HELEN SAFFAN, PETITIONER,
v.
COUNTY OF DADE, STATE OF FLORIDA, RESPONDENT
AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.
Saffan sought certiorari review of a circuit court's dismissal of her appeal from a Metropolitan Court traffic violation conviction, arguing the 20-day appeal deadline in the Dade County Home Rule Charter should be superseded by either a 90-day appellate rule period or a 30-day statutory period. The court held that Florida Statute § 932.52's 30-day period governs appeals from municipal courts, as the Home Rule Charter authority to set appeal procedures was exhausted by designating the circuit court as the appellate forum.
The 30-day appeal period prescribed in Florida Statute § 932.52 applies to appeals from municipal courts (including the Dade County Metropolitan Court) to the circuit court. The Dade County Home Rule Charter's 20-day provision does not supersede this general state statute because the Charter's authority to regulate appeal time was exhausted by designating the circuit court as the appellate forum; the general laws of Florida set the time for taking appeals.
“Under the foregoing provisions the Board exercises the powers formerly vested in the state legislature with respect to the affairs, property and government of Dade County and all the municipalities within its territorial limits. In the exercise of such power the Board, of course, may not transgress any of the provisions of the Constitution and general laws of this state except in those instances where the power to do so is expressly authorized by the provisions of that portion of the Florida Constitution designated as the Dade County Home Rule Amendment.”
Establishes the limit of the Home Rule Charter's authority—it cannot override general state law except where the Constitution expressly permits.
Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceHelen Saffan was convicted of a traffic violation in the Dade County Metropolitan Court. She filed an appeal to the circuit court more than 20 days bu…
The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.
Explore caselaw by topic → Browse Dade County Home Rule Charter cases and more on FLexlaw
We are presented with a petition for certiorari to review a judgment of the circuit court in the exercise of its appellate jurisdiction. The circuit court dismissed petitioner’s appeal from a conviction of a traffic violation in the Metropolitan Court. The petition alleges that the dismissal of the appeal was in violation of the essential requirements of law.
The circuit court, basing its action on § 6.02 of the Metro Charter,1 dismissed petitioner’s appeal because it was filed more than twenty days after the entry of the judgment in the Metropolitan Court.
Petitioner contends that the 20-day appeal time provided by the Charter is not *103effective in that the time for taking such an appeal is governed by the 90-day period provided by Florida Appellate Rules 6.1 and 6.2, 31 F.S.A.2
Respondent-County sets out that the determination of the time in which appeals may be taken is a legislative function. Ramagli Realty Co. v. Craver, Fla.1960, 121 So.2d 648; In re Wartman’s Estate, Fla.1961, 128 So.2d 600, 603. It urges that the Dade County Home Rule Charter (of which § 6.02 is quoted in footnote 1) is an exercise of such' legislative function pursuant to art. 8, § 11 (Dade County Home Rule Amendment) 3 of the Constitution of the State of Florida, F.S.A.
We think that upon the question of the appeal time for appeals from the Metropolitan Court of Dade County, the State statute of general application upon the subject of appeals from municipal courts must be considered. Section 932.52, Fla.Stat., F.S.A. provides in part as follows:
“(1) Any person convicted of any offense in any municipal court in this state may appeal from the judgment of such court to the circuit court of the county in which the conviction took place.
“(2) Appeals under this section* shall be taken, and filed within thirty-days from and after rendition of the the judgment appealed from.”
.* * * *
By way of recapitulation, we have the possible application of three different appeal times to the situation at hand: (1) The Florida Appellate Rules and § 924.09 Fla.Stat., F.S.A.4 each provide a 90-day appeal period; (2) The Dade County Home Rule Charter provides a 20-day appeal period for appeals from Dade County Metropolitan Courts; and (3) The Florida statute of general application, § 932.52, Fla. Stat., F.S.A., provides a 30-day appeal period for appeals from municipal courts.5 We conclude that the 30-day period set forth in § 932.52 must apply.
In Clark v. City of Orlando, Fla.App. 1959, 109 So.2d 416, it was held that § 932.52(2) Fla.Stat, F.S.A., controlled the time for taking appeals from municipal courts. The petitioner in that case had contended that the Florida Appellate Rules applied so as to change the time. This decision is not fully determinative here because we must deal with the effect of the provision in the Dade County Home Rule Charter. In addition, the. court pointed *104out that its holding could not take into consideration the 1958 amendment to the Florida Appellate Rules which amended Rule 6.1 by including appeals from municipal courts to the circuit court within its purview.
We may presume that it was the intention of the Supreme Court to unify the provision for the time for taking appeals (as well as the procedure) in criminal and quasi-criminal cases. If such was the purpose, it was frustrated by the holding in Ramagli Realty Co. v. Craver, Fla.1960, 121 So.2d 648, cited above. This case held that the time for taking appeals is a purely legislative matter and not subject to regulation by that court. We may thus eliminate so much of petitioner’s contentions as urge that the Florida Appellate Rules are controlling.
