Equal Ground Education Fund, Inc. v. Secretary, Florida Department of State

Supreme Court of Florida

Equal Ground Education Fund, Inc. v. Secretary, Florida Department of State

Supreme Court of Florida·Decided June 10, 2026·No. SC2026-0857·Published

Opinion

Supreme Court of Florida

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10, 2026

Equal Ground Education SC2026-0857 Fund, Inc., et al., Lower Tribunal No(s).:

Petitioner(s) 1D2026-1539;

v. 372026CA0009141000MX

Secretary, Florida Department of State, et al., Respondent(s)

We hereby deny Petitioners’ request for a constitutional writ.

We have repeatedly stressed that “the doctrine of all writs is not an independent basis for this Court’s jurisdiction.” Roberts v. Brown, 43 So. 3d 673, 677 (Fla. 2010); Black Voters Matter Capacity Bldg. Inst., Inc. v. Byrd, 340 So. 3d 475, 475 (Fla. 2022). Here Petitioners ask us to intervene in the First District Court of Appeal’s ongoing consideration of an appeal of an order declining to grant a temporary injunction. At this time, we do not have jurisdiction over that matter, and we do not simply assume that the First District’s decision will provide an appropriate basis for this Court’s review. We add that no motions for rehearing will be considered.

Page Two

MUÑIZ, C.J., and COURIEL, GROSSHANS, FRANCIS, and SASSO, JJ., concur. TANENBAUM, J., specially concurs with an opinion. LABARGA, J., dissents with an opinion.

TANENBAUM, J., specially concurring.

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.

– John Adams

The dissent makes several assertions regarding this court’s jurisdiction and the First District Court of Appeal’s handling of the underlying non-final-order appeal. Though I join the majority in full, the dissent’s assertions impel, respectfully, a proper response.

I

To begin, the dissent presumes that there unquestioningly will be a constitutional hook supporting this court’s discretionary jurisdiction to review the First District’s eventual disposition. That presumption is not well founded. A temporary injunction like the one sought below is merely an interim writ (rather than a provisional remedy), and the trial court’s power to grant one comes directly from the constitution. See Art. V, § 5(b), Fla. Const.

Page Three (granting circuit courts the power to issue “all writs necessary or proper to the complete exercise of their jurisdiction”); Byrd v. Black Voters Matter Capacity Bldg. Inst., Inc. (Byrd I), 339 So. 3d 1070, 1075–76 (Fla. 1st DCA 2022) (explaining the history behind this constitutional writ of injunction and citing cases). The Declaratory Judgment Act does not establish a right to provisional or temporary relief, so whether to grant or deny the interim injunction—especially in a suit for a declaratory judgment—could be only a procedural question, not a substantive one. See Byrd I, 339 So. 3d at 1076–77. In turn, the trial court’s decision on a request for that injunction is not one addressing the merits of a plaintiff’s claim for relief.

Indeed, this court, for nearly a century and a half, has said that the trial court’s consideration of a temporary injunction “in no manner [requires it] to anticipate the ultimate determination of rights involved.” Sullivan v. Moreno, 19 Fla. 200, 215 (1882). “[I]ts purpose is to preserve the property or rights in statu quo, until a satisfactory hearing upon the merits, without expressing and indeed without having the means of forming an opinion as to such rights,”

Page Four and without the necessity of “decid[ing] in favor of complainant upon the merits.” Id. (second emphasis supplied).

A temporary injunction just provides the trial court a tool to protect, if necessary, its jurisdiction until it can decide the case before it on the merits and afford the complete relief directed by law if the facts, sufficiently proven, warrant it. Though the trial court must make some threshold, cursory prediction of a plaintiff’s ultimate success at a final hearing, the trial court is mostly assessing its own need regarding jurisdiction rather than a plaintiff’s substantive entitlement to an injunction. The determination does not truly bear on whether there has been an infringement of a substantive right.

For this reason, our court early on has characterized “[t]he granting of a temporary injunction [a]s a matter peculiarly within the discretion of the court upon a consideration of all the circumstances.” Id.; see also Simms v. Patterson, 43 So. 421, 422 (Fla. 1907) (“It is settled law in this court that both the granting and continuing of injunctions rests largely within the sound judicial

Page Five discretion of the [trial] court, to be governed by the circumstances of the case, and that an appellate court will not interfere with the exercise of this judicial discretion, unless an abuse thereof is clearly made to appear.” (emphasis supplied)); Shaw v. Palmer, 44 So. 953, 954–55 (Fla. 1907) (“Wide judicial discretion rests in the [trial] court in the granting, denying, dissolving, or modifying injunctions, and, where the evidence taken by the court in person is sufficient to warrant the action of the court, the appellate court will not interfere where no abuse of discretion appears.” (emphases supplied)).

The sole question before the First District in the underlying appeal, then, is whether the trial court abused its discretion in assessing any threat to its jurisdiction to ultimately afford full relief, if warranted. Whatever the First District ultimately might decide, it is not at all clear, as we sit here today, that its review for an abuse of discretion will “expressly construe[] a provision of the state or federal constitution”; a decision either way certainly will not constitute an express “declar[ation]” that a statute or a

Page Six constitutional provision is valid or invalid. Art. V, § 3(b)(3), (1), Fla. Const.

II

Next, there is the dissent’s complaint that the First District did not certify the non-final-order appeal to this court under Article V, section 3(b)(5) of the Florida Constitution (known as “pass-through” jurisdiction). This court, since the time that the district courts of appeal were first created, has said that these courts were not intermediate appellate courts. Ansin v. Thurston, 101 So. 2d 808, 810 (Fla. 1958) (“It was never intended that the district courts of appeal should be intermediate courts.”). Rather, “[t]hey are and were meant to be courts of final, appellate jurisdiction.” Lake v. Lake, 103 So. 2d 639, 642 (Fla. 1958). The court continued:

Sustaining the dignity of decisions of the district courts of appeal must depend largely on the determination of the Supreme Court not to venture beyond the limitations of its own powers by arrogating to itself the right to delve into a decision of a district court of appeal primarily to decide whether or not the Supreme Court agrees with the district court of appeal about the disposition of a given case.

Id.

Page Seven This court even observed that “[t]he revision and modernization of the Florida judicial system at the appellate level was prompted by the great volume of cases reaching the Supreme Court and the consequent delay in the administration of justice.” Ansin, 101 So. 2d at 810. By our own characterization, we are to “function[] as a supervisory body in the judicial system for the State,” acting only when necessary to settle “issues of public importance” and to “preserv[e the] uniformity of principle and practice, with review by the district courts in most instances being final and absolute.” Id. As this court then concluded,

[t]o fail to recognize that [the district courts are] primarily of final appellate jurisdiction and to allow such courts to become intermediate courts of appeal would result in a condition far more detrimental to the general welfare and the speedy and efficient administration of justice than that which the system was designed to remedy.

Id.

“[U]nder th[is] constitutional plan the powers of this Court to review decisions of the district courts of appeal are limited and strictly prescribed.” Id. The district courts—being the courts of last resort in almost all appeals—are the gatekeepers for this court’s

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