Supreme Court of Florida ____________
No. SC2023-0095 ____________
GUSTAVO BOJORQUEZ, etc., et al., Petitioners,
vs.
STATE OF FLORIDA, et al., Respondents.
June 5, 2025
MUÑIZ, C.J.
For several decades starting in the 1970s, the Legislature
maintained a special district to regulate the taxicab business in
Hillsborough County. A 2012 law declared the business licenses
issued by the district to be the “private property” of their holders
and allowed holders to transfer and devise those licenses. A 2017
law repealed the 2012 law, dissolved the district, and sent taxicab
regulation back to Hillsborough County, which chose not to
recognize the district-issued licenses. This case is about whether
the 2017 repeal implicates the Florida Constitution’s Takings Clause. We hold that it does not.
I
A
Traditionally, Florida’s counties and cities have been
responsible for any regulation of the taxicab business in their
jurisdictions. From 1976 to 2017, though, Hillsborough County
and its cities stood as an exception to the rule. There, the exclusive
authority to regulate taxicabs fell to the Hillsborough County Public
Transportation Commission (PTC), a countywide independent
special district created by the Legislature.
The PTC’s charter made it illegal to engage in the taxicab
business in Hillsborough County and its cities without first
obtaining a PTC-issued certificate and one or more permits.
Ch. 2001-299, § 7(1), Laws of Fla. A “certificate” was defined as
“the written authority granted by the commission by its order to
operate one or more [taxicabs].” Id. § 3(5). A “permit” meant “a
license issued by the commission to allow the operation of a
particular [taxicab] for which a certificate ha[d] been issued.” Id.
§ 3(20). Chapter 2001-299 instructed the PTC to issue certificates
and permits based on the commission’s determination of “public
-2- convenience and necessity,” and it authorized the PTC to set a
county-population-based cap on the total number of outstanding
permits. Id. § 5(1)(i), (2)(v). Importantly, the law also empowered
the PTC to “[r]efuse to issue or renew and suspend or revoke” a
certificate or permit. Id. § 5(2)(dd).
Before 2012, the PTC’s charter said nothing about a holder’s
property rights (if any) in a certificate or permit, or about whether
the holder could sell or transfer those instruments. That changed
when the Legislature enacted chapter 2012-247, Laws of Florida.
The 2012 law declared that already-issued and future certificates
and permits are “the private property of the holder of such
certificate or permit.” Ch. 2012-247, § 1(2), Laws of Fla. And it
said that, subject to PTC approval, certificate and permit holders
“may transfer the certificate or permit by pledge, sale, assignment,
sublease, devise, or other means of transfer to another person.” Id.
§ 1(3). The 2012 law also adopted (in statute) the PTC’s then-
existing population cap on permits. Id. § 1(4). Finally, chapter
2012-247 expressly superseded any “inconsistent” provisions in
chapter 2001-299—but it did not specifically identify any such
provisions. Id. § 1(1).
-3- That is how things stood until 2017, when the Legislature
dissolved the PTC. Chapter 2017-198 repealed the PTC’s enabling
legislation, including the 2001 charter and the 2012 law that had
declared PTC-issued certificates and permits to be the “private
property” of the holder. Ch. 2017-198, § 2, Laws of Fla. The 2017
law did not expressly address the continued legal status (if any) of
the existing PTC-issued certificates and permits; did not expressly
require Hillsborough County or any of its cities to honor those
certificates and permits; and did not tell the county and cities
whether or how to regulate the taxicab business in the absence of
the PTC. Nor did chapter 2017-198 say anything about
compensation for holders of PTC-issued certificates and permits.
When the Legislature dissolved the PTC, Hillsborough County
regained the regulatory authority over taxicabs that Florida law
gives counties generally. See § 125.01(1)(n), Fla. Stat. (2024).
Armed with that authority, and understanding itself to be writing
on a blank slate, the county chose to adopt a replacement
regulatory regime. Hillsborough County Code §§ 10-576 to -601
(2017). The county’s new taxicab ordinance did not recognize the
PTC-issued certificates and permits. Id. § 10-582(a). Instead, the
-4- county required all businesses to apply for new certificates and
permits, allowing existing certificate and permit holders to continue
their operations during the application process. Id. Notably, the
county’s taxicab ordinance expressly stated that holders of the new
county-issued certificates and permits would have “no proprietary
interest” in those instruments. Id. § 10-578.