We also reject the applicability of •§ 924.09, Fla.Stat., F.S.A., (providing that ■criminal appeals must be taken within 90 days) in that violations of local laws, ordinances and regulations do not constitute crimes. Boyd v. County of Dade, Fla.1960, 123 So.2d 323, 329. Therefore, if a statute governs, it is § 932.52, Fla.Stat., F.S.A., ■ (which contains the 30-day provision).
The question that remains is whether the Dade County Home Rule Charter has superseded the statutory provision. The Supreme Court of Florida in discussing the powers conferred upon the Board of County Commissioners of Dade County by the Dade County Home Rule Amendment pointed out:
“Under the foregoing provisions the Board exercises the powers formerly vested in the state legislature with respect to the affairs, property and government of Dade County and all the municipalities within its territorial limits. In the exercise of such power the Board, of course, may not transgress any of the provisions of the Constitution and general laws of this state except in those instances where the power to do so is expressly authorized by the provisions of that portion of the Florida Constitution designated as the Dade County Home Rule Amendment.” State v. Dade County, Fla.1962, 142 So.2d 79, 85.
The County points to the following language of the Amendment ini-§ 11(1) (f) as a provision expressly authorizing the setting of the time for appeal from the Metropolitan Court:
“(f) * * * such charter may create new courts * * * with jurisdiction to try all offenses against ordinances * * * and * * * the charter may confer appellate jurisdiction * *
But we must point out that the same sentence quoted also contains the following clause:
“ * * * provided, however, that there shall be no power to abolish or impair the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court * *
The Constitution of the State of Florida art. 5, § 6(3), confers upon the circuit court “final appellate jurisdiction * * * of all cases arising- in municipal courts * * Entirely in agreement with this provision, the Charter has designated the circuit court as the court having appellate jurisdiction of the metropolitan courts. The section of the constitutional grant in the amendment has therefore been exhausted since the provision is limited to the creation of any courts and designations of appellate jurisdiction. The general laws of the State of Florida set and determine the time for taking appeals, and the Florida Appellate Rules set the procedure to be used.
We therefore hold that the time for taking appeals from the metropolitan courts of Dade County to the circuit court is 30 days as stated in § 932.52, Fla.Stat., F.S.A. Applying this holding to the situation presented by the petition for certiorari now before us, we find that petitioner’s ap*105peal to the circuit court was filed more than 30 days after rendition of the judgment appealed. 'Therefore, the circuit judge was entirely correct in his order dismissing the appeal and the petition for certiorari is denied.
It is so ordered.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
Cnty. OF Dade v. Saffan, 173 So. 2d 138 (Fla. 1965)…O’CONNELL, Justice. The appellant County seeks review of that decision of the District Court of Appeal, Third District, reported at 159 So. 2d 102. Appellant contends that said decision construed a controlling provision of the Florida Constitution. We accept jurisdiction for this reason. Helen Saffan, appellee, was convicted in the Dade County Metropolitan Court for violation of a county ordi…
-
State v. L. H., 392 So. 2d 294 (Fla. 2d DCA 1980)…s for the taking of appeals, the courts held that the determination of the time within which appeals could be taken was a legislative rather than a judicial function. Ramagli Realty Co. v. Craver, 121 So. 2d 648 (Fla.1960); Saffan v. County of Dade, 159 So. 2d 102 (Fla. 3d DCA 1963), rev’d on other grounds, 173 So. 2d 138 (Fla.1965). Moreover, as the state contends, the supreme court in S. R. v. State did hold, albeit in another context, that the very provision of the statute with which we are dealing was sub…
-
Ortiz v. Metro. Court of Dade Cnty., 25 Fla. Supp. 155 (Dade Cty. Cir. Ct. 1965)…urt of Dade County, in Boyd v. County of Dade, Fla., 123 So. 2d 323, conclusively determined that the violation of a metropolitan ordinance was not a “crime”. Of like holding is Roe v. State, 96 Fla. 723, 119 So. 118; Saffan v. County of Dade, Fla., 159 So. 2d 102; and the cases cited in the Boyd decision, supra, at page 330 of the opinion. [*160] The Florida legislature enacted section 39.02, F.S., which provides in subsection (2), “all proceedings against a child for alleged violation of law must be brought…
Previewing 3 of 4 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceAuthorities Cited
- Ramagli Realty Co. v. Craver, 121 So. 2d 648 (Fla. 1960)
- Boyd v. Cnty. OF Dade, 123 So. 2d 323 (Fla. 1960)
- State v. Dade Cnty., 142 So. 2d 79 (Fla. 1962)
- In re Est. of George H. Wartman v. Wartman, 128 So. 2d 600 (Fla. 1961)
- Clark v. City OF Orlando, 109 So. 2d 416 (Fla. 2d DCA 1959)