MIAMI DADE COUNTY
v.
ANGEL QUINAPALLO
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Miami-Dade County sought to limit refunds for overbilling to four years, but the appellate court held that WASD Rule 2.10(2) requires correction of ALL overbilled charges regardless of time period, while the four-year limit applies only to underbilled charges. The court denied the County's petition for writ of certiorari, upholding the administrative hearing officer's decision to credit Respondent for decades of erroneous charges.
WASD Rule 2.10(2) requires the Department to correct all overbilled charges without any time limitation. The four-year limitation applies only to the Department's authority to correct underbilled or unbilled charges, not to its obligation to correct overbilled charges.
[1] A water and sewer department rule requiring correction of all overbilled charges mandates correction for the entire period of overbilling, not just a limited four-year pe…
[2] A rule authorizing correction of underbilled charges, but limiting the period to four years, does not require correction of underbilled charges beyond that period.
Previewing 2 of 4 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“The Department shall take all required action to correct the billing for all overbilled charges.”
Establishes the mandatory obligation to correct all overbilled charges without time limitation
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceRespondent was overbilled by Miami-Dade County for water and sewer services for over 20 years despite receiving no services. Respondent complained abo…
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Petitioner, Miami-Dade County, (hereinafter "Petitioner") contends the administrative hearing officer departed from the essential [*2] requirements of the law when he ordered that Respondent be credited for monies that both Parties appear to concede Respondent should never have been required to pay. Petitioner is incorrect.
This case is not complicated.
This case is governed by Rule 2.10(2) of the Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department Rules and Regulations for Water and Sewer Service (hereinafter, "WASD Rule "), which plainly and broadly provides, in pertinent part, that "[t]he Department shall take all required action to correct the billing for all overbilled charges. . . ." See WASD 2.10(2) (emphasis added). In this case, it is undisputed that Respondent, who received no services from Petitioner, was overbilled by Petitioner for decades. It follows that the Department must take action to correct the billing for "all" of the "overbilled charges." Id.
Petitioner does not contest that Respondent was overbilled for 20plus years. Petitioner, nevertheless, contends it should only have to "correct the billing" for some of Respondent's overbilled charges. Specifically, Petitioner argues it should only have to correct four-years'- worth of overbilled charges. In support of its argument, Petitioner mistakenly relies on language that limits the period of time within which [*3] the Department may seek to collect on underbilled charges.1 The language upon which the Department relies is also located within WASD Rule 2.10(2). Rule 2.10(2) reads, in full, as follows, The Department shall take all required action to correct the billing for all overbilled charges and shall have the authority to correct the billing for any underbilled or unbilled charges, whether the billing inaccuracies were caused by the Department, the Customer or a third party, for a period limited to four (4) years, in accordance with Florida Statutes, Sec. 95.011. If true readings or consumptions are not available for the period of time covered by the rebilling, the Department shall use actual consumption recorded at the service location during another time period to calculate the rebilling. If it is not possible to determine the actual consumption for any time period, the Department shall base the rebilling on the average anticipated consumption.
Id.
The Rule quite plainly does two things. First, it requires that the Department correct all overbilled charges. Second, it authorizes, but does not require, the Department to correct underbilled charges, so long [*4] as it does not seek to correct any underbilled charges that are more than four years old.2 The polestar of statutory interpretation is legislative intent. See Allstate Indemnity Co. v. Gady Abramson, D.C., P.A., Case No. 3D23- 0797, 2024 WL 4964469, at *1 (Fla. 3d DCA Dec.4, 2024). It is, in fact, a "fundamental principle of statutory construction that legislative intent and policy concerns must control our construction of statutes and that the determination as to the intent of the legislature is based upon the [*5] plain and ordinary meaning of the language in the statute itself." Barnett Bank of South Florida v. State Dept. of Revenue, 571 So. 2d 527, 528 (Fla. 3d DCA 1990). Moreover, a statute or rule should be interpreted to give effect to every clause and harmonize all of its parts. Gady Abramson, 2024 WL 4964469 at *1. "No part of a statute, not even a single word, should be ignored, read out of the text, or rendered meaningless, in construing the provision." Id. (emphasis added).
The County's legislative intent and policy concerns are self-evident. WASD Rule 2.10(2) is pro-Miami-Dade County resident. If you are a resident and you have been overbilled, the County must correct said bill. If you are a resident and you have been underbilled, the County may choose not to correct the bill, but will not, in any event, surprise you with a corrected bill more than four years later. Petitioner's interpretation of the Rule, by contrast, is not only in contravention of the Rule's plain and ordinary meaning, but would require the excision, or redefinition, of the term "all."
Accordingly, the Petition for Writ of Certiorari is DENIED.4