JEROME ERIC BIVENS W v. GREGORY TONY, SHERIFF and STATE OF FLORIDA

• Court: District Court of Appeal of Florida
• Decided: August 9, 2023
• Docket: 23-0299
• Status: Published

Opinion

DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA FOURTH DISTRICT

JEROME ERIC BIVENS, Appellant,

v.

GREGORY TONY, Sheriff, and STATE OF FLORIDA, Appellees.

No. 4D23-299

[August 9, 2023]

Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, Broward County; Martin S. Fein, Judge; L.T. Case No. 13-10590CF10A.

Jerome Eric Bivens, Doral, pro se.

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Melynda L. Melear, Senior Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for appellees.

PER CURIAM.

We affirm the trial court’s order denying appellant’s petition for mandamus to compel the production of public records from the Broward County Sheriff. Section 119.01(1), Florida Statutes (2022), provides that agencies have the duty to “provide access” to public records and public records “are open for personal inspection and copying by any person[.]” In this case, appellant did not request the production of records for inspection and copying but instead asked the Sheriff to respond to several questions about an employee’s qualifications. Nothing in the plain language of section 119.01 or the Florida Constitution requires agencies to pore through their own records to answer specific questions. See Jones v. Miami Herald Media Co., 198 So. 3d 1143, 1145 (Fla. 1st DCA 2016) (instructing that the Public Records Act may not be “expand[ed] . . . beyond its plain language”); Fla. League of Cities v. Smith, 607 So. 2d 397, 401 (Fla. 1992) (“Mandamus may not be used to establish the existence of . . . a right, but only to enforce a right already clearly and certainly established in the law.”). Thus, the petition for writ of mandamus was properly denied, as it was legally insufficient. Moreover, appellant never served the petition on the Sheriff, who was the agency head required to respond. Instead, appellant served the Office of the Attorney General. Therefore, the petition was also insufficient, as it was directed against the wrong agency.

Affirmed.

WARNER, DAMOORGIAN and KUNTZ, JJ., concur.

* * *

Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.