BROWARD COUNTY, APPELLANT,
v.
JAMES H. WAKEFIELD, DONALD C. AUSTIN, AND LE NEASE AUSTIN, APPELLEES

Fla. 4th DCA | 1994-04-20
No. 93-0617
HERSEY and POLEN, JJ., concur.
636 So. 2d 123 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fourth District (1994) Positive Treatment
Cited by 4 cases

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Holding

The court held that the trial court erred in excluding expert testimony regarding noise levels, as the ordinance established noise zones for notice purposes, not as conclusive proof of actual noise levels.


Headnotes

[1] An order determining liability in favor of a party seeking affirmative relief in an inverse condemnation action is an appealable non-final order.

[2] A local ordinance establishing noise zones based on projections of future aircraft noise does not preclude evidence of actual current noise levels.

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Facts & Procedural History

Broward County appealed an order finding a taking in an inverse condemnation action concerning aviation noise from an airport. The county sought to in…

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Opinion of the Court
FARMER, Judge.

FARMER, Judge.

Broward County appeals an order finding a “taking” in an inverse condemnation action. We find the order appealable as a non-final order determining liability in favor of a party seeking affirmative relief. See Fla.R.App.P. 9.130(a)(3)(C)(iv).

This is another aviation noise, inverse condemnation case concerning Broward County’s Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport [FLHIA]. Plaintiffs sought to establish that ordinary aircraft noise emanat ing from FLHIA has effected a taking of their nearby properties, lying 2,600 feet north of one of the runways. Broward County Ordinance 82-34 establishes four specific noise zones around FLHIA.1 The subject properties are within an area designated by Ordinance 82-34 as “Noise Zone C”.2

The noise levels described in ordinance 82-34 were based on a 1980 federal study in which a computer program made projections of average noise levels emitted by operating aircraft during a typical 24-hour period. In the words of Ordinance 82-34:

“Such noise zones are shown on the Noise Exposure Map for [FLHIA] * * * and shows the noise contours based on a projection of future noise environments arising from aircraft flight operations at [FLHIA] through the year 1990.”

At the trial on the landowners’ inverse condemnation claim, Broward County sought to adduce the testimony of an expert to show that more recent studies with more advanced programs would show that the actual noise levels in zone C were less than stated in Ordinance 82-34. The trial judge refused to permit the expert witness to testify. He explained:

“They had an underlying proven fact when they had the ordinance so they are stuck with it. The ordinance is what the ordinance says it is. You are totally correct. In Florida it is unconstitutional to legislatively create a true irrebuttable presumption but that is not what you have done here. You have taken a fact and taken that established scientific fact and in essence enacted it into law. You haven’t taken a fact and then presumed from that fact an irrebuttable presumption of something. You have taken a scientific fact and transformed it from a scientific fact generally speaking into a law and therefore you are stuck with it. * * * For me to allow the expert to testify otherwise would be to allow the expert to amend the statute when he has no constitutional authority. He is not an elected body. * * * You have by ordinance established the level and there can be no evidence admitted to show a different level of sound because in essence to do that would be an amendment of the ordinance by the court, allowing it to be done in violation of the law. I take the law as I find it.”

The court thereupon granted plaintiffs motion to strike [sic] the proposed testimony of the expert witness. The case proceeded to trial, and the court found that a taking had occurred.

We agree with the County that it was error to exclude the testimony of its expert witness.3 Ordinance 82-34 merely gave notice to present and future occupiers of land that aviation noise in the area of the zones was thought to be at certain levels as projected by the federal study. Indeed, the ordinance expressly stated:

“[T]he purpose of establishing said noise zones is to give notice to current residents and future residents that their property is within a noise zone that is affected by the aircraft noise generated from [FLHIA] and that said noise shall be a factor in the quality of their fives.”

As we have already shown, later in the text, ordinance 82-34 clearly states that it “shows the noise contours based on a projection [e.s.] of future noise environments arising from aircraft flight operations at [FLHIA] through the year 1990.” We are thus unable to read into this ordinance any presumption of any particular noise level. The only presumption reasonably attributable to the text is that the areas designated do indeed suffer from noise arising from aircraft flight operations at FLHIA. The level of noise at any particular place is quite another matter. Ordinance 82-34 labels the noise levels as “projections”. The term “projection” is obviously a tentative appellation, emphasizing that in reality the actual level at any place, at any time (especially after 1990), might be different. There is thus no logical basis from this text to suppose that any party might be precluded from showing what that reality is. One way might be simply to go out to “Blaekacre” and measure the sound there with recording devices and measuring equipment; another might be through computer models established by expert testimony. Here the trial judge deprived the County of the latter method by his interpretation of the ordinance.

We reverse and remand for a new trial on the taking issue in which neither party shall be precluded from offering the kind of evidence excluded at the last trial.

REVERSED.

HERSEY and POLEN, JJ., concur. . Ordinance 82-34 is codified at Broward County, Fla., Code ch. 2, art. Ill, div. 4, §§ 2 — 101—2— 104 (1982).

. Without going into the technical data, let us say that the noise level in zone C is loud, and let it go at that.

. We reject the landowners' argument that the pretrial stipulation established conclusively that the actual noise level at their properties was as specified in ordinance 82-34, as to which the court had taken judicial notice. Nor do we agree that the evidence sought to be adduced by Broward County would have contradicted the court's judicial notice of ordinance 82-34. As the text of this opinion makes clear, ordinance 82-34 merely gave notice that certain areas surrounding FLHIA suffered from aviation operations noise, and that the level of noise in the identified zones was believed, on account of a federal study, to be at certain levels. We do not construe this ordinance to have the effect that the owners' counsel so effectively argued at trial. If it were deemed, in spite of its text, to establish the actual noise level for the area within its various zones, the ordinance would effectively become an ipso facto condemnation of all property located in the areas. We construe statutory text; we do not conjure unarticulated legislative intent.


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  • Osceola Cnty. v. Best Diversified, Inc., 830 So. 2d 139 (Fla. 5th DCA 2002)
    …suits have based their jurisdiction on rule 9.130(a)(3)(C)(iv). For example, Palm Beach County v. Cove Club Investors Ltd., 692 So. 2d 998 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997); City of Key West v. Berg, 655 So. 2d 196 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995); Broward County v. Wakefield, 636 So. 2d 123 (Fla. 4th DCA 1994); and Pinellas County v. Brown, 450 So. 2d 240 (Fla. 2d DCA 1984), allowed the appeals to go forward, finding jurisdiction pursuant to rule 9.130(a)(3)(C)(iv), which permitted review of non-final orders determining the issue of li…
  • City OF KEY W. v. Berg, 655 So. 2d 196 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995)
    …erlocutory appeal because the non-final order appealed from “deter-minéis] ... the issue of liability in favor of a party seeking affirmative relief.” Fla. R.App.P. 9.130(a)(3)(C)(iv); see Art. V, § 4(b)(1), Fla. Const.; Broward County v. Wakefield, 636 So. 2d 123 (Fla. 4th DCA 1994); Division of Admin., State of Fla. Dep’t. of Transp. v. Mobile Gas Co., 427 So. 2d 1024, 1025 (Fla. 1st DCA), rev. denied, 437 So. 2d 677 (Fla.1983). Without burdening this opinion with the complex facts of the instant case, su…

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