Barnes v. District Board of Trustees

147 So. 3d 102, 2014 WL 3906856, 2014 Fla. App. LEXIS 12388
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedAugust 12, 2014
DocketNo. 1D13-5067
StatusPublished

This text of 147 So. 3d 102 (Barnes v. District Board of Trustees) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Barnes v. District Board of Trustees, 147 So. 3d 102, 2014 WL 3906856, 2014 Fla. App. LEXIS 12388 (Fla. Ct. App. 2014).

Opinions

MAKAR, J.

A state college’s stormwater management system is the focus of this dispute. Charles and Virginia Barnes sued the District Board of Trustees of St. Johns River State College for damages to their property from water alleged to have overflown from a retention pond on the District’s campus. The trial court ruled the District was entitled to immunity under section 373.443, Florida Statutes. We affirm.

I.

The Barneses’ lakefront- home, constructed in 2000, is on Cedar Road, Orange Park, Florida. Nearby at a significantly higher elevation is St. Johns River Community College, owned and operated by the District, a legislatively-created entity. The College’s campus has seven retention ponds, each a part of the District’s stormwater management system, which is permitted by and under the regulatory oversight of the St. Johns River Water Management District. In the past and to the present, surface water naturally flows from the District’s uplands property to[104]*104ward the navigable water body known as Doctors Lake, on which the Barneses’ property is located, and then eventually into the St. Johns River.

On August 14, 2009, an exceptionally heavy seasonal rainfall caused a retention pond in a neighboring subdivision to overflow into one of the District’s retention ponds, Pond F, causing one of its retaining walls to breach, sending overflow waters downhill towards Doctors Lake, through wetlands into a drainage pipe that goes under railroad tracks parallel to Cedar Road, and ultimately onto and through the Barneses’ property. Since that time, the College has modified Pond F, increasing its capacity to accommodate a 100-year storm event versus the lesser storm threshold previously in place.

In November 2011, the Barneses sued the College and the subdivision’s homeowners association (which is not a part of this appeal), its initial claim one of negligence against the District for failing to design, “adapt,” and “operate in a responsible way” its stormwater management system. An inverse condemnation claim was added, but was ultimately resolved against the Barneses, who have not contested that ruling on appeal, focusing exclusively on their negligence claim.

The District raised various defenses including immunity under (a) article X, section 13, of the Florida Constitution, as implemented via section 768.28, Florida Statutes, and (b) section 373.443, Florida Statutes. After discovery, the District moved for summary judgment on the two claims. The District asserted that the alleged negligent conduct related solely to planning and design level functions of the storm water management system and a failure to modernize the ponds, which it claimed were immune from tort liability under 768.28. Regarding section 373.443, the District argued it was entitled to absolute immunity from liability for damages, which were allegedly caused by the failure of its storm water management system.

The Barneses responded that factual issues existed about the District’s operation of its water management system and that the District was negligent by constructing the least costly design of its water management system thereby creating a known hazard. At the hearing on its motion, the District argued it was entitled to immunity under section 768.28 because its ponds are designed rather than operated; the only thing the District could have done to address the Barneses’ concern was to have redesigned or reconfigured the ponds, which would be discretionary acts immune from liability. It also argued that immunity under section 373.443 applied because the partial failure of the system (i.e., the breach of a retaining wall on Pond F) is the type of incident the statute was intended to shelter from liability. The Barneses countered, however, that the District knew its system had shortcomings; that college personnel toured all the ponds, finding three (but not Pond F) had deviations from the original design or were missing components that controlled water levels; and that flood waters at the College’s performing arts building were pumped into Pond F exacerbating problems for the Barneses’ property. The basis for these assertions was contained in two depositions, one by a District employee charged with facilities management and the other by an engineer with the St. Johns River Water Management District, both filed belatedly in the trial court, but which were relied upon by the trial judge in his rulings.

In its rulings, the trial court noted that the Barneses’ amended complaint raised both a negligent design claim and an operational negligence claim, the latter consisting solely of the conclusory allegation that the District engaged in “operational negli[105]*105gence in failing to operate [its] water management system in a responsible way[.]” As to immunity under section 768.28, the trial court ruled that the Barneses’ negligence claim was not barred because “[tjhere at least appears to be a disputed issue of material fact on the issue of whether there is operational negligence on the part of the District which caused damage to the plaintiffs,” thereby precluding summary judgment. Turning to the claim of immunity under section 373.443, the trial court held that “[t]here is no dispute that the plaintiffs’ claims herein are founded on the District’s control of a ‘stormwa-ter management system,’ ‘impoundment’ or “work’ regulated by Chapter 373, the partial or total failure of which is alleged to have caused the plaintiffs’ damages.” As such, it held that the “District is immune from liability for the negligence claim asserted by the plaintiffs.” In doing so, the trial court tacitly concluded that section 373.443 extended immunity to the Barneses’ operational level negligence claims, ones that would otherwise be actionable under section 768.28’s waiver of immunity. A partial final judgment was later entered in favor of the District on the negligence claim as well as the inverse condemnation claim (in part because the Barneses had not lost all use of their property). As mentioned previously, the Barneses challenge only the entry of judgment on their negligence claim.

II.

Whether immunity exists in this case hinges on whether section 373.443 provides a broader scope of immunity than that provided by section 768.28 as applied to the District’s stormwater management system. The trial court ruled that section 768.28 does not provide the District with immunity from potential liability for the allegations of operational negligence the Barneses have asserted, a ruling the District does not contest. The specific task is thereby to determine whether the Barnes-es’ operational negligence claims survive the protective umbrella that section 373.443 provides for the stormwater management system at issue.

We turn then to the text of section 373.443, Florida Statutes, which was enacted in 1972 to provide immunity for the partial or total failure of dams and other listed public works, but which was amended in 1989 to include “stormwater management systems” within its scope. The statute, entitled “Immunity from liability,” reads as follows (with 1989 amendments in bold):

No action shall be brought against the state or district, or any agents or employees of the state or district, for the recovery of damages caused by the partial or total failure of any stormwater management system, dam, impoundment, reservoir, appurtenant work, or works upon the ground that the state or district is liable by virtue of any of the following:
(1) Approval of the permit for construction or alteration.

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Related

Tucker v. Gadsden County
670 So. 2d 1053 (District Court of Appeal of Florida, 1996)
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City of St. Petersburg v. Collom
419 So. 2d 1082 (Supreme Court of Florida, 1982)
Southwest Florida Water Management District v. Nanz
642 So. 2d 1084 (Supreme Court of Florida, 1994)

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Bluebook (online)
147 So. 3d 102, 2014 WL 3906856, 2014 Fla. App. LEXIS 12388, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/barnes-v-district-board-of-trustees-fladistctapp-2014.