 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Palm Beach County Sheriff v. State9/17/2003
With the exception of Section 768.28, there is no provision of Florida law that would even arguably confer authority upon this Court to award money damages to the City Defendants.
Id. at 1182.
The Sheriff tries to avoid the sovereign immunity aspect of Miller by describing the requested relief not as "damages," but as a "reimbursement" or "recovery" of expenses, an exercise that recalls George Orwell's description of words that fall "upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details." George Orwell, Politics and the English Language, in Inside The Whale 143, 153- 54 (1957). For the purpose of applying sovereign immunity, there is no distinction between the "damages" sought in Miller and the "reimbursement" or "recovery" of expenses pursued in this case.
Finally, the relief sought by the Sheriff violates the separation of powers doctrine. It is not the role of the judiciary to juggle the books of government agencies. An order requiring the Department to reimburse the Sheriff would interfere "with both legislative discretion in determining the funds required of an agency and executive discretion in spending those appropriated funds. . . ." Dep't of Juvenile Justice v. C.M., 704 So. 2d 1123, 1125 (Fla. 4th DCA 1998); see also Dep't of Children & Family Serv. v. Birchfield, 718 So. 2d 202 (Fla. 4th DCA 1998) (holding that the "trial court violated the separation of powers doctrine in considering the [Department's] ability to move funds in order to comply with its mandate"); Dep't of Health & Rehabilitative Serv. v. State, 593 So. 2d 328 (Fla. 5th DCA 1992) (observing that "it is not the judiciary's role to revise legislative appropriations").
AFFIRMED.
MAY, J., and DAMOORGIAN, DORIAN, Associate Judge, concur.
|