B
The plaintiffs in this case are several taxicab companies that
previously held PTC-issued certificates and permits. Gulf Coast
Transp., Inc. v. Hillsborough Cnty. (Gulf Coast), 352 So. 3d 368, 373
(Fla. 2d DCA 2022). Their operative complaint alleged that the
State and Hillsborough County effected a taking of those certificates
and permits without compensation, in violation of the Florida
Constitution’s Takings Clause. Id.; art. X, § 6(a), Fla. Const. The
plaintiffs maintained that they purchased their PTC-issued
certificates and permits at substantial cost, and that those
instruments now convey no legal benefit and are valueless. They
further alleged that the county’s new regulatory regime conveys no
property rights in the replacement certificates and permits. The
plaintiff taxicab companies did not allege that the county has
-5- denied them new certificates and permits, or that the county has
prevented them from continuing to carry on their taxicab
businesses. Gulf Coast, 352 So. 3d at 373.
Hillsborough County and the State sought summary judgment
and dismissal of the taxicab companies’ complaint, respectively. Id.
The county argued that the State was responsible for any taking
that might have occurred, because it was the State that granted
and then repealed any property rights in the PTC-issued certificates
and permits. The State maintained that no taking had occurred,
because the taxicab companies were still in business; and it said
that, even if there was a taking, it was the county’s fault.
The trial court granted the county’s motion for summary
judgment. Gulf Coast, 352 So. 3d at 374. It concluded that there
were no certificates or permits for Hillsborough County to take,
because those instruments “had, in essence, vanished” when the
State dissolved the PTC. Gulf Coast Transp., Inc. v. Hillsborough
Cnty., No. 2019-CA-6391, at 2 (Fla. 13th Cir. Ct. Apr. 1, 2020). But
the court denied the State’s motion to dismiss. Id. at 1. It reasoned
that, “because Florida acting within its power did cause the demise
-6- of the PTC and, thus, its medallions or certificates, Plaintiffs may
have claims for damages against Florida.” Id. at 2.
The taxicab companies and the State both appealed the final
judgment in favor of Hillsborough County. Invoking Florida Rule of
Appellate Procedure 9.110(k), the State also appealed the nonfinal
order denying its motion to dismiss. See Gulf Coast, 352 So. 3d at
374. Rule 9.110(k) allows an appellate court to review rulings
“directly related to an aspect of the partial final judgment under
review.”
Over a strong dissent, the Second District Court of Appeal held
that the taxicab companies “did not have a property interest [in the
PTC-issued certificates and permits] for purposes of the Takings
Clause.” Gulf Coast, 352 So. 3d at 371. The court therefore
affirmed the final judgment in favor of the county and reversed the
trial court’s denial of the State’s motion to dismiss. Id. The taxicab
companies then petitioned for this Court’s review of the Second
District’s decision as it related to the State, but not the county. We
accepted jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(3), Fla. Const.
-7- II
The taxicab companies seek relief only under our state
constitution’s Takings Clause. 1 It reads: “No private property shall
be taken except for a public purpose and with full compensation
therefor paid to each owner or secured by deposit in the registry of
the court and available to the owner.” Art. X, § 6(a), Fla. Const.
The threshold question here is whether the taxicab companies’ PTC-
issued certificates and permits were “private property” for purposes
of that provision. If not, the taxicab companies cannot prevail.
The Second District answered no and gave two basic reasons
for its conclusion: (1) notwithstanding the “private property” label
that the 2012 law attached to PTC-issued certificates and permits,
those instruments remained “privileges or licenses” that the State
could revoke without paying compensation; and (2) the Florida
Takings Clause does not protect a subject of property rights (i.e., the
“thing” to which property rights attach) that is itself “created by or
derived from state law.” Gulf Coast, 352 So. 3d at 375-79. In its
1. This case does not require us to consider any rights that holders of PTC-issued certificates and permits might have held under the federal or state due process clauses.
