Crowley Museum & Nature Center, Inc. v. Southwest Florida Water Management District

993 So. 2d 605, 2008 Fla. App. LEXIS 16551, 2008 WL 4756402
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedOctober 31, 2008
DocketNo. 2D07-2013
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 993 So. 2d 605 (Crowley Museum & Nature Center, Inc. v. Southwest Florida Water Management District) 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
Crowley Museum & Nature Center, Inc. v. Southwest Florida Water Management District, 993 So. 2d 605, 2008 Fla. App. LEXIS 16551, 2008 WL 4756402 (Fla. Ct. App. 2008).

Opinion

STRINGER, Judge.

Crowley Museum and Nature Center, Inc. (“the Nature Center”), seeks review of the trial court’s order dismissing with prejudice the counts in the Nature Center’s complaint against the Southwest Florida Water Management District and the Governing Board of the District (together “the District”). The dismissal was based on two findings: (1) the District enjoys sovereign immunity from all damages claims, and (2) the complaint failed to state a cause of action for an injunction. We conclude that both of these findings are erroneous and reverse.

The Nature Center is a nonprofit corporation established to educate the public about the natural and cultural history of Southwest Florida and to preserve the natural habitats and ecosystems of the area. It was established as a museum and is situated on a large parcel of land in Sarasota County. The District owns the Flat-ford Swamp, which is the tract of land directly upstream of the Nature Center. The Myakka River forms a western border of the Nature Center and lies downstream from the Flatford Swamp. The land upstream of Flatford Swamp is occupied by several vegetable farming operations.

[607]*607This case flows from the District’s issuance of permits allowing the farming operations to engage in “flood irrigation,” which involves pumping groundwater from the underground aquifer and flooding the fields up to the root zones of the plants. The excess flood irrigation water, which is called irrigation tailwater, flows off the farms into Flatford Swamp. "When the swamp basin fills, water then flows downstream onto the Nature Center’s lands.

As a result of flooding from the irrigation tailwater, large numbers of trees were killed on the District’s land in Flatford Swamp. Large numbers of trees were also killed downstream at the property of the Nature Center. After an extensive scientific study of the tree mortality, the District undertook projects to reduce the irrigation tailwater. When the District could not provide a specific time period for correcting the flooding problem, the Nature Center initiated suit against the upstream farming operations (“the agricultural defendants”).

The complaint set forth causes of action for negligence, trespass, private nuisance, and a statutory action to abate a public nuisance. The complaint sought damages and an injunction against the agricultural defendants and joined the Governing Board as a necessary party to its statutory action to abate a public nuisance. The Nature Center subsequently amended its complaint to add the District as a defendant to its claims for trespass and private nuisance and to add claims for inverse condemnation and negligence against the District. The amended complaint sought both damages and injunctive relief against the District.

The District filed a motion to dismiss on a variety of grounds, which included the expiration of the applicable statute of limitations, sovereign immunity, and the Nature Center’s failure to state a cause of action for injunctive relief. The District spent the vast majority of the hearing on its motion arguing its statute of limitations defense.

The trial court granted the District’s motion and dismissed the Nature Center’s complaint with prejudice as to the District. The trial court determined that section 373.443, Florida Statutes (2007), required dismissal of the damages claims based on sovereign immunity. As to the claim for injunctive relief, the trial court found that the complaint failed to state a cause of action because it did not allege fraud or a gross abuse of discretion. The court also found that injunctive relief would imper-missibly require the court to direct the District as to how to remedy the flooding problem on the Nature Center’s property. The court did not make a ruling on any of the other grounds raised in the District’s motion to dismiss, including the statute of limitations argument.

On appeal, the Nature Center argues that the trial court erred in dismissing the complaint based on the above findings. The Nature Center raises two nonsubstan-tive challenges to the trial court’s rulings as well. The District argues that even if the trial court’s order was erroneous, this court should affirm because the applicable statute of limitations has expired. We agree that the trial court’s findings in support of dismissal were erroneous. This determination renders the Nature Center’s nonsubstantive issues moot. We decline to reach the District’s tipsy coachman argument regarding the statute of limitations.

Sovereign Immunity

The trial court granted the District’s motion to dismiss the Nature Center’s claims for damages pursuant to section 373.443, which provides for sovereign immunity for the District against the filing of certain causes of action. On appeal, the Nature Center does not challenge the [608]*608court’s ruling as it pertains to the Nature Center’s claims for private nuisance, trespass, or negligence. Instead, the Nature Center argues that the court erred in determining that section 373.443 provides for sovereign immunity from its inverse condemnation claim because such a constitutional claim cannot be barred by a legislative grant of immunity.

The District concedes that section 373.443 could not be constitutionally applied to preclude an inverse condemnation claim by the Nature Center. However, the District argues that the Nature Center has not set forth a facially sufficient inverse condemnation claim. The issue of the facial sufficiency of the Nature Center’s inverse condemnation claim was not argued before the trial court, and the trial court did not address this issue below. Accordingly, we have no reason to infer that the court intended to dismiss the claim on this basis. We also decline the District’s request to address the argument for the first time on appeal. We note that the District should not be precluded from arguing this issue on remand.

Injunctive Relief

In its complaint, the Nature Center alleged that the District issued permits to the agricultural defendants that allowed the agricultural defendants to engage in floodwater irrigation. The Nature Center claimed that the floodwater irrigation caused tailwater from the agricultural defendants’ properties to flow through the Flatford Swamp, which is owned by the District, and kill trees on the Nature Center’s abutting nature preserve. The Nature Center acknowledged that the District and the agricultural defendants had undertaken a tailwater recovery project in order to relieve the problem. However, the Nature Center alleged that the tailwa-ter recovery project “had either not been implemented or had not been effective” because trees were continuing to die on the Nature Center’s property. The Nature Center asserted that, in the face of knowledge of the damage caused to the Nature Center by the irrigation tailwater, the District “continues to permit and condone the agricultural defendants’ practices, and has effectively granted the agricultural defendants a flowage easement across its property in Flatford Swamp and over the lands of the Nature Center downstream.”

The Nature Center sought the following injunctive relief against the District:

(4) an order requiring [the District] to manage its lands in Flatford Swamp so as not to destroy or damage the lands of downstream riparian landowners;
(5) an order enjoining [the District] from allowing excess water to pass through its lands to the detriment of downstream riparian landowners;

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993 So. 2d 605, 2008 Fla. App. LEXIS 16551, 2008 WL 4756402, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/crowley-museum-nature-center-inc-v-southwest-florida-water-management-fladistctapp-2008.