appellants claim that the
FACC has never sought requests for proposals to provide credit
card processing services from any other credit card payment
processor.

     The FACC has also formed a separate wholly owned, for-profit
entity called Civitek National that subcontracts with FACC
Services to provide payment processing services to non-Florida
jurisdictions. Civitek National charges a 2.5% convenience fee.

     Appellants contend that 25% to 30% of FACC Services’
business consists of credit card processing. For just the website
www.myfloridacounty.com, which is owned and operated by FACC
Services, Appellees earned a total of $8.4 million for convenience
fees and similar charges. Profits are transferred from FACC

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Services to FACC in the form of dividends. For the fiscal year
ending in June 2019, FACC Services and Civitek National
transferred $2.9 million to FACC. In the fiscal year ending in June
2020, FACC’s assets totaled $24 million with $19.3 million in
equity, and it earned $3.4 million in revenue from the e-filing
authority convenience fees.

     Appellants assert that FACC uses its profits to cover various
activities that it could not subsidize if it relied solely on its annual
dues totaling around $136,000. For example, FACC uses the
dividends for continuing education and to subsidize three annual
conventions that it holds for its members. FACC also uses profits
from FACC Services to pay for lobbying services and a public
affairs team. In the fiscal year ending in 2020, FACC used profits
from FACC Services to pay $270,000 for lobbying services and
between $400,000 and $500,000 for “public affairs,” according to
Appellants.

     Appellants’ argument that Appellees are violating section
215.322(5), Florida Statutes, invokes the long-standing legal
principle that public officials cannot do indirectly what the law
prohibits them from doing directly. See Cummings v. Missouri, 71
U.S. 277, 288 (1866) (“[W]hat cannot be done directly cannot be
done indirectly.”); State ex rel. Powell v. Leon Cnty., 182 So. 639,
642 (Fla. 1938) (“It is fundamental and elementary that the
legislature may not do that by indirect action which it is prohibited
by the Constitution to do by direct action.”); Green v. Galvin, 114
So. 2d 187, 189 (Fla. 1st DCA 1959) (“Certainly a public official
cannot do indirectly that which he is prohibited from doing
directly.”).

     While Appellants have made a strong case that Appellees
have violated section 215.322(5), we cannot reach the merits of this
case because under Article V of the Florida Constitution, there is
no justiciable controversy, as there is no private cause of action.
See May v. Holley, 59 So. 2d 636, 639 (Fla. 1952) (“Before any
proceeding for declaratory relief should be entertained it should be
clearly made to appear . . . that the relief sought is not merely the
giving of legal advice by the courts or the answer to questions
propounded from curiosity.”); MacNeil v. Crestview Hosp. Corp.,
292 So. 3d 840, 843 (Fla. 1st DCA 2020) (providing that, to state a

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cause of action for declaratory judgment, a plaintiff must show “a
justiciable question as to the existence or nonexistence of some
right, status, immunity, power or privilege, or as to some fact upon
which existence of such a claim may depend” (quoting Ribaya v.
Bd. of Trs. of the City Pension Fund for Firefighters & Police
Officers in the City of Tampa, 162 So. 3d 348, 352 (Fla. 2d DCA
2015))). The Legislature has not provided a cause of action in the
statute to afford Appellants a judicial remedy in this case.

     At oral argument, Appellants contended that they sought
monetary damages as “supplemental relief,” which allowed them
to seek declaratory judgment. Section 86.011(2), Florida Statutes,
explicitly states, “Any person seeking a declaratory judgment may
also demand additional, alternative, coercive, subsequent, or
supplemental relief in the same action.” (emphasis added). We
agree with Appellees that section 86.011 does not authorize a party
to seek as supplemental relief a remedy that it could not otherwise
obtain, where the Legislature declined to provide a private cause
of action. Cf. Y Person v. X Corp., 606 So. 2d 1219, 1220 (Fla. 2d
DCA 1992) (explaining that any entitlement to supplemental relief
arises from and depends upon the declaratory judgment action).

    AFFIRMED.

RAY and M.K. THOMAS, JJ., concur.

                 _____________________________

    Not final until disposition of any timely and
    authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or
    9.331.
               _____________________________

Debra L. Rosenbluth, Debra Rosenbluth Law, PLLC, Winter Park;
Jeffrey M. Liggio, Jason Cornell, Liggio & Cornell, P.A., West Palm
Beach; Philip M. Burlington, Adam Richardson, Burlington &
Rockenbach, P.A., West Palm Beach, for Appellants.

Barry Richard, Greenberg Traurig, P.A., Tallahassee, for
Appellees.

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