Opinion
No. 4-86-0432.
March 4, 1987. Rehearing Denied April 29, 1987.
Petition from the Circuit Court, Broward County, Robert L. Andrews, J.
Andrew DeGraffenreidt, III, City Atty., and Saul Smolar, Asst. City Atty. for City of Hollywood, Hollywood, for petitioner.
Edna L. Caruso of Edna L. Caruso, P.A., West Palm Beach, and Walden Molchan, P.A., Dania, for respondent.
We grant the City of Hollywood's petition for writ of common law certiorari and quash the circuit court's final judgment granting permission to the South Broward Hospital District for a ground level emergency helicopter landing pad adjacent to the hospital.
The final judgment is quashed because the circuit court acting in its appellate capacity departed from the essential requirements of law in that the court improperly applied the "balancing of public interests" test, reweighed the evidence, and substituted its judgment for that of the fact finder.
City of Deerfield Beach v. Vaillant, 399 So.2d 1045 (Fla. 4th DCA 1981), aff'd, 419 So.2d 624 (Fla. 1982), stands for the proposition that when a circuit court sits in its appellate capacity, as it did in the instant case, its scope of review is limited to a determination of whether the City:
1. provided procedural due process;
2. observed the essential requirement of the law; and
3. supported its findings by substantial competent substantial evidence.
In the instant case, the final judgment makes no mention of any of these standards of review. Instead, the circuit court states that the test known as the balancing of public interest test, also known as the competing interests test, is the proper standard to be followed in resolving the issue before it.
In the final judgment the court stated:
That by a weighing and determination of the public interests which are involved in this cause and that through a proper application of the balancing of public interests test which is referred to in the findings of this judgment, the Court finds and determines that the more compelling and more important of such interests are in favor of South Broward Hospital District and against City of Hollywood, all with respect to the application of South Broward Hospital District to City of Hollywood for the granting of a special exception to allow the construction of a ground level helistop at the site known as Memorial Hospital, 3501 Johnson Street, Hollywood, Broward County, Florida.
Thus, it is clear from the express words of the final judgment that the circuit court reweighed the evidence contrary to the teachings of Vaillant.
A district court, upon review of a circuit judgment rendered in its appellate capacity, determines whether the circuit court afforded procedural due process and applied the correct law. Vaillant, at 1046. In the instant case, procedural due process is not an issue but we have determined that the circuit court did not apply the correct law.
DOWNEY, J., concurs.
LETTS, J., concurs specially with opinion.
The Hospital urges us to heed the case of Orange County v. City of Apopka, 299 So.2d 652 (Fla. 4th DCA 1974), where the court held that the circuit court is the proper forum to "weigh all pertinent factors" to decide if the host government (the City) is acting "unreasonably" vis-a-vis the intruding governmental unit (the Hospital District) and balance the competing public interests. However, Apopka was rendered impotent when, in its grant of the petition for rehearing, it confessed error over the applicability of the statute relied on in the opinion. Moreover, Apopka involves a suit for a declaratory judgment initially filed in circuit court.
Our attention is also directed to Village of North Palm Beach v. School Board of Palm Beach County, 349 So.2d 683 (Fla. 4th DCA 1977) for the same proposition. However, this case had its origin in the circuit court rather than before administrative bodies.