Appeals court bounces bars’ lawsuit over COVID-19 shutdown damages

The 5th District Court of Appeal on Tuesday threw out a lawsuit brought by a group of Central Florida bars seeking damages after being shut down or limited in their businesses by emergency COVID-19 lockdown rules.

“The COVID orders represented a valid use of the state’s police power to protect the general welfare,” reads the ruling, written by Judge James Edwards.

The ruling upheld a Central Florida circuit court decision to throw out the lawsuit in 2021. Edwards was joined in the decision by the other two members of the three-judge panel hearing the case: Judges Kerry Evander and John Harris. He noted state action to prevent the sale of fireworks during the drought and rampant wildfires of 1998 was also upheld.

“If the state can use its police power to temporarily prohibit the sale of fireworks to prevent wildfires during an exceptionally dry period in Florida, it stands to reason that the state can also use its police powers in an effort to limit the spread of a highly infectious and deadly virus,” Edwards wrote.

Gov. Ron DeSantis initially suspended alcohol sales in March, shortly after COVID-19 began rampantly spreading in the state, but allowed alcohol deliveries three days after issuing the order. On April 1, 2020, he issued an emergency shutdown of most businesses. Restaurants and bars were allowed to operate, but without patrons in their facilities, only conducting delivery or carryout. He began easing the rules one month later, eventually reversing most of the shutdown by September.

That led Orlando Bar Group, which includes The Basement, The Attic and The Treehouse bars to sue the state and Orange County for damages due to their lost business. The suit framed the lockdown measures as a governmental taking without cause, or “inverse condemnation.”

Edwards cited a state law specifically giving the Governor the power to “suspend or limit the sale, dispensing, or transportation of alcoholic beverages, firearms, explosives and combustibles” during a state of emergency. He also noted the suspension of alcohol sales was short-lived.

“The impact of the orders amounted to a complete prohibition on the sale of alcoholic beverages for only seventeen days, following which Appellants’ businesses were incrementally permitted to return to limited sales and operation before being allowed to return to their pre-pandemic mode in approximately six months,” Edwards wrote.