-8- briefing before our Court, the State has opted not to defend the
district court’s second rationale: “The State does not contend . . .
that a statutory interest can never be compensable property.” See
State of Florida’s Answer Brief 19 n.10.
The taxicab companies urge us simply to compare the
language of chapter 2012-247 to the language of the Florida
Takings Clause. They emphasize that the 2012 law declared PTC-
issued certificates and permits to be the “private property” of their
holders. See ch. 2012-247, § 1(2), Laws of Fla. And they add that,
by expressly allowing holders to transfer and devise that property,
the Legislature conferred traditional incidents of ownership and
bolstered “the plain textual meaning.” Initial Brief of Petitioners 32.
The taxicab companies describe the 2012 law as a
straightforward legislative grant of “private property” that carried an
implicit promise not to rescind the grant without paying
compensation. Id. at 14-20. To support that argument, the
companies lean heavily on an analogy between (1) PTC-issued
certificates and permits and (2) government franchises to operate
things like ferries, toll roads, and railroads. See, e.g., id. at 15-21.
It is true that, depending on the terms of the grant, such franchises
-9- historically could enjoy constitutional protection as contracts and
property. See, e.g., Leonard v. Baylen St. Wharf Co., 52 So. 718,
719 (Fla. 1910) (right to use wharf franchise was a property right of
the grantee).
Although the taxicab companies’ arguments are not without
force, we find them unpersuasive. We do not doubt that certificate-
and permit-holders had certain property rights in their PTC-issued
instruments—they could engage in the taxicab business, and they
could use, transfer, pledge, and devise their certificates and
permits. But, where the property rights at issue find their source in
a government grant, the label “private property” does not tell us
everything we need to know about the State’s ultimate control over
the continued existence of any rights conveyed in the grant.
For property of this nature to enjoy protection from an
uncompensated taking, the government must have conferred the
property on an irrevocable basis, for at least some specified period.
Only then will our constitution require payment if the grantor
government subsequently withdraws the property right within that
period. “The government is free to create programs that convey
benefits in the form of property, but, unless the statute itself or
- 10 - surrounding circumstances indicate that such conveyances are
intended to be irrevocable, the government does not forfeit its right
to withdraw those benefits or qualify them as it chooses.” Members
of the Peanut Quota Holders Ass’n, Inc. v. United States, 421 F.3d
1323, 1335 (Fed. Cir. 2005); see also Dames & Moore v. Regan, 453
U.S. 654, 674 n.6 (1981) (no compensable property interest where
government-granted attachments were revocable and contingent).
Indeed, based on a comprehensive survey of federal takings law,
Professor Thomas W. Merrill concluded that “takings property must
be irrevocable for a predetermined period of time, and there must be
no understanding, explicit or implicit, that the legislature has
reserved the right to terminate the interest before this period of time
elapses.” Thomas W. Merrill, The Landscape of Constitutional
Property, 86 Va. L. Rev. 885, 978 (2000).
We find these federal precedents informative and persuasive
about this baseline requirement for government-granted property to
warrant protection in the takings context. Although there are some
textual differences between the Florida and Federal Takings
Clauses, the terms relevant to this case—“private property” and
“taken”—are the same in both provisions. Importantly, neither side
- 11 - argues that we should interpret or implement the Florida Takings
Clause in a state-law-specific way, and both rely extensively on
precedents interpreting the Federal Takings Clause. Cf. St. Johns
River Water Mgmt. Dist. v. Koontz, 77 So. 3d 1220, 1226 (Fla. 2011)
(describing this Court as having interpreted the federal and Florida
takings clauses “coextensively”), rev’d on other grounds, 570 U.S.
595 (2013).
To determine whether the Legislature granted irrevocable
property rights in PTC-issued certificates and permits, we look to
chapter 2012-247. And we must read that law together with the
PTC’s underlying charter, chapter 2001-299, because both laws
were parts of the integrated statutory scheme that governed the
PTC. It is undisputed that the statutory framework governing the
PTC is the only source of any property interests that could have
accompanied PTC-issued certificates and permits. That is because,
like its Fifth Amendment counterpart, Florida’s Takings Clause
protects property rights but does not create property interests in
the first instance. See, e.g., Webb’s Fabulous Pharmacies, Inc. v.
