In Bojorquez v. Florida, No. SC2023-0095 (June 5, 2025), the Florida Supreme Court reached a decision that a lot of other courts have reached: taxi licenses are not “private property” and therefore there’s no taking when the government does something to affect the value of those licenses. But this one has some interesting points, making the opinion worth a look.
Between the 1976 and 2017, the State implemented a special municipal government — the Hillsborough County Public Transportation Commission — to regulate taxis in Hillsborough County. To operate a taxi, you needed a taxi certificate or permit. In 2012, to clarify that these certificates and permits were transferrable and were considered property, the Legislature declared that issued and future certificates and permits are “the private property of the holder of such certificate or permit[,]” which may be sold or assigned, or otherwise transferred to another. In 2017, the State dissolved the Commission, returning authority to regulate taxis to the County itself.
The County, however, did not recognize the Commission-issued certificates and permits. Everyone must apply for a County-issued license, even if you already have one from the Commission. And under the County’s new regime, there’s “no proprietary interest” in these licenses. In short, a reboot.
You can guess what happened next: holders of Commission-issued certificates and permits sued for a taking under the Florida Constitution:
The plaintiffs maintained that they purchased their PTC-issued certificates and permits at substantial cost, and that those instruments now convey no legal benefit and are valueless. They further alleged that the county’s new regulatory regime conveys no property rights in the replacement certificates and permits. The plaintiff taxicab companies did not allege that the county has denied them new certificates and permits, or that the county has prevented them from continuing to carry on their taxicab businesses.
Slip op. at 5-6. After the trial court granted the County summary judgment but denied the State’s, the court of appeals held that the takings claim against both should have been dismissed, because the permit owner plaintiffs did not possess a private property interest.
The Florida Supreme Court affirmed: the Commission-issued certificates and permits are not private property under the Florida Takings Clause. But hang on: didn’t the Legislature expressly say that the Commission-issued permits and certificates are “private property?” Here’s how the plaintiffs put it:
The taxicab companies urge us simply to compare the language of chapter 2012-247 to the language of the Florida Takings Clause. They emphasize that the 2012 law declared PTC-issued certificates and permits to be the “private property” of their holders. See ch. 2012-247, § 1(2), Laws of Fla. And they add that, by expressly allowing holders to transfer and devise that property, the Legislature conferred traditional incidents of ownership and bolstered “the plain textual meaning.” Initial Brief of Petitioners 32.
The taxicab companies describe the 2012 law as a straightforward legislative grant of “private property” that carried an implicit promise not to rescind the grant without paying compensation.
Slip op. at 8.
Yes, the court acknowledged, the Legislature sure did say so — it’s right there in the statute. But come on, just because it’s there in the statute that permits are private property doesn’t mean that the certificates and permits are really private property. The legislature’s label “does not tell us everything we need to know about the State’s ultimate control over the continued existence of any rights conveyed by the grant.” Slip op. at 10.
Where do we look for which sticks need to be there for an interest to qualify as taking private property? The court held that for the legislature to have effectively protected the Commission-issued taxi licenses “from an uncompensated taking, the government must have conferred the property on an irrevocable basis, for at least some specified period. Only then will our constitution require payment if the grantor government subsequently withdraws the property right within the period.” Id.
Having established the requirement that any state-granted “private property” must include the “irrevocable” stick, the court found it fairly easy to delve into whether the Florida Legislature did so here. No, the court concluded:
For several reasons, we conclude that the Legislature retained the discretion to revoke any property rights that it conveyed in chapter 2012-247. Most importantly, chapter 2012-247 did not expressly repeal the charter provision saying that PTC-issued certificates and permits are revocable and subject to nonrenewal. See ch. 2001-299, § 5(2)(dd), Laws of Fla. That charter provision does not appear to require that the PTC’s nonrenewal or revocation of a certificate or permit be based on cause.
Slip op. at 13.
On one hand we might be able to say that this is on you, holders of Commission-issued taxi certificates and permits, because state-created monopolies shouldn’t exist so you can never have a property right in perpetuating it. On the other, only the most cold-blooded doesn’t have a ton of sympathy for those who invested in the only system available, and trusted the government.
In the end, this is just one more version of the old cautionary tale: what the king grants, the king may taketh away. Caveat civis.
