Artem M. Joukov v. Office of the State Attorney for the Second Judicial Circuit of Florida

FLA. STAT. § 57.111 (2020), the Equal Access to Justice Act, entitles small business owners to costs and attorney’s fees when they prevail in administrative actions initiated against them by state agencies. Individuals frivolously sued by state agencies receive similar protections under F LA. STAT. § 120.595 (2020). Florida denied Petitioner recovery under these provisions after a state agency brought administrative action which the agency knew could not succeed (the action was dismissed on Petitioner’s very first Motion to Dismiss). Petitioner properly preserved a Due Process and an Equal Protection challenge to his exclusion from the class of citizens entitled to statutory recovery. This Court held in United States v. Windsor, 570 U.S. 744 (2013) that excluding individuals from legal benefits extended to others under arbitrary statutory provisions cannot withstand Equal Protection and Due Process scrutiny. The questions presented are:

1. Does the Equal Protection Clause permit the State of Florida to discriminate against unincorporated small business owners that are unsuccessfully sued in their individual rather than their business capacity?

2. Does the Equal Protection Clause permit the State of Florida to discriminate against small business owners that are ruled to have no domicile or physical place of business in Florida, even if their business can operate virtually in its entirety?

3. Do the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause permit Florida to disregard its own precedent and this Court’s precedent on what defines the domicile of a person or a small business within the State of Florida?

4. Do the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause permit Florida to eliminate the right to recover attorney’s fees under a claim of bad faith litigation when sued administratively rather than through the civil process (given that the party frivolously sued cannot control where the suit originates)?

5. Do the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause permit the State of Florida judiciary to effectively nullify F LA. STAT. § 120.595 by declaring that neither a prevailing petitioner nor a prevailing respondent in an underlying administrative action can recover costs and attorney’s fees?