Beckwith, 449 U.S. 155, 161 (1980) (property interests “are created
and their dimensions are defined by existing rules or
- 12 - understandings” derived from independent sources of law (quoting
Bd. of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 577 (1972))).
For several reasons, we conclude that the Legislature retained
the discretion to revoke any property rights that it conveyed in
chapter 2012-247. Most importantly, chapter 2012-247 did not
expressly repeal the charter provision saying that PTC-issued
certificates and permits are revocable and subject to nonrenewal.
See ch. 2001-299, § 5(2)(dd), Laws of Fla. That charter provision
does not appear to require that the PTC’s nonrenewal or revocation
of a certificate or permit be based on cause.
It is true that the 2012 law included a repeal of unspecified
“inconsistent” provisions in the PTC’s 2001 charter. Ch. 2012-247,
§ 1(1), Laws of Fla. But we do not think the Legislature would
speak only implicitly to an issue as basic as the permanence of the
rights embodied in PTC-issued certificates and permits. And any
uncertainty about the extent of the Legislature’s grant cuts against
the taxicab companies. The “rule applicable to all grants by the
government” is “that they are to be strictly construed, or be taken
most beneficially in favor of the state or public, and against the
- 13 - grantee.” State v. Black River Phosphate Co., 13 So. 640, 648 (Fla.
1893) (collecting cases).
The legal backdrop against which the Legislature enacted
chapter 2012-247 also informs and supports our conclusion. Our
state’s longstanding tradition tells us that permission to engage in
the taxicab business is a revocable privilege. That has been true
regardless of the legal label or form attached to the permission slip.
As this Court said long ago:
There is then no such thing as a natural right to use the public highways for commercial purposes. Such limited right as the public may grant to use them for private business is merely a privilege that may be restricted or withdrawn at the discretion of the granting power. Whether the grant is by license, permit, or franchise is immaterial; the power to do so is plenary and may extend to absolute prohibition.
Jarrell v. Orlando Transit Co., 167 So. 664, 666 (Fla. 1936). We
would not expect the Legislature to upend such a long-held legal
principle without saying so expressly. Ordinarily, “statutes will not
be interpreted as changing the common law unless they effect the
change with clarity.” Peoples Gas Sys. v. Posen Constr., Inc., 322
So. 3d 604, 611 (Fla. 2021) (quoting Antonin Scalia & Bryan A.
Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 318 (2012)).
- 14 - Finally, the broader statutory and policy context also leads us
to conclude that chapter 2012-247 did not make PTC-issued
certificates and permits irrevocable. The Legislature created the
PTC as its agent to implement a comprehensive regulatory scheme
that was expressly oriented to the public’s convenience and
necessity. In the regulatory context, change is the rule. We find it
implausible that the Legislature would rely on implication to grant
certificate-holding taxicab companies a permanent property right to
carry on their business, with the market value of that right so
dependent on the government’s continued maintenance of a
restrictive regulatory regime. See Minneapolis Taxi Owners Coal.,
Inc. v. City of Minneapolis, 572 F.3d 502, 509 (8th Cir. 2009) (“The
general expectation of regulatory change is no less present where
the value of the property interest is derived from the regulation
itself.”).
True, the government will sometimes convey durable property
rights to induce private parties to invest and act in ways that
benefit the public interest. The expected way to do that would be
through a regulatory contract. See Allied-General Nuclear Servs. v.
United States, 839 F.2d 1572, 1578 (Fed. Cir. 1988) (“After all,
- 15 - when the government desires reluctant private capital to invest in
risky enterprises, it is accustomed to make express contracts to
‘induce’ by reducing or sharing the risk.”). And contracts can be a
form of protected property for takings clause purposes. Lynch v.
