Congratulations to appellate partner Edward Guedes on his remarkable double win at the Third District Court of Appeal.
The first appeal involved Hialeah’s and the County’s efforts to connect a roadway from Hialeah, over I-75, and into the Town of Miami Lakes without the Town’s input. The new road was sought to service the transportation needs of a Lennar Development in Hialeah, which requirement Hialeah included in Lennar’s development agreement. However, the Town and the County had years ago entered into a road transfer agreement, pursuant to which the County transferred to the Town all responsibility for the planning, design, maintenance, construction and future alteration of the roads in the Town, including the one to which Hialeah and the County wanted to connect the proposed road. However, neither Hialeah, the County, Lennar nor their contractors sought the Town’s approval before beginning construction of the road and defacing the Town’s road. The trial court dismissed the complaint with prejudice finding that the road transfer agreement did not confer the contested rights on the Town. The Third District reversed and remanded the case for further proceedings, but required that FDOT be added as a defendant because of the involvement of I-75.
Read the opinion here.
In the second appeal, the Miami-Dade County School Board issued a request for proposal to qualified insurance companies to provide risk management services to the school district. The selection committee initially recommended an award of the contract to Marsh USA, but Arthur J. Gallagher Risk Management Services, a competing bidder, protested the recommendation. The School Board opted not to award the contract to anyone and re-opened the bidding, in which Marsh continued to participate. Marsh appealed the School Board’s decision, but did not protest the reopening (or the subsequent award of the contract to Gallagher). We argued on behalf of the School Board that Marsh had waived its right to pursue its appeal because it willingly participated in the re-opening of the bids and continued competition for award of the contract. The Third District agreed and dismissed the appeal.
Read the opinion here.
