A conversation with Marion County Attorney Guy Minter

County Administrator Mounir Bouyounes, right, and County Attorney Matthew Minter, left, talk to each other during the Marion County Commission meeting at the McPherson Governmental Complex in Ocala, Fla. on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2021.

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Posted January 28, 2022 | By Matthew Cretul
matthew@ocalagazette.com

The Ocala Gazette sat down with Marion County Attorney Guy Minter in order to gain an understanding of how the county’s legal department is structured, the scope of its duties, how personnel handle possible and pending litigation against the county, their interactions with members of the Marion County Board of County Commissioners (MCBOCC) when discussing the litigation and other topics.  

Makeup of the County Attorney’s Office

Minter said the office is made up of five attorneys and three support staff and has a budget of around $1.3 million. The support staff usually includes two paralegals and one executive assistant, although he indicated one of the two paralegal positions is currently open and in the process of being filled.  

In describing the office, Minter said the focus of the attorneys within is working exclusively with the county and its different departments.

“You might call it a captive general practice law firm that works solely for the Board of County Commissioners,” he said. “When I say captive, I simply mean that our only client is the Board of County Commissioners, the County Administrator and the various county departments. We don’t have any outside practice, for any of us.” 

He said there are opportunities for them to practice outside of their assigned county duties under certain circumstances but, at the end of the day, they only have one real client.

“The board does have an exception for a minor amount of pro bono work if we have the time available to help somebody out,” he said. “The Florida Bar encourages all attorneys to try to assist people where they can who don’t have the financial wherewithal to deal with some of their legal matters, but we don’t have any outside for-pay clients. We’re all employees of the Board of County Commissioners.”

In-house counsel vs contracted counsel

Local governments and municipalities can choose to structure legal services in different ways. Some, like the City of Ocala, have a contract with a private law firm, while Marion County has a dedicated in-house legal department. 

Minter said in the past, the county looked at utilizing a contracted counsel model before ultimately deciding to continue to retain an attorney in-house. 

“My understanding [in 2011] when I came here was that the Board of County Commissioners had determined that the people in the county attorney’s office before I got here had been farming out all kinds of matters to outside counsel,” he said. “And so the board at that time felt like they were spending too much money on outside counsel. And they weren’t sure they were getting the most value out of their county attorney’s office. And so they actually went through a process of a request for proposals for outside law firms to, in effect, be the county attorney by contract, which would have been similar to, I guess, the arrangement the City of Ocala has had with their city attorney for years.”

He said that had the county decided to move to a contracted counsel model, they would be in the minority in the state.

“If Marion County being the size of county we are our population and everything of the 67 counties in the state of Florida, if Marion County had hired an outside firm to be the county attorney at that time, Marion County would have been the exception because all of the all the county governments in Florida except for the relatively small counties have inside county attorney’s office,” Minter said. 

The caseload

Minter said the cases their office handles run the gamut across a broad spectrum, from torts (a civil wrong) to workers’ compensation. 

“We do all kinds of cases for the county, literally. Ranging from animal control cases to land use and zoning cases, employment cases he said. “We try to do everything we can in-house unless there’s either a conflict of interest or the case is such that it would require a particular expertise, or if it’s something that requires an excessive amount of attorney time.” 

He pointed to one recent example where the county sought to retain outside special services. 

“A year ago, we were involved in two class action cases under the Fair Labor Standards Act involving some of our fire captains. And we did engage the services of special outside labor counsel to deal with that case,” he said.

He said they work within the office to determine who will handle which types of cases.

“On the litigation side, either myself or [another attorney in the office], deals with the tort cases including premises liability property. Premises liability or personal injury cases like car wreck cases, trip and fall cases on county property that kind of thing,” he added. “I’ve handled the county’s employment discrimination cases in the past. So that would involve, let’s say, an employee that we terminated felt like we didn’t terminate them for a legitimate reason, they might sue for wrongful termination, or maybe even a civil rights violation.”

In keeping the cases within his office, Minter echoed the spectrum of litigation they deal with. 

“And the in past [another attorney in the office] primarily focuses on our procurement cases and she’s very involved in all the contracts that the county awards to various providers of services and…contractors. So the two of us have been involved in those [kinds of] cases,” he continued.

“I’ve handled the county’s eminent domain cases where we’re requiring right-of-way for the county to widen roads, that kind of thing,” he said. “Sometimes we have construction litigation cases, sometimes we have construction disputes. For instance, if any particular bidder on a county job feels like they weren’t properly scored in the bidding, they might file a bid challenge.”  

Hiring outside special counsel

Minter stated that in some instances a case may require a specific type of legal knowledge that is outside the scope of the attorneys working in his office. In those situations, his office looks for outside counsel to provide specialty services – but it’s not something his office does often.   

“Very few [times] as far as litigation goes, I think that’s the only one we’ve done in quite a while,” he said. 

He reiterated their desire to handle as many cases as possible in-house. 

Handling litigation against county employees

Minter said when it comes to handling litigation against county employees, as long as the employee was acting within the scope of their duties, any cases would be brought against the county as a whole rather than the individual employee.