United States, 292 U.S. 571, 579 (1934). Yet nothing in the express
terms of the 2012 law suggests the existence of a contractual
relationship between the government and the holders of PTC-issued
certificates and permits. Any expectation that chapter 2012-247
promised irrevocable property rights would have been
unreasonable. See Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Atchison Topeka &
Santa Fe Ry. Co., 470 U.S. 451, 466-67 (1985) (“[A]bsent an
adequate expression of an actual intent of the State to bind itself,
this Court simply will not lightly construe that which is
undoubtedly a scheme of public regulation to be, in addition, a
private contract to which the State is a party.” (internal quotations
and citation omitted)).
III
In the end, we cannot conclude that the “private property”
label in chapter 2012-247 does the work that the taxicab
companies want it to do. In the context of this statutory scheme,
- 16 - and given the relevant common-law and regulatory backdrops, the
Legislature’s use of that term did not confer irrevocability on
PTC-issued certificates and permits. Consequently, the
Legislature’s repeal of the 2012 law does not implicate the Florida
Takings Clause.
We approve the decision under review to the extent it is
consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
CANADY, LABARGA, GROSSHANS, FRANCIS, and SASSO, JJ., concur. COURIEL, J., concurs with an opinion, in which GROSSHANS and SASSO, JJ., concur.
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION AND, IF FILED, DETERMINED.
COURIEL, J., concurring.
The parties cite this Court’s decision in St. Johns River Water
Management District v. Koontz for the proposition that the takings
clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and
Florida’s Takings Clause are substantively “coextensive[].” 77 So.
3d 1220, 1222 (Fla. 2011), rev’d on other grounds, 570 U.S. 595
(2013). But in fact we said only that we had “previously interpreted
[those provisions] coextensively.” Id. (emphasis added) (citing
- 17 - Tampa-Hillsborough Cnty. Expressway Auth. v. A.G.W.S. Corp., 640
So. 2d 54, 58 (Fla. 1994); Joint Ventures, Inc. v. Dep’t of Transp.,
563 So. 2d 622, 623 (Fla. 1990)). We went on to decide that case as
if the provisions were in fact coextensive, without pausing to inquire
or decide whether Florida’s Takings Clause had a meaning of its
own. It has words of its own, so it must.
Florida’s first takings clause appeared in 1838; that version
bore some resemblance to the one in the Fifth Amendment.
Compare art. I, § 14, Fla. Const. (1838) (“That private property shall
not be taken or applied to public use, unless just compensation be
made therefor.”), with amend. V, cl. 4, U.S. Const. (“[N]or shall
private property be taken for public use, without just
compensation.”). Our 1865 Constitution, which replaced the
Ordinance of Secession, used almost the same language, but added
the requirement that “just compensation” be made before a taking
occurred. Art. I, § 14, Fla. Const. (1865) (“That private property
shall not be taken or applied to public use, unless just
compensation be first made therefor.”). The 1868 Constitution
placed our takings clause at the end of a long provision securing
- 18 - several other substantive rights. This iteration tracked the Fifth
Amendment, but omitted the words “for public use” and the comma
that followed them. Art. I, § 8, cl. 6, Fla. Const. (1868) (“[N]or shall
private property be taken without just compensation.”).
Our 1885 Constitution moved the takings clause into a shorter
provision, but used the same words as its immediate predecessor.
Decl. of Rights, § 12, cl. 4, Fla. Const. (1885) (“[N]or shall private
property be taken without just compensation.”). Elsewhere, it
added two new references to takings in the “Miscellaneous” article:
Section 28 authorized the Legislature to “provide for the drainage of
the land of one person over or through that of another, upon just
compensation” to the latter landowner. Art. XVI, § 28, Fla. Const.
(1885). And section 29 provided that “[n]o private property nor
right of way shall be appropriated to the use of any corporation or
individual until full compensation therefor shall be first made to the
owner,” and required that “a jury of twelve men” determine the
appropriate compensation. Art. XVI, § 29, Fla. Const. (1885). This
was the first time our Constitution used the word “full” rather than
“just” to describe the compensation due.
