madness in Fort Lauderdale – Collateral Estoppel, Consistency and other Suits - Stranahan II (but the first decided)

Stranahan House, Inc., et al v. City of Ft. Lauderdale, 32 Fla. L. Weekly D2591a (Fla. 4th DCA October 31, 2007).

Warning: you may want to read Stranahan I, which perversely was released 2 weeks later, before trying to make sense of this.

In this case, the Court allows a group representing a neighboring property to go forward with a “consistency challenge” under § 163.3215 to the approval of an amended site plan approved by the City of Ft. Lauderdale. The critical issue in this challenge involves policies regarding historic preservation. The building involved was to be built on lands adjacent to the historic Stranahan House that had been the subject of a failed attempt by the City to purchase for “park purposes” (read—stop development) with Stranahan’s supporters committing funds.
As will be seen below, the effort to buy the land not only failed, but resulted in other litigation and settlements between the developer and the City. When, pursuant to the settlement, the City approved the site plan, the citizens/Stranahan House sued on several fronts, including the consistency challenge.

The City argued, and the circuit court agreed, that the core issues of consistency had been argued previously in the earlier, settled suit. The Fourth District rejected this, in part because the pleadings in the earlier case were not part of the record. [BIG HINT – it appears the same judge heard multiple suits, and the parties argued the merits of the earlier suit to the judge without putting them into the record by notice – if you have to argue collateral estoppel or other similar issues, put the other pleadings into the record]

The circuit court also found that Stranahan House was precluded from litigating this issue against the City because the agreement it had with the City in the attempt to buy/condemn the land, authorized the City to act for it. The City argued that the settlement was an outgrowth of that action and that, just as the City was bound, the plaintiffs were bound by the City’s action. The Fourth District rejected this theory of agency under the terms of the agreement, found that the plaintiffs had standing under the statute, and let it proceed.

HOWEVER – given that the plaintiffs had unsuccessfully argued earlier that any use of the property violated the historic preservation policies of the plan (and that the site was outside the historic district protected by the policies), it seems unlikely that they will prevail when the plan goes back to the judge. Their real efforts were to kill the site plan as illegal, which was rejected in the second case.