Court Opinion

ID: 4366566
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2019-02-11 17:06:06.900579+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:17:12.312596
License: Public Domain

FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
                STATE OF FLORIDA
                 _____________________________

                         No. 1D17-3637
                 _____________________________

HADI BARAKAT d/b/a BARAKAT
FOOD STORE,

    Appellant,

    v.

FLORIDA OFFICE OF FINANCIAL
REGULATION,

    Appellee.
                 _____________________________

On appeal from State of Florida, Office of Financial Regulation.
Drew J. Breakspear, Commissioner.

                       February 11, 2019

PER CURIAM.

     Hadi Barakat appeals the Office of Financial Regulations’s
denial of his request to contest a final order entered against him
as the proprietor of a convenience store that is alleged to have
engaged in transactions violating Florida check cashing laws. He
claims he was out of the country and that the OFR’s service of its
complaint against him on a shopkeeper and at his parent’s home
was ineffectual; the OFR counters that service was proper as to
both (Barakat had listed his parent’s home as an official address)
and that Barakat’s affidavit is not credible. Under these
circumstances, where the OFR has served notice of the complaint
in facially valid ways and Barakat claims that notice was invalid
based on disputed facts, a limited remand is necessary to adjudge
the matter. See Avante, Inc. v. Agency for Health Care Admin., 722
So. 2d 965 (Fla. 1st DCA 1998); Symons v. State, Dep’t of Banking
and Fin., 490 So. 2d 1322 (Fla. 1st DCA 1986); Brown v. State,
Dep’t of Fin. Servs., 899 So. 2d 1246 (Fla. 4th DCA 2005).

    REVERSED and REMANDED.

LEWIS, MAKAR, 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.
               _____________________________

Michael T. King, Neptune Beach, for Appellant.

Anthony Cammarata and          Miriam    S.   Wilkinson   A.G.C.,
Tallahassee, for Appellee.

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