Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission v. William McAdam and Chris Coffee

FIRST D ISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
S TATE OF FLORIDA
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No. 1D2024-1752
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F LORIDA FISH AND W ILDLIFE
C ONSERVATION C OMMISSION ,
Appellant,
v.
W ILLIAM M C A DAM and C HRIS
C OFFEE ,
Appellees.
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On appeal from the Circuit Court for Leon County.
John C. Cooper, Judge.
December 31, 2025
P ER C URIAM.
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (“FWC”)
appeals 	a 	nonfinal 	order 	denying 	its 	motion 	to 	dismiss 	the
complaint. 	FWC argues that Appellees failed to state a legally
sufficient 	claim 	for 	both 	inverse 	condemnation 	and 	unjust
enrichment. As to the inverse condemnation claim, we affirm. We
reverse the trial court’s ruling on the unjust enrichment claim, as
barred by sovereign immunity. 	See Heine v. Fla. Atl. Univ. Bd. of
Trs., 	360 	So. 	3d 	412, 	420 	(Fla. 	4th 	DCA 	2023) 	(“[U]njust

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enrichment claim premised on a theory of implied contract is . . .
barred due to sovereign immunity.”).
A FFIRMED in part and R EVERSED in part.
KELSEY and LONG, JJ., concur; TANENBAUM, J., specially concurs
with opinion.
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Not 	final 	until 	disposition 	of 	any 	timely 	and
authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or
9.331.
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T ANENBAUM, J., specially concurring.
The State generally is immune from suit. The Legislature
possesses the authority to waive that sovereign immunity. See Art.
X, § 13, Fla. Const. Regarding “actions at law” asserting tort
liability, the Legislature has waived sovereign immunity under
specified conditions. § 768.28(1), Fla. Stat. The Legislature also
implicitly waives immunity when it authorizes a state agency (or,
for that matter, a subdivision or municipality) to enter “express,
written contracts.” Pan-Am Tobacco Corp. v. Dep’t of Corr., 471 So.
2d 4, 6 (Fla. 1984); see also Rojas v. Univ. of Fla. Bd. of Trs., 419
So. 3d 593, 604 (Fla. 2025) (noting “Pan-Am’s framework for
[immunity] 	waiver-by-contract—with 	its 	focus 	on 	a 	properly
authorized written contract”). Finally, “[s]overeign immunity does
not exempt the State from a challenge based on violation of the
federal or state constitutions, because any other rule self-evidently
would make constitutional law subservient to the State’s will.”
Dep’t of Rev. v. Kuhnlein, 646 So. 2d 717, 721 (Fla. 1994).
The plaintiffs in this case allege that FWC, as part of its
program 	to 	remove 	invasive 	Burmese 	pythons 	from 	the
Everglades, 	erroneously 	killed 	their 	rare 	and 	valuable 	“Red
Dragon” boa constrictor. Their claim for inverse condemnation fits
easily within the constitutional-claim exception to the State’s suit
immunity. Cf. In re Forfeiture of 1976 Kenworth Tractor Trailer
Truck, Altered VIN 243340M, 576 So. 2d 261, 263 (Fla. 1990)

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(noting that constitutional guarantees against the government’s
taking of property without due process or without compensation
apply to personal property and support claim for after-the-fact
damages); see Kirkpatrick v. City of Jacksonville Through Dept. of
Hous. & Urb. Dev., 312 So. 2d 487, 489 (Fla. 1st DCA 1975), cited
approvingly by In re Forfeiture, 576 So. 2d at 263; see generally
Dep’t of Agric. & Consumer Servs. v. Mid-Florida Growers, Inc.,
521 So. 2d 101, 103 (Fla. 1988) (“A taking of private property for a
public purpose which requires compensation may consist of an
entirely negative act, such as destruction.”); Palm Beach County v.
Tessler, 538 So. 2d 846, 849 (Fla. 1989) (“There is a right to be
compensated through inverse condemnation when governmental
action causes a substantial loss of access to one’s property. . . .”).
The trial court properly denied FWC’s motion to dismiss this count
to the extent the motion asserted sovereign immunity.
FWC nevertheless is immune from the plaintiffs’ suit for
unjust enrichment. A claim for unjust enrichment is neither an
action at law nor one based on a written contract. See Tipper v.
Great Lakes Chem. Co., 281 So. 2d 10, 13 (Fla. 1973) (describing
the remedy for unjust enrichment to be use of an implied contract
(or “quasi-contract”) as a “legal fiction,” one that involves an
obligation “imposed by law on grounds of justice and equity” and
does “not rest upon the assent of the contracting parties”). The
plaintiffs’ equity claim does not fall within an exception to or
legislative waiver of immunity, so it should be dismissed.
I 	specially 	concur 	not 	just 	to 	set 	out 	the 	true 	authority
supporting 	the 	disposition 	but 	also 	to 	highlight 	a 	technical
disagreement with how the majority characterizes the disposition.
The order on review is a non-final, procedural order denying a
motion to dismiss. It does not conclusively determine any legal
rights or relationship between the parties, so there is nothing to
“reverse”—that term making more sense when there is a need to
“roll back” the exercise of judicial power and restore the parties to
the 	status 	quo 	ante 	pending 	further 	trial-court 	proceedings.
Moreover, it is odd to “affirm” part and “reverse” part of a “ruling”
in a procedural order, especially where the trial court did not even
expressly 	rule, 	one 	way 	or 	the 	other, 	on 	FWC’s 	immunity
arguments. 	We 	have 	jurisdiction 	because 	the 	order 	denied,
generally, 	a 	motion 	that 	asserted—among 	other 	things—

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entitlement to sovereign immunity. The order is improper simply
because it failed to sustain FWC’s claimed immunity from the
unjust enrichment claim by dismissing it. The proper appellate
remedy here is to vacate the procedurally defective non-final order
and instruct the trial court to render an order denying the motion
as to the takings count and granting it as to the unjust-enrichment
count.
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Rhonda E. Parnell, Assistant General Counsel, Tallahassee; and
Robert J. Sniffen and Kristen C. Diot of Sniffen & Spellman, P.A.,
Tallahassee, for Appellant.
Kenneth G. Oertel of Oertel, Fernandez, Bryant & Atkinson, P.A.,
Tallahassee; and Andrew J. Sando of Sando Law, P.A., Palm Beach
Gardens, for Appellees.