TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – A dispute about whether the Legislature did not properly match donations to the state university system is headed to the Florida Supreme Court.
Donors and former students filed a notice last week that is a first step in asking the Supreme Court to take up the case, which has included breach-of-contract allegations, according to documents posted on the 1st District Court of Appeal website.
The case focuses on legislative decisions to not provide funds for programs created to match donations to the higher-education system.
The state argued, in part, that it should be shielded from the breach-of-contract and impairment-of-contract claims because of sovereign immunity, a legal concept that generally blocks or limits lawsuits against government agencies.
Leon County Circuit Judge Charles Dodson last year rejected the sovereign-immunity arguments, but the appeals court in October overturned that decision.
The appeals court rejected the notion that the state had binding contracts to match the donations.
As is common, the notice of taking the case to the Supreme Court did not detail arguments that attorneys for the donors and former students will make.