“Chapter 768 section 28 [of the Florida Statutes] is the waiver of sovereign immunity…that expressly provides that if the employee was working in their official capacity and within the scope of their work, by statute, any lawsuit has to be against the government agency and not against the individual employee,” he said. 

He pointed out, however, that any work must fall under official duties, otherwise, the individual would not be covered by the sovereign immunity.

“So the key is as long as the employee is acting in the scope of their work. If we had an employee that was totally doing something against county policy, and particularly something illegal, then that would be an example of somebody not performing in accordance with the scope of their work,” he said. “And in that case, the statute says the lawsuit would be against the individual employee and not against the agency.”

He said it’s not often that a case is brought against an individual, typically they are brought against the county.

“But all the cases we’ve had…let’s say it’s a car wreck case, it’s a matter of simple negligence. And so all those cases are against the agency itself.”

“As far as any complaints against elected officials, like the county commissioners, for instance, if there was an ethics complaint against a county commissioner then our office would not represent them before the Commission on Ethics,” Minter said. “Our office, basically our client, is the collegial body of the Board of County Commissioners so we don’t represent any of the commissioners individually.”

He said that’s not just a judgment call on his part, rather, it’s an across-the-board decision that anyone in his position would make. 

“All five of them collectively are my boss. Not just me personally, but no county attorney would put themselves in a position of representing one of them against the others,” he said.

Informing the MCBOCC of possible pending litigation

Minter said that once litigation is brought against the county, how he addresses it with the board differs and pointed to one specific case as an example.

“It depends on what the nature of the case is. If we have a major land-use case, like for instance, probably the largest one we have going on right now is one that’s been going on for a number of years is the Ocala Ranch case, involving property way out on the west side of 200,” he said. “Obviously, that was a case where the board had public hearings and they denied their request for land use. And so then they filed a lawsuit against the county and that case has been going on for quite a while. In that case, we’ve had a couple of closed sessions and then, periodically, I’ll talk to individual commissioners and let them know what’s going on if there’s a significant new development.”

Not all cases require that extensive of a process, according to Minter, although some do require what are termed shade meetings. 

“If we have a tort case, fender bender, that kind of thing, generally speaking, I may talk to the commissioners individually, one on one about those cases,” he said. “If it’s a relatively minor case, I probably don’t talk to the board members about all the individual cases that come up. In that realm, if we have an employment case involving a terminated department head and they’re going to sue us, we’ve had cases like that in the past, and those might involve a closed session or, sometimes, I’ll probably talk to the commissioners one on one about what’s going on in the case.”

Shade meetings are closed-door meetings that are not open to the public, in which the commission can gather to discuss a specific case or matter with Minter or someone from his office, while a court reporter is present to take dictation. Once the case has been completed, the transcripts are then made available to the public.

“Assuming [the commissioners] are all healthy and they’re all available, they would typically all be there,” he said. “So it’d be the County Administrator and myself (or someone from his office) and the members of the Board of County Commissioners and court reporter,” he said.

During the meetings, Minter or another attorney from his office will make suggestions on how to proceed but, he said, at the end of the day, that’s all they are, suggestions. 

“The board ultimately has the final say. I might make a recommendation to them either that we should settle the case or we should go ahead with the litigation. I might recommend terms of [a] settlement. They may or may not agree with that. But ultimately, they’re the clients so they make the final say in the case,” he said.

While the decisions are made in private, Minter said the final terms are discussed in public.

“If there was an ultimate settlement, then the actual settlement of the case would take place in a public meeting…it would be on the board agenda that we have a settlement of a case coming up,” he said. 

Representing the MCBOCC vs individual Marion County residents

Minter said there are times he has citizens contact him requesting counsel from his office. 

“Periodically, we have someone come to a board meeting, or maybe even call us on the phone or come into the office and they’ll want us to provide them with legal service or a legal opinion,” he said. “I don’t know how many times I’ve heard somebody say that, ‘Well, you know, you work for me, I’m a taxpayer. And so I pay your salary and so you have to give me legal advice’ or whatever.” 

He said his response is the same each time.

“We have to respectfully tell them that our client is the Board of County Commissioners and, just like I couldn’t represent one county commissioner against the other obviously, I couldn’t represent a single citizen against another citizen,” he said. “If they were both my boss by virtue of paying taxes, then obviously I’d have a conflict of interest against everybody.” 

While they can’t provide legal services for county residents directly, Minter said their goal is to provide services that will ultimately have the best outcomes for the county as a whole.

“In chapter 112 of the Florida Statutes, there’s a provision about the code of conduct for officers and employees and one of the leading principles in that statute is public employment and public trust. So for my office, we try to do what’s right for the people of Marion County,” he said. 

He said his office doesn’t look at things they’re involved in from a partisan lens but rather remains as neutral as possible to provide strictly legal guidance. 

“And, you know, we stay out of political issues, and we try to give the board the best objective advice we can. Basically, that’s what our guiding principle is at the county attorney’s office,” he said.