- 19 - In 1968, the voters approved a new takings clause as part of
our Constitution’s wholesale revision. This version, which governs
today, differs substantially from its predecessors:
(a) No private property shall be taken except for a public purpose and with full compensation therefor paid to each owner or secured by deposit in the registry of the court and available to the owner.
Art. X, § 6(a), Fla. Const. (1968). This provision reintroduces the
requirement that the taking occur “for a public purpose”; it adopts
for all takings the requirement of “full” rather than “just”
compensation; and it describes how that compensation is to be
paid. In terms of its location in the Constitution, the provision was
removed from the Declaration of Rights; it now sits in article X,
“Miscellaneous,” in a new section titled “Eminent Domain.” It
shares that section with two other provisions: one concerning land
drainage that reads like article XVI, section 28 of the 1885
Constitution, see art. X, § 6(b), Fla. Const. (1968), and another,
added by amendment in 2006, that limits the government’s ability
- 20 - to use eminent domain to transfer property to a “natural person or
private entity,” art. X, § 6(c), Fla. Const. (2006). 2
II
We have said that “[w]hen called upon to decide matters of
fundamental rights, Florida’s state courts are bound under
federalist principles to give primacy to our state Constitution and to
give independent legal import to every phrase and clause contained
therein.” Traylor v. State, 596 So. 2d 957, 962 (Fla. 1992); see also
Jeffrey S. Sutton, 51 Imperfect Solutions: States and the Making of
American Constitutional Law 179-80 (2018) (arguing that “[a] state-
first approach to litigation over constitutional rights honors the
original design of the state and federal constitutions”). Because a
2. Some have argued that article X, section 6(c) was added as a response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005), where that Court held that a city’s taking of private property by eminent domain and transfer of it to a private developer was a “public use” under the federal Takings Clause. See Nicholas M. Gieseler & Steven Geoffrey Gieseler, Strict Scrutiny and Eminent Domain After Kelo, 25 J. Land Use & Envtl. L. 191, 217 (2010) (describing article X, section 6(c) as “enshrin[ing]” in the Florida Constitution “the elimination of Kelo- style takings”); Steven J. Eagle & Lauren A. Perotti, Coping with Kelo: A Potpourri of Legislative and Judicial Responses, 42 Real Prop. Prob. & Tr. J. 799, 832 (2008) (describing article X, section 6(c) as a “post-Kelo” amendment).
- 21 - constitution’s words are purposefully chosen and placed, we respect
the will of the people when we ascribe meaning to their choice and
placement. In making sense of those words, it can help to know
how they have been changed over time, and what purposeful
choices those changes reflect—so we look to prior iterations of our
state’s Constitution as interpretive tools. See Jason Mazzone &
Cem Tecimer, Interconstitutionalism, 132 Yale L.J. 326, 348 (2022)
(“[P]ast constitutions linger. When it comes to constitution-making,
there are no blank slates.”).
We cast aside necessary interpretive information—worse, give
short shrift to the governing text—when we declare provisions of
our Constitution to be “coextensive” with federal constitutional law
that is textually distinct.
GROSSHANS and SASSO, JJ., concur.
Application for Review of the Decision of the District Court of Appeal Class of Constitutional Officers/Direct Conflict of Decisions
Second District – Case No. 2D20-3326
(Hillsborough County)
Bryan S. Gowdy and Dimitrios A. Peteves of Creed & Gowdy, P.A., Jacksonville, Florida; Jason K. Whittemore of Wagner McLaughlin & Whittemore, P.A., Tampa, Florida; and J. Daniel Clark of Clark & Martino, P.A., Tampa, Florida,
- 22 - for Petitioners
James Uthmeier, Attorney General, Jeffrey P. DeSousa, Acting Solicitor General, David M. Costello, Chief Deputy Solicitor General, Daniel Bell, Chief Deputy Solicitor General, Tallahassee, Florida,
for Respondent State of Florida
Christine Beck, County Attorney, and Robert E. Brazel, Chief Assistant County Attorney, Tampa, Florida,
for Respondent Hillsborough County
E.A. “Seth” Mills, Jr. and Jordan Miller of Mills Law Group, P.A., Tampa, Florida,
for Amicus Curiae Florida Taxicab Association
- 23 -