E. GUY REVELL, JR., AS CHAIRMAN OF THE FLORIDA PAROLE COMMISSION, AND RICHARD L. DUGGER, AS SECRETARY OF THE FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, APPELLANTS,
v.
ALBERT EUGENE PASCHAL, APPELLEE

Fla. 4th DCA | 1990-07-11
No. 90-0429
LETTS, GLICKSTEIN and GARRETT, JJ., concur.
564 So. 2d 218 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fourth District (1990) Positive Treatment
Cited by 4 cases

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Synopsis

The Florida Parole Commission chairman and Department of Corrections secretary appealed a trial court's denial of their motion to dismiss or change venue in an inmate's action seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to challenge factual findings used in denying his parole. The appellate court reversed, holding that venue properly lies in Leon County where the state agencies maintain their principal headquarters under the common law home venue privilege.


Holding

Venue properly lies in Leon County, the home county of the state agencies, under the common law home venue privilege. The trial court erred in denying the motion to dismiss or change venue because neither exception to home venue discussed in Carlile v. Game & Fresh Water Fish Commission applies here, and neither section 768.28(1) Florida Statutes nor chapter 47 Florida Statutes abrogates the common law privilege.


Headnotes

[1] Venue properly lies in the county where state agencies maintain their principal headquarters, absent specific statutory abrogation of the common law privilege of home ven…

[2] A statute governing actions at law against the state for money damages in tort does not abrogate the common law privilege of home venue for state agencies in actions seek…

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Key Quotes

“Therefore, venue properly lies in the county where the state agencies maintain their principal headquarters.”

Establishes the holding that Leon County is the proper venue for actions against state agencies under the common law home venue privilege

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Facts & Procedural History

Albert Eugene Paschal, an inmate at Glades Correctional Institute in Palm Beach County, was convicted of murder in 1970, sentenced to death, and then …

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Opinion of the Court
PER CURIAM.

PER CURIAM.

This is an appeal of a non-final order denying a motion to dismiss, or in the alternative, motion for change of venue. We reverse.

Appellant Revell is the chairman of the Florida Parole Commission and appellant Dugger is the secretary of the Department of Corrections. Both state agencies are headquartered in Leon County.

Appellee is an inmate in the Glades Correctional Institute in Belle Glade, Palm Beach County. He was convicted of murder in 1970 and sentenced to death. This sentence was vacated in 1972 following the Supreme Court’s decision in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972). He was then resen-tenced to life imprisonment, which entitles him to be considered for parole release by the Florida Parole Commission. The Commission denied his release and suspended his presumptive parole release date. Among the reasons for the Commission’s decision were the circumstances surround ing his offense, including the following factors taken from a 1972 investigative report: 1) pistol whipping of the proprietress of the store being robbed and 2) shooting and wounding of a deputy while escaping the scene.

Appellee filed a complaint with the Palm Beach County Circuit Court alleging that both of the above factors were false.1 He attached an affidavit from the deputy sheriff that he had not been shot and a portion of testimony by the store proprietress before a coroner’s jury in which she testified that she had been hit by Paschal during the robbery. He sought declaratory judgment and injunctive relief.

Both appellants Revell and Dugger filed motions to dismiss/alternative motions for a change of venue to their home county. The trial court denied the motions. We reverse. See Carlile v. Game & Fresh Water Fish Comm’n, 354 So. 2d 362 (Fla. 1977). Neither exception discussed in Car-lile applies here. Therefore, venue properly lies in the county where the state agencies maintain their principal headquarters.

We reject appellee’s argument that section 768.28(1), Florida Statutes (1981), abrogated the common law privilege of home venue. Since that section specifically refers to actions at law against the state to recover damages in tort for money damages for injury or loss of property, personal injury or death, it does not apply to the instant case. The instant case seeks declaratory and injunctive relief under chapter 86, Florida Statutes (1989). No section of chapter 86 abrogates the common law privilege of home venue for state agencies. In addition, as appellants point out, no section of chapter 47, Florida Statutes, “Venue,” abrogates the common law privilege of home venue in civil actions.

LETTS, GLICKSTEIN and GARRETT, JJ., concur. . In another case appellee sought a writ of habe-as corpus or, in the alternative, mandamus to review the Commission’s decision. The trial court denied the writ and this court affirmed the denial. Paschal v. Fontana, 548 So. 2d 1190 (Fla. 4th DCA 1989).


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • The Levy Cnty. Sch. Bd. v. Bowdoin, 607 So. 2d 479 (Fla. 1st DCA 1992)
    …. Carlile v. Game & Fresh Water Fish Comm’n, 354 So. 2d 362, 363-64 (Fla.1977); Nyberg v. Snover, 604 So. 2d 894 (Fla. 1st DCA 1992). The venue provisions of Chapter 47, Florida Statutes, do not abrogate this common-law privilege. Revell v. Paschal, 564 So. 2d 218, 219 (Fla. 4th DCA 1990). When, however, a suit involves two defendants residing in different counties, one being a governmental entity, trial courts have the discretion to dispense with the home-venue privilege, “guided by considerations of justice…
  • Denson v. The Honorable Edward Rodgers, 658 So. 2d 1224 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995)
    …. At a minimum, his pleading should have been assigned to another division by the clerk or chief judge, as Petitioner requested, if not by the division judge. We do not address whether venue should be transferred, as directed in Revell v. Paschal, 564 So. 2d 218 (Fla. 4th DCA 1990), as such relief has not, as yet, been requested in the trial court by the state. Nor do we address whether the trial court could construe Petitioner’s pleading as a petition for writ of habeas corpus, asserting that Petitioner is…

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