Metropolitan Dade County v. Floyd, Pearson, Richman, Greer, Weil, Zack & Brumbaugh

The court has held that the taxpayers must pay for the services of an attorney in unsuccessfully attempting to resuscitate a then-nonexistent entity which the county had itself both created and properly abolished. Merely to state the result in this way, I believe, is to demonstrate its complete indefensibility.

I

The operative facts are not in dispute. In 1983 the Board of County Commissioners passed ordinance 83-92, effective November 1, 1983, abolishing the Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Authority (WASA) as an independent agency, and restructuring it as a county department. On July 19, 1983,…