Bay Bank & Trust Co. v. Lewis

634 So. 2d 672, 1994 WL 85994
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedMarch 2, 1994
Docket93-2669
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 634 So. 2d 672 (Bay Bank & Trust Co. v. Lewis) 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
Bay Bank & Trust Co. v. Lewis, 634 So. 2d 672, 1994 WL 85994 (Fla. Ct. App. 1994).

Opinion

634 So.2d 672 (1994)

BAY BANK & TRUST COMPANY, John Christo, Jr., and John Christo III, Petitioners,
v.
Gerald LEWIS, in his official capacity as Comptroller of the State of Florida, and the Department of Banking and Finance, State of Florida, Respondents.

No. 93-2669.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.

March 2, 1994.

*674 William A. Friedlander, S. Craig Kiser and Raymond B. Vickers, Tallahassee, for petitioners.

Albert T. Gimbel, Office of the Comptroller, Alan C. Sundberg and Sylvia Walbolt of Carlton, Fields, Ward, Emmanuel, Smith & Cutler, P.A., Tallahassee, for respondents.

ZEHMER, Chief Judge.

Bay Bank & Trust Company, John Christo, Jr., and John Christo III petition this court for a writ of prohibition, alleging that Gerald Lewis, as Comptroller of the State of Florida, erroneously denied their motion for his disqualification on grounds of bias in an administrative proceeding. We have jurisdiction. Caleffe v. Vitale, 488 So.2d 627 (Fla. 4th DCA 1986); Mobil v. Trask, 463 So.2d 389 (Fla. 1st DCA), rev. denied, 476 So.2d 674 (Fla. 1985). Because Lewis properly denied the motion as legally insufficient, we deny the petition for writ of prohibition.

*675 I. FACTS

In March 1992, Lewis, as head of the Florida Department of Banking and Finance, filed an administrative complaint against Bay Bank & Trust Co., which sought to recover a specially imposed bank examination fee and associated fines and penalties. A second complaint, filed in May 1992, sought a cease and desist order against the Bank for the purpose of removing John Christo, Jr., and John Christo, III, as directors of the Bay Bank and prohibiting them from serving in a similar capacity in other Florida-regulated financial institutions. These administrative complaints arose out of a 1991 examination of Bay Bank that lead the department to conclude that the bank had engaged in unsafe and unsound banking practices. In June 1992, the Christos and Bay Bank petitioned for formal administrative hearings on each complaint pursuant to subsection 120.57(1), Florida Statutes, and the department granted those requests. The cases were referred to the Division of Administrative Hearings (DOAH) and consolidated for an evidentiary proceeding. The hearing began on February 8, 1993, and concluded on July 6, 1993. At the time oral argument was heard by this court, the hearing officer had not yet issued recommended orders.[1]

On February 5, 1993, Bay Bank and the Christos served Lewis as agency head with a motion to disqualify him from considering the recommended orders and issuing final orders in the proceedings described above. According to the allegations in the motion, Lewis is biased and prejudiced against Petitioners and their counsel based on the facts set forth in part in the motion itself, but based principally on matters set forth in a memorandum of law and attached exhibits filed with the DOAH hearing officer in support of a motion to compel discovery. The motion for disqualification alleged that one of the movants' defenses raised in the DOAH proceedings was selective and vindictive prosecution by the department, which put Lewis's personal and political motives and conduct at issue. The hearing officer denied discovery on these issues, but accepted Petitioners' proffer of evidence during the hearing. The motion also alleged that Petitioners had filed suit against Lewis in the United States District Court to recover damages against Lewis personally for instituting the administrative proceedings against Petitioners.

By order of July 26, 1993, Lewis denied the motion for disqualification on several grounds. He concluded that the motion was untimely under section 120.71, Florida Statutes, and that even disregarding lack of timeliness, the motion and supporting matter did not demonstrate legally sufficient grounds to require his disqualification. The order noted that in 1983 the legislature amended subsection 120.71(1)[2] by deleting the phrase "or other causes for which a judge may be recused" and concluded that the legislature thereby intended that different standards should apply to the disqualification of agency heads in administrative proceedings than to the disqualification of judges. Regarding the motion's allegations of Lewis's "personal involvement" in the administrative decisions as a basis for disqualification, the order ruled that the statutory schemes at issue specifically require him to serve investigative, prosecutorial, and adjudicative functions in disciplinary matters and that the courts have consistently found that this blending of roles does not create an unconstitutional risk of bias, citing Withrow v. Larkin, 421 U.S. 35, 95 S.Ct. 1456, 43 L.Ed.2d 712 (1975), and Winslow v. Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation, 348 So.2d 352 (Fla. 1st DCA 1977), cert. denied, 365 So.2d 716 *676 (Fla. 1978). The order stated that the allegations of Lewis's bias against the Bank, the Christos, and their counsel were "wholly conclusory" and unsupported by any allegations of underlying facts that demonstrate such bias. The order ruled that the movants' incorporation by reference of the legal memorandum filed in the DOAH proceedings to compel discovery was "legally insufficient to establish the requisite factual predicate for [the] disqualification motion."

Nevertheless, Lewis considered the matters set forth in the affidavits of John Christo, Jr., and Irene Christo attached to the memorandum of law. In his affidavit, John Christo, Jr., averred that he had previously enjoyed a "cordial" relationship with Lewis prior to 1990, but that he did not contribute to Lewis's 1990 reelection campaign, and thereafter Bay Bank was subjected to regulatory criticism. The order concluded that these facts, without more, did not establish a causal relationship supporting any improper motive or bias on the part of Lewis and thus did not demonstrate a "well-founded" fear of bias and prejudice. The order noted that the Florida Supreme Court had rejected campaign contribution activity as a basis for disqualification in MacKenzie v. Super Kids Bargain Store, Inc., 565 So.2d 1332 (Fla. 1990). Irene Christo's affidavit described strained relations between John Christo, III, and Linda Townsend, a bureau chief with the Department of Banking and Finance, but the order concluded that such information, even if true, was not relevant to the question of Lewis's personal bias.

The order noted that the courts have rejected the argument that a judge must be disqualified whenever a party brings a separate action naming the judge as a defendant, because approval of these grounds would permit a party to control who would judge his case merely by bringing suit against those judges he would seek to avoid, citing Dowda v. Salfi, 455 So.2d 604 (Fla. 5th DCA 1984). Lewis adopted this reasoning in rejecting the allegations of the federal action as a basis for disqualification.

Finally, the order rejected the contention that Lewis should not sit in review of the hearing officer's decision to deny discovery concerning the department's selective and vindictive prosecution, finding these claims to be factually unsupported and to suffer the same defects as the other grounds; that is to say, any regulated party who wished to disqualify an agency head for any reason, whether valid or not, would merely have to make a "vindictive prosecution" allegation to achieve that end.

II. PROCEEDINGS IN THIS COURT

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634 So. 2d 672, 1994 WL 85994, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bay-bank-trust-co-v-lewis-fladistctapp-1994.