Snyder house rules? The new deference in the review of quasi-judicial decisions.

• Author: Hainline, T.R., Jr.
• Position: Florida

When the Florida Supreme Court issued its opinion in Board of County Commissioners of Brevard v. Snyder, 627 So. 2d 469 (Fla. 1993), landowners and developers cheered the decision as a victory for applicants seeking zoning changes from local governments.(1) Rezonings, the Florida Supreme Court ruled, were not legislative decisions entitled to deferential review under the "fairly debatable" standard.(2) Rather, rezonings are "quasi-judicial" decisions, which need not be given such deference and must be supported by competent and substantial evidence.(3) Local governments complained that the decision in Snyder placed too heavy a burden on zoning boards and commissions(4) and would result in numerous losses on appellate review.

The past seven years have demonstrated that the Snyder decision has been difficult for courts to apply. Circuit courts must determine whether zoning decisions are supported by competent and substantial evidence but also must avoid, on certiorari review, substituting their judgment for local zoning boards and "re-weighing" the evidence.(5) District courts must determine whether circuit court decisions meet the "essential requirements of law" but also must avoid, in a "second" certiorari review, undertaking any review of the evidence in the record.(6)

Difficulty applying Snyder has recently been highlighted by the Florida Supreme Court's decision in Florida Power & Light Company v. City of Dania, No. SC 93940, 2000 Fla. LEXIS 1220 (Fla. June 15, 2000). In City of Dania, the Florida Supreme Court held that both the circuit court, which quashed the denial of a rezoning, and the district court, which quashed the circuit court's decision, had erred in their certiorari reviews under Snyder. The circuit court had been wrong to re-weigh the evidence; the district court had been wrong to review the record evidence at all.(7)

The difficulties which courts face today can be traced to the Snyder decision. Although Snyder required nondeferential review of rezonings as quasi-judicial decisions, it explicitly did not require that written findings be included by local governments in such decisions.(8) Written findings, however, are a critical ingredient in the review of quasi-judicial decisions.(9) They are necessary guideposts without which a circuit court is left to review the outcome of the local zoning board's vote on the rezoning without the benefit of the board's reasoning.(10)

In its required review of the evidence below, a circuit court applying Snyder faces a "Catch-22": the court cannot "re-weigh" the evidence or substitute its judgment for that of the zoning board, and yet, in the absence of written findings, any evidence which is relied upon by the circuit court in its review may or may not have been relied upon by the zoning board. Thus, in examining the record without the guidance afforded by written findings, the circuit court necessarily is "re-weighing" the evidence and substituting its judgment for that of the zoning board. District courts, quick to find error in the "re-weighing" of evidence, urge circuit courts to search the record for any evidence in the record supporting the outcome of the zoning board's vote.(11) Exit nondeferential review of decisions which are quasi-judicial; enter deferential review of decisions which are, in effect, viewed as legislative.

Prior to Snyder: Written Findings Are Necessary

Before Snyder, Florida courts uniformly recognized the necessity of written findings to support quasi-judicial decisions and relied upon such findings as the starting point in a circuit court's review.(12) As explained by Judge Zehmer in Irvine v. Duval County Planning Commission, 466 So. 2d 357, 366 (Fla. 1st DCA 1985) (Zehmer, J., dissenting), approved, 495 So. 2d 167 (Fla. 1986), adopted after remand, 504 So. 2d 1265 (Fla. 1st DCA 1986), findings benefit a reviewing circuit court by exposing the "decisional referents"(13) below and eliminating "guess-work as to what facts alleged were found not to be true."(14) With findings, the circuit court "can first determine whether or not the facts found by the agency constitute lawful grounds for its action and, then, determine whether the evidence supports the finding[s]."(15) In this way, findings operate to prevent a circuit court from "re-weighing" evidence or substituting its judgment for that of the local zoning board.(16)

Pre-Snyder courts also recognized that written findings operate to "de-politicize" and promote "objective rationality" in zoning decisions.(17) In Lee County v. Sunbelt Equities, 619 So. 2d 996 (Fla. 2d DCA 1993), the district court observed, "The requirement of providing specific reasons for a [rezoning], in accord with the characterization of such proceedings as quasi-judicial, should diminish (if not altogether eliminate) the likelihood those mandatory findings will only mask the real reason [an] application was denied."(18)

Snyder:. No Findings are Necessary

In Snyder, the Florida Supreme Court acknowledged that written findings are "useful" but remarkably held, without explanation, that such findings are...