CopyCited 11 times | Published | Florida 1st District Court of Appeal | 1989 WL 15937
...plicable only to one or the other type of plan. Many of the sections of these chapters are silent as to their applicability to local law plans. Legislative intent has been further clarified by the following language in section 1, ch. 86-41, amending section 175.021: [The legislature] intends, in implementing the provisions of s....
...e to local law plans. After the 1986 amendments, the Department took a different view regarding the applicability of all minimum standard provisions in that chapter to local law plans, primarily based upon the added language of legislative intent in section 175.021, quoted above. § 175.021, Fla....
...agency responsible for its implementation is also given deference on review of such construction or interpretation. Andrews v. Borden Co.,
143 So.2d 556 (Fla.2d DCA 1962)." (R. 514) The hearing officer concluded that the Department's construction of section
175.021 had not been shown to be unreasonable, as the proposed rules implementing its salutary language appear to be reasonable and necessary in order for the Department to carry out its responsibility of insuring, through the application of...
...f preemption hereinafter discussed. Appellants argue, however, that the Department exceeded its delegated statutory authority in applying the third prong of the test, based solely upon implications from the quoted statements of legislative intent in section 175.021 as amended in 1986, so as to make applicable to local law plans the various procedural and substantive requirements in chapter 175 not theretofore considered applicable to such plans....
...cation are not legally permissible for the following reasons. D. Invalidity of the Department's Test The third prong of the Department's test is predicated upon an inference drawn from the 1986 amended statement of legislative intent incorporated in section 175.021....
...pplied to local law plans even though the provisions of chapter 175 are silent as to whether the standard is applicable to local law plans. Therefore, to sustain the Department's position, we must determine that the language of the 1986 amendment to section 175.021, especially the last sentence, [7] can be permissibly interpreted, in light of the doctrine of express preemption, to mean that all minimum standards contained in chapter 175 are now intended to be applicable to both chapter plans and...
...Even after the 1986 amendments, chapter 175 unquestionably continued to contemplate that both the state and the municipalities would remain empowered to legislate independently with respect to firefighters' pension plans because it preserved the distinction between chapter plans and local law plans. Section
175.021, as amended, did not contain any language that addressed the express preemption requirement of section
166.021(3)(c); yet both the Department and the hearing officer have necessarily relied upon implications based on the amended statu...
...ect when applied to chapter plans. We find no support elsewhere in chapter 175 for the Department's assertion of authority to pass on the sufficiency of such actuarial valuations apart from its erroneous implication of expanded authority pursuant to section 175.021 as amended....
...d the stated limitations. All parties apparently agree that the refund provisions *863 in section
175.201, referred to in section
175.171, apply only to chapter plans. The Department and the hearing officer rely upon the Department's construction of section
175.021 as amended and the Department's invalid test as authority for applying section
175.171 by implication to local law plans....
...The City contends that section
175.181 is not made expressly applicable to local law plans and thus is applicable only to chapter plans. As authority for this rule, the Department applies its three-pronged test based on its liberal construction of section
175.021 and also cites the second district's decision in Board of Trustees of the City of Dunedin Municipal Firefighters Retirement System v....
...Nothing stated in the 1986 amendments expressly made this section applicable to local law plans. Of course, the proposed rule cannot be sustained on the basis of the invalid third prong of the Department's test and construction by implication of the 1986 amendment to section 175.021....
...s they wish, and that section
175.191 does not contain any reference to local law plans. Thus, the City and the League argue, section
175.191 was unlawfully applied to local law plans by this rule under the Department's impermissible construction of section
175.021....
...The Department admits that section 175.251 was inapplicable to local law plans prior to 1986 (see rule 4-54.045 at p. 859, supra). Nothing in the 1986 amendments expressly makes it applicable to local law plans. The Department's reliance on its expansive interpretation of section 175.021 to uphold the rule is without merit....
...The Department admits section
175.261 was not applicable to local law plans prior to 1986 (see rule 4-54.045 at p. 859, supra). Nothing in chapter 175 as amended in 1986 expressly makes section
175.261 applicable to local law plans, and we have held invalid the Department's and the hearing officer's implications from amended section
175.021 as authority to do so....
...The City points out that the anti-discrimination provision in section
175.333 is also found in section
175.351(7), which is expressly made applicable to local law plans. The Department defends this rule on the basis of its broad interpretation of amended section
175.021 and the consistency of the rule with overall statutory purpose....
...See the discussion under that rule for the hearing officer's reasoning with respect to the validity of this paragraph (supra at pp. 859-860). The Department justifies this paragraph of the rule on the basis of its expansive interpretation of amended section 175.021....
CopyCited 4 times | Published | Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit | 1985 U.S. App. LEXIS 23800
...tion. We start our analysis by defining the character of firefighting. Historically, firefighting was viewed as a purely local concern. 22 Florida treats firefighting as both a municipal and a statewide concern. As the Florida Legislature stated: 23 175.021....
...Note, The Urban County: A Study of New Approaches to Local Government in Metropolitan Areas, 73 HARV.L.REV. 526, 526-33 (1960); see generally O. Reynolds, supra note 15, at 42-48 (discussing centralized forms of local government). 21 . FLA. CONST, art. VIII, § 4. 22 . O. Reynolds, supra note 15, at 107. 23 . FLA.STAT.ANN. § 175.021 (West 1984)....
