Staff Reports
A Volusia County Circuit Judge dismissed a challenge against a DeLand ordinance requiring people to wear masks inside businesses and other indoor locations.
“Because extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, state and local governments all over America are enacting emergency laws designed to protect their citizens from the spread of this deadly virus — just like they did 100 years ago,” Circuit Judge Randell H. Rowe III wrote in the judgment. “The ordinance is authorized not only by statute, but by well settled case law precedent dating back over a hundred years.”
In an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19 in the city, the DeLand City Commission passed the mask law in an emergency meeting July 2. It requires mask-wearing inside businesses, and provides for fines of $25 for a first offense, $50 for a second and $100 for a third.
The judge issued the ruling in a lawsuit filed by Rep. Anthony Sabatini, who has now failed six times in getting the courts to overturn local ordinances requiring residents to wear masks in public.
It’s also the second loss for Sabatini in less than a week — on Aug. 26, Judge David Frank of the 2nd Circuit Court upheld Gadsden County’s mask mandate and warned the Lake County lawmaker that if he continued filing “frivolous lawsuits” he could face judicial sanction.
“Once the law on a particular subject is well established, a lawsuit based on consistently rejected grounds will be frivolous unless there is, ‘a reasonable argument for the extension, modification, or reversal of existing law,” Frank wrote.
In the Monday ruling regarding Volusia, Rowe also noted Sabatini’s prolific filings, noting he filed more than a dozen lawsuits challenging similar ordinances across the state.
Sabatini has argued mask mandates are “unconstitutional.”
He argues such mandates violate basic rights and due process. The crux of his argument lies in the privacy clause in the state’s governing document.
Rowe said the ordinance complies with the Florida Constitution.
“The Court cannot help but note that the only way the Plaintiff might suffer irreparable harm here is if the City’s face mask ordinance is found unconstitutional and the Plaintiff, therefore, is placed at greater risk of contracting COVID-19 because the citizens of DeLand stop wearing face coverings in public,” Rowe wrote.
The man Sabatini represented in the DeLand case did not testify how his right to privacy was being violated by DeLand’s ordinance, which requires residents to wear masks whenever they are indoors at a business.
Sabatini has also railed against fines associated the ordinances in DeLand and other cities and counties, though, as reported by the Daytona Beach News-Journal, DeLand City Manager Michael Pleus said no fines have been assessed since the city commission voted 4-1 to establish the ordinance early last month.
Sabatini came out as an early critic of face covering requirements, which he has attributed to “mask Nazis.” Most recently, he pinned the proliferation of such ordinances on Democrats in local government, even though Volusia and many other jurisdictions with masks are Republican-controlled.
“The real reason Democrats are pushing for state and nation-wide mask-mandates is because they are mad that Republicans are better looking and by covering up all faces they don’t have to be reminded of this fact,” he tweeted. This logic has yet to make its way into an official court filing.
While controversial, 24 Florida counties and more than 70 municipalities have implements requirements of some sort.
13 comments
S.B. ANTHONY
August 31, 2020 at 6:04 pm
Of course Deland won. It was just a political stunt so that Sabatini could
get the attention he desperately craves, just like trump. A bunch of insecure
little boys playing with people’s lives.
Michael Siegel
September 1, 2020 at 11:07 am
very well stated and I couldn’t agree more.
fl law bro
September 1, 2020 at 8:24 am
the blackface wearing lawyer fails again. surprise
Laura Mullaney
September 2, 2020 at 2:24 pm
why can’t we require IQ tests for elected officials? Then we could keep the weak-minded ones like this guy filing 6 stupid lawsuits out of office
Shawn Newton
September 1, 2020 at 3:29 pm
Communism will not prevail forever. We will overcome after we remove all communists from Senate, the courts, and governor’s. The CDC even shows on their website that of all the 180,000 plus “Covid deaths” 6% are actual Covid deaths, which is less then 10,000 people. You guys have been Hoodwinked to give up your rights so easily.
Lee Coleman, LPN
September 2, 2020 at 1:00 am
The CDC has become a pawn of Trump. Not a pawn of the White House or of government. Just a pawn of Trump. Nothing, NOTHING they say at this point is relevant or trustworthy. That having been said most people don’t die of COPD at 60 or 70 years of age. Combined with Covid, they do. People with CHF don’t die at 65 or 75 years old. Combined with Covid they do. Perhaps you should be more than just passingly concerned.
James Robert Miles
September 3, 2020 at 4:15 pm
So everyone that you disagree with is a communist? Bet you wouldn’t even know what a communist was, much less a socialist! Another right wing moron parroting whatever the extremist GOP party says. Listen to Rush Limpballs much?
Sonja Fitch
September 2, 2020 at 5:32 am
Sabatini keeps on with stupid frivolous law suits! Is Sabatini running for Governor?
Travis
September 2, 2020 at 6:14 am
It really doesn’t matter if you wear a mask or not. The florida approach to this yielded the same results as the California approach to this. The two states have near the same amount of cases, yet California has strict measures in place – including lock down.
Your all a bunch of babies, and for you retards that call the CDC Trumps stooge, your still mad Hillary lost 4 years ago.
At least Sabatini still has his law license, unlike Hillary, Bill, Barack, and Micheal (she looka lika man) who have been disbarred in Arkansas and Illinois respectively. Those four can never practice law again for in the US, stew on that.
Idge
September 2, 2020 at 8:51 am
Bill Clinton was disbarred due to his impeachment, Hillary, Barack and Michelle Obama let their licenses lapse, and could reactive them and practice in future if they chose to. That in contrast to the criminal in cheif, who thinks he is above the law, so doesn’t know or care anything about it. The same goes for Melania(looks like a whore) the illegal immigrant.
James Dixon
September 2, 2020 at 2:39 pm
OUTRAGEOUS!😡 Just another hacktivist lawyer in a black robe serving as a puppet for the demonrats and the deep state! This “judge” needs to be removed from the bench disbared and tried for treason!😡
Joe Fatala
September 2, 2020 at 2:54 pm
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Moronic Republican RightWingnuts…………..Can’t even spell!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Don’t bother going back to school to learn how to spell. It’s TOO LATE. Your brains are already atrophied.
Palmer Tom
September 2, 2020 at 8:51 pm
When will this little twerp face the legal consequences of his showboating?
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