50.011 Publication of legal notices.—Whenever by statute an official or legal advertisement or a publication or notice in a newspaper or on a governmental agency website has been or is directed or permitted in the nature of or in lieu of process, or for constructive service, or in initiating, assuming, reviewing, exercising, or enforcing jurisdiction or power, or for any purpose, including all legal notices and advertisements of sheriffs and tax collectors, such legislation, whether existing or repealed, means either of the following:
(1) A publication in a newspaper printed and published periodically at least once a week, containing at least 25 percent of its words in the English language, available to the public generally for the publication of official or other notices and customarily containing information of a public character or of interest or of value to the residents or owners of property in the county where published, or of interest or of value to the general public, which:
(a) Has an audience consisting of at least 10 percent of the households in the county or municipality, as determined by the most recent decennial census, where the legal or public notice is being published or posted, by calculating the combination of the total of the number of print copies reflecting the day of highest print circulation, of which at least 25 percent of such print copies must be delivered to individuals’ home or business addresses, as certified biennially by a certified independent third-party auditor, and the total number of online unique monthly visitors to the newspaper’s website from within the state, as measured by industry-accepted website analytics software. The newspaper must also be sold, or otherwise available to the public, at no less than 10 publicly accessible outlets. For legal and public notices published by nongovernmental entities, the newspaper’s audience in the county or municipality where the project, property, or other primary subject of the notice is located must meet the 10 percent threshold; or
(b) Is entered or qualified to be admitted and entered as periodical class mail at a post office in the county where published.
(2) A publication on a publicly accessible website under s. 50.0311.
History.—s. 2, ch. 3022, 1877; RS 1296; GS 1727; s. 1, ch. 5610, 1907; RGS 2942; s. 1, ch. 12104, 1927; CGL 4666, 4901; s. 1, ch. 63-387; s. 6, ch. 67-254; s. 21, ch. 99-2; s. 1, ch. 2021-17; s. 1, ch. 2022-103.
Cited 9 times | Published | Supreme Court of Florida
...The DOR argues that its administrative definition of "newspaper" in Rule 12A-1.08 complies with the legislature's understanding of the word. While chapter 212 provides no definition of the word, the DOR calls our attention to two statutory references: section 50.011 Whenever a legal notice is required to be published, such publication shall be "in a newspaper printed periodically ......
...that is given away primarily to distribute advertising." While the language of section 165.031(9) may demonstrate some legislative ambiguity regarding the nature of "shoppers" and other publications given away primarily to distribute advertising, it is clear from reading sections 50.011, 165.031(9), and 212.08(6) in pari materia that the legislature considers newspapers to constitute a broader class than simply those which are sold by collecting a payment from readers or which are eligible for second-class mailing privileges. If the legislature did not consider newspapers to be of a broader class, then it would have been unnecessary to include the limiting language in sections 50.011 and 165.031(9)....
Cited 4 times | Published | Florida 5th District Court of Appeal
...In this light, we cannot find the two administrative regulations in question here to be unreasonable. Numerous statutory provisions require a publication to be sold and to have a second class mailing permit in order to qualify for certain privileges. For example, Section 50.011, Florida Statutes, (1977) provides that legal publications can be placed in a "newspaper printed and published periodically once a week or oftener ......
has its business offices in another county. Section 50.011, F.S., provides that any statutorily required
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