Here’s the $21 million question at the center of a standoff between Florida’s agriculture department and thousands of Broward homeowners: Can the legislature prevent judicial enforcement of the state constitution?
The owners of at least 55,000 Broward properties are betting it can’t. They’ve been fighting Florida’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services for 16 years after the agency destroyed about 133,000 uninfected trees in a failed bid to stop the spread of citrus canker. Meanwhile a judgment to the homeowners is growing by $2,424 in daily interest, while attorneys’ fees have mounted into millions on about $538 in interest per day. The long-running class action involved so much legal maneuvering that District Judge Melanie May once dubbed the case “The Book of Citrus Canker.”
