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State scores point in citrus canker suit

Miami Herald – April 29, 2008

BY PHIL LONG
plong@MiamiHerald.com

In a victory for the Florida Department of Agriculture and a setback for homeowners, a Broward circuit judge Monday refused to block a state scientist from talking about citrus trees’ vulnerability to canker or from telling jurors in a class-action suit, within limits, about how the tree disease has spread.

The decision by Circuit Judge Ronald Rothschild came during the start of the trial’s third week, which is being held in Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale. The trial is expected by many observers to continue through Friday. It’s the first of five high-stakes trials throughout the southern half of the state stemming from the controversial, failed program that has eradicated 133,700 trees in Broward County since Jan. 1, 2000.

Lawyers for the 58,000 homeowners covered by the class action insisted Monday that testimony on what might happen to a tree in years to come is prejudicial and irrelevant to the main issue in the trial: the value of the trees the day they were destroyed by the state.

But the state resisted that argument, saying it had a right to point out how canker has become widespread.

‘’The future prognosis for these trees was just terrible,’’ Wes Parsons, the attorney for the state, argued in court Monday.

Such discussion could become highly prejudicial, attorneys Bobby Gilbert and Nancy La Vista argued on behalf of homeowners on Monday.

In discussing his logic for his decision, Rothschild said he was trying to strike a balance. The question he asked lawyers to address is what, if any, condition the tree may have had that might affect its value on the day it was taken by the state.

None of the trees in question had been diagnosed with canker, both sides agree. The citrus trees that were destroyed were in a