It’s not uncommon for laws to conflict with each other - this happens more than you might think. Most of the time, no one notices or cares.
When conflicts are identified in court cases, judges have to unwind these based on precedent and legislative intent.
Remember, judges don’t make law. They are supposed to interpret them based on legislative intent. Court precedent (a.k.a. stare decisis) is used to guide judges in interpreting this intent.
As I have shown before on this thread, sometimes the legal interpretation of the law is far removed from the literal text.
Sometimes you have to not focus on the text of the law and look at the guiding legal principle that governs the law.
Agreed. The lawyers I've spoken to said this one argument does highlight a gray area and is not one of the arguments that's likely doomed from the start. (Count VIII, "Void as Unconscionable", is probably doomed from the start. Every lawyer I talked to recited the same multi-part test for that.)
I've read statute 163.3191 that the state references, and all the statutes that it references. I think the state has to explain two things:
One) Reassessment of plans seems to be triggered only by changes to law that affects the state's important public resources, facilities, or services. Special Districts can have public facilities (defined as buildings, roads, etc.). So the state makes sense here.
But: (A) if the scenario is "The state passes a law that requires the CFTOB to do something different with its public resources, facilities, or services", it's not clear how that triggers a re-evaluation of the other parts of the developer agreement that deal with Disney's
private property.
The most direct thing the judge can do here is to say "if the state can make an argument that an
important resource is affected, the existing DA has to cover the re-review possibility there." That would address the state's concerns without having to throw out the entire DA. (And let's remember that the DA's severability clause both explicity anticipates things like this, and this resolution comports with it. I think lots of judges would like that.)
(B) If Disney wins its "We're being targeted" argument, then this position by the state becomes harder to defend ("We only need an amendment because you passed a law triggering it for us specifically"). Disingenous arguments are tough to defend.
Two) I think some of the language in 163.3245, which is referred to in 163.3191 that the state included in its argument, seems to give a lot of deference to property owners and to both sides making long-term "committments" to each other, when explaning how these statutes are to be applied. Disney's fallback argument of "We own this" has a lot of power in Florida law.
As you say, this is going to come down to making nuanced arguments in front of a judge. I think it would help the state's case if they had a specific example of a legislative authority or enforcement that was explictly delegated in the agreement.