This document does not reflect the intent or official position of the bill sponsor or House of Representatives.
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DATE: 3/7/2024
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES STAFF FINAL BILL ANALYSIS
BILL #: CS/HB 1167 Attorney Fees and Costs in Property Rights Disputes
SPONSOR(S): Local Administration, Federal Affairs & Special Districts Subcommittee, Yarkosky and others
TIED BILLS: IDEN./SIM. BILLS: SB 702
FINAL HOUSE FLOOR ACTION: 115 Y’s
0 N’s GOVERNOR’S ACTION: N/A
SUMMARY ANALYSIS
CS/HB 1167 passed the House on March 6, 2024, as SB 702.
The institution of private property is a fundamental element of the economic and social structure of the United
States. Within this institution, different ownership principles define the existence and limits of private property
rights. One such set of principles concerns the enforcement of private land use arrangements, known as
“servitudes.” A servitude is, essentially, an arrangement that ties rights and obligations to property ownership
or possession so that such rights and obligations run with the land to successive owners and occupiers.
Because a servitude can be terminated only by expiration of its terms, by the agreement of all involved parties,
by merger of the dominant and servient estates, by court order, or by abandonment by the benefiting party,
servitudes are significant for their ability to foster stable, long-term property use arrangements for a variety of
purposes. Some of the more commonly-created servitudes convey “use rights” (that is, the rights to use a
property one does not own, typically in a specified manner, for one’s own benefit) and rights of ingress and
egress (that is, the legal rights to enter upon or exit from a piece of real property).
Riparian rights are rights incident to land bordering navigable waters such as rivers, channels, and streams
(“riparian land”) and include rights of ingress, egress, boating, bathing, and fishing, and to an unobstructed
view. Riparian rights also include the right to erect upon the bed and shores adjacent to the riparian land docks
and other structures for the riparian land owner’s private use, subject to the right of the public to use the
navigable waters and applicable regulatory and environmental approval schemes. Riparian rights, which inure
to the riparian land owner, are appurtenant to and inseparable from the riparian land. Conveyance of title to or
lease of the riparian land entitles the grantee to the riparian rights running with the land, whether or not such
rights are mentioned in the deed or lease.
The traditional “English rule” entitled a prevailing party in a civil action to attorney fees as a matter of right.
However, Florida and a majority of other United States jurisdictions have adopted the “American rule,” under
which each party to a civil action bears its own attorney fees unless a “fee-shifting statute” provides an
entitlement to such fees. In Florida, several such fee-shifting statutes entitle the prevailing party in a civil action
to have his or her attorney fees paid by the other party.
The bill provides that, in a civil action brought against the owner of a parcel of real property to resolve a
property rights dispute, the court must award reasonable attorney fees and costs to the prevailing defendant if
the improvements made to the property by the defendant property owner were made in substantial compliance
with, or in reliance on, environmental or regulatory approvals or permits issued by a political subdivision of the
state or a state agency. The bill also defines “property rights” to include use rights, ingress and egress rights,
and rights incident to land bordering upon navigable waters.
The bill may have an indeterminate fiscal impact on state or local governments.
Subject to the Governor’s veto powers, the bill takes effect upon becoming a law.
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I. SUBSTANTIVE INFORMATION
A. EFFECT OF CHANGES:
Background
Servitudes
The institution of private property is a fundamental element of the economic and social structure of the
United States.
1
Within this institution, different ownership principles define the existence and limits of
private property rights.
2
One such set of principles concerns the enforcement of private land use
arrangements, known as “servitudes.”
3
A servitude is, essentially, an arrangement that ties rights and obligations to property ownership or
possession so that such rights and obligations run with the land to successive owners and occupiers.
4
Because a servitude can be terminated only by expiration of its terms, by the agreement of all involved
parties, by merger of the dominant and servient estates,
5
by court order, or by abandonment by the
benefiting party, servitudes are significant for their ability to foster stable, long-term property use
arrangements for a variety of purposes, including shared land uses; the maintenance of the character
of a residential neighborhood, commercial development, or historic property; and the establishment of
infrastructure and common facilities.
6
Some of the more commonly-created servitudes convey “use rights” (that is, the rights to use a property
one does not own, typically in a specified manner, for one’s own benefit) and rights of ingress and
egress (that is, the legal rights to enter upon or exit a piece of real property). Servitudes typically come
in the form of:
Easements, which give a person a nonpossessory right of use or enjoyment in another person’s
property for a specific purpose not inconsistent with the property owner’s general rights;
7
Real covenants, which limit a property owner’s use of his or her own property, typically for the
benefit of other property owners in the community; or
Profits à prendre, which give a person a non-possessory right to enter upon and remove natural
resources (such as minerals, timber, produce, wildlife, or grass) from the property of another.
Riparian Rights
Upon attaining statehood in 1845, Florida “assumed title to and sovereignty over the navigable waters
in the state and the lands thereunder” from the submerged bed up to the “ordinary high water mark.”
8
Under the common law Public Trust Doctrine, which recognizes the public’s right to natural resources,
navigable rivers, lakes, and tidelands are held in the public trust, and the state has a legal duty to
preserve and control such waters for public navigation and other lawful uses.
9
1
Ronald H. Rosenberg, Fixing a Broken Common Law – Has the Property Law of Easements and Covenants Been Reformed by a
Restatement, William & Mary Law School Scholarship Repository, Faculty Publications (2016),
https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2932&context=facpubs (last visited Mar. 7, 2024).
2
Id.
3
Id.
4
Susan French, Servitude, The Encyclopaedia Britannica, Dec. 19, 2003, https://www.britannica.com/topic/servitude-property-law (last
visited Mar. 7, 2024); Michael J.D. Sweeney, The Changing Role of Private Land Restrictions: Reforming Servitude Law, 64 Fordham
L. Rev. 661 (1995) https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3208&context=flr (last visited Mar. 7, 2024).
5
The “dominant estate” is the property that benefits from the servitude, while the “servient estate” is the property burdened by the
servitude. Legal Information Institute, Dominant Estate, https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/dominant_estate (last visited Mar. 7, 2024);
Legal Information Institute, Servient Estate, https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/servient_estate (last visited Mar. 7, 2024).
6
Id.
7
Michael T. Olexa, et al., Handbook of Florida Fence and Property Law: Easements and Rights of Way, Oct. 3, 2022,
https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/FE108 (last visited Mar. 7, 2024).
8
Art. X, s. 11, Fla. Const.; Merrill-Stevens Co. v. Durkee, 57 So. 428 (Fla. 1912).
9
Art. X, s. 11, Fla. Const.; Coastal Petroleum Co. v. Am. Cyanamid Co., 492 So. 2d 339, 342 (Fla. 1986); State ex rel. Ellis v. Gerbing,
56 Fla. 603 (1908).
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Riparian rights are rights incident to land bordering navigable waters
10
such as rivers, channels, and
streams
11
(“riparian land”) and include rights of ingress, egress, boating, bathing, and fishing, and to an
unobstructed view.
12
Riparian rights also include the right to erect upon the bed and shores adjacent to
the riparian land docks and other structures for the riparian land owner’s private use, subject to the right
of the public to use the navigable waters and applicable regulatory and environmental approval
schemes.
13
Riparian rights, which inure to the riparian land owner, are appurtenant to and inseparable
from the riparian land.
14
Conveyance of title to or lease of the riparian land entitles the grantee to the
riparian rights running with the land, whether or not such rights are mentioned in the deed or lease.
15
In order for riparian rights to attach, the riparian land must extend to the ordinary high water mark of the
navigable water.
16
However, courts have acknowledged that there is no one proper method for
establishing riparian rights boundaries, and such rights do not necessarily extend into the waters
according to riparian land boundaries.
17
Instead, such boundaries must be apportioned and riparian
rights determined in accordance with equitable principles, with consideration given to the lay of the
shore line, the direction of the water body, and the co-relative rights of adjoining riparian land owners.
18
Land Use Regulation
Local Government Regulation
Florida law requires each county and municipality to plan for future development and growth by
adopting, implementing, and amending as necessary a comprehensive plan.
19
All elements of a plan or
plan amendment must be based on relevant, appropriate data,
20
and an analysis by the local
government may include surveys, studies, aspirational goals, and other data available at the time of
adopting the plan or amendment.
21
The data supporting a plan or amendment must be taken from
professionally accepted sources and must be based on permanent and seasonal population estimates
and projections published by the Office of Economic and Demographic Research or generated by the
local government based upon a professionally acceptable methodology.
22
Comprehensive plans adopted by local governments provide the principles, guidelines, standards, and
strategies for the orderly and balanced future economic, social, physical, environmental, and fiscal
development of the area.
23
A key purpose of such plans is to establish meaningful and predictable
standards for land use and development.
24
Accordingly, each county and municipality must adopt and
10
The test to determine whether water is “navigable water” is whether, at the time Florida joined the United States in 1845, the
waterbody was, in its ordinary and natural state, used or capable of being used by any watercraft for a sufficient part of the year as a
public highway for commerce. “Navigable waters” in the state do not extend to any permanent or transient waters in the form of so-
called lakes, ponds, swamps, or overflowed lands lying over and upon areas which have heretofore been conveyed to private
individuals by the United States or by the state without reservation of public rights in and to said waters. Odom v. Deltona Corp., 341
So. 2d 977 (Fla. 1976); s. 253.141(2), F.S.
11
Riparian rights should not be confused with littoral rights, which are rights incident to land bordering non-flowing waterbodies, such as
lakes, ponds, seas, oceans, and gulfs.
12
S. 253.141, F.S.; Hayes v. Bowman, 91 So. 2d 795 (Fla. 1957).
13
The right to build such a structure does not include the right to use the structure for commercial purposes. Further, the Florida
Department of Environmental Protection has established a regulatory approval scheme and setback requirements for structures built
over submerged sovereign lands, including docks. Ferry Pass Inspectors’ & Shippers’ Ass’n v. White’s River Inspectors’ & Shippers’
Ass’n, 48 So. 643 (Fla. 1909); Belvedere Dev. Corp. v. Dep’t of Transp., 476 So. 2d 649 (Fla. 1985); Fla. Admin. Code R. 18-21.
14
S. 253.141, F.S.
15
Id.
16
Id.; Thiesen v. Gulf, Fla. & Alabama Railway Co., 78 So. 491 (Fla. 1917).
17
Hayes, 91 So. 2d at 801, 802 (Fla. 1957); Lake Conway Shores HOA, Inc. v. Driscoll, 476 So. 2d 1306 (Fla. 5th DCA 1985).
18
Id.
19
Ss. 163.3167(2) and 163.3177(2), F.S.
20
“To be based on data means to react to it in an appropriate way and to the extent necessary indicated by the data available on that
particular subject at the time of adoption of the plan or plan amendment at issue.” S. 163.3177(1)(f), F.S.
21
S. 163.3177(1)(f), F.S.
22
Id.
23
S. 163.3177(1), F.S.
24
S. 163.3167(1)(a-c) and (2), F.S.
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enforce land use regulations (such as zoning ordinances) that are consistent with and implement their
adopted comprehensive plan.
25
Furthermore, all public and private development must be consistent
with the local comprehensive plan and all applicable land use regulations; to accomplish this, local
governments implement an approval and permitting scheme for property owners wishing to make
specified improvements to their properties.
26
State Regulation
Like local governments, the State establishes standards for land use and development through the
enactment of laws and the implementation of land use regulations promulgated by state agencies;
many such laws and regulations focus on state-level environmental protection and natural resource
conservation.
27
In many instances, a state-level approval and permitting scheme governs property
owners wishing to make specified improvements to their properties, thereby ensuring compliance with
applicable state land use laws and regulations.
28
Attorney Fees
The traditional “English rule” entitled a prevailing party in a civil action to attorney fees as a matter of
right. However, Florida and a majority of other United States jurisdictions have adopted the “American
rule,” under which each party to a civil action bears its own attorney fees unless a “fee-shifting statute”
provides an entitlement to such fees. In Florida, several such fee-shifting statutes entitle the prevailing
party in a civil action to have his or her attorney fees paid by the other party.
29
Effect of the Bill
The bill creates s. 57.106, F.S., to provide that, in a civil action brought against the owner of a parcel of
real property to resolve a property rights dispute, the court must award reasonable attorney fees and
costs to the prevailing defendant if the improvements made to the property by the defendant property
owner were made in substantial compliance with, or in reliance on, environmental or regulatory
approvals or permits issued by a political subdivision of the state or a state agency. The bill also defines
“property rights” to include, but not to be limited to, use rights, ingress and egress rights, and those
rights incident to land bordering upon navigable waters as described in s. 253.141, F.S.
Subject to the Governor’s veto powers, the bill takes effect upon becoming a law.
25
S. 163.3202, F.S.
26
See ss. 163.3161(6) and 163.3194(1)(a), F.S.
27
See, e.g., Florida Department of Environmental Protection, About DEP, https://floridadep.gov/about-dep (last visited Mar. 7, 2024).
28
Id.
29
See, e.g., s. 400.023, F.S. (nursing home resident); s. 440.34, F.S. (claimant in a workers’ compensation case in certain situations); s.
501.2105, F.S. (plaintiff in specified FDUTPA actions); ss. 626.9373 and 627.428, F.S. (prevailing insured party in a case brought against
an insurer); s. 790.33, F.S. (plaintiff in a suit to enforce his or her firearm rights); see also 42 U.S.C. s. 1988(b) (federal fee-shifting statute
for prevailing parties in actions to enforce certain civil rights statutes).
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II. FISCAL ANALYSIS & ECONOMIC IMPACT STATEMENT
A. FISCAL IMPACT ON STATE GOVERNMENT:
1. Revenues:
None.
2. Expenditures:
See Fiscal Comments.
B. FISCAL IMPACT ON LOCAL GOVERNMENTS:
1. Revenues:
None.
2. Expenditures:
See Fiscal Comments.
C. DIRECT ECONOMIC IMPACT ON PRIVATE SECTOR:
See Fiscal Comments.
D. FISCAL COMMENTS:
The bill may have a positive fiscal impact on prevailing defendants in the types of property rights
disputes contemplated by the bill to the extent that such defendants recover their attorney fees and
costs where they would not otherwise have been able to do so. However, the bill may have a negative
fiscal impact on non-prevailing plaintiffs in such disputes, which may include state or local government
entities, to the extent that such plaintiffs have to pay a prevailing defendant’s attorney fees and costs
where they would not have otherwise had to do so.