Monroe County v. Roy's Trailer Park: 3d DCA exhaustion

A county that has adopted a local code enforcement process is not required to exhaust it before asking a circuit court for an injunction or a declaratory judgment to enforce the same code. The Third District Court of Appeal so held on November 4, 2026, in Monroe County v. Roy’s Trailer Park, Inc., No. 3D2025-2497, and reversed the dismissal of the County’s counterclaims. Judge Bokor wrote the opinion. Judges Lindsey and Gooden completed the panel.

How the case arose

A May 2015 fire at the trailer park led to the discovery that 14 people were living in one single-wide trailer. The County obtained an inspection warrant, and the Fire Marshal and local enforcement board identified numerous safety issues. In 2018, the park sued the County and two tenants in county court, seeking to evict the tenants for fire code violations and a declaration that a trailer park cannot be the “responsible party” for a code violation under section 723.024, Florida Statutes. The County counterclaimed for the opposite declaration, an injunction prohibiting occupancy until the fire and life safety issues were cured, and a receiver. The case moved to circuit court, and the County added eighty-six tenants.

The code enforcement process and the dismissal

The park argued the County had to use its own administrative process, adopted in Monroe County Code section 8-2, before going to court. The trial court first denied partial summary judgment on that argument, but on the first day set for bench trial it agreed with the counter-defendants and dismissed the counterclaims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The park then voluntarily dismissed its own declaratory claim, and the court dismissed the entire action.

The holding and reasoning

The Third District reviewed the dismissal de novo and said the question “isn’t whether a circuit court possesses jurisdiction to hear these types of claims. It does.” The exhaustion doctrine, it wrote, is a court-created prudential doctrine, not a jurisdictional bar, and it applies where a claim is cognizable in the first instance by an administrative agency alone. Here state law makes the claims cognizable elsewhere. Section 125.01(1)(d) gives counties power over fire protection, including enforcement of the Florida Fire Prevention Code, and section 162.13 describes the local procedures under chapter 162 as “an additional or supplemental means of obtaining compliance.” The County’s own code, section 8-36, says nothing in the chapter prevents enforcement “by any other lawfully available means.” Circuit courts may issue injunctions enforcing ordinances and may render declaratory judgments, and the parties had filed two directly conflicting claims about the meaning of section 723.024.

The court also read the cases the park relied on as requiring exhaustion when private parties challenge government action, not as requiring the government to go through its own administrative scheme before using an otherwise available judicial remedy. It explained that a First District statement that exhaustion “applies to municipal governmental agencies” was incomplete without the words “no less than it applies to state administrative agencies,” and concerned claims against a city.

What this does and does not mean

The court reversed and remanded for proceedings consistent with its opinion. It did not decide what section 723.024 means, whether the park can be the responsible party for tenants’ fire code violations, or whether the County is entitled to an injunction or a receiver; those remain for the trial court. The holding rests on the statutes and the County’s own code language quoted in the opinion. The opinion records no dissent or concurrence, and it states it is not final until disposition of a timely motion for rehearing.

Read the opinion (PDF): Download the opinion (PDF)

Source: Monroe County v. Roy’s Trailer Park, Inc., No. 3D2025-2497 (Fla. 3d DCA Nov. 4, 2026). This article is general information, not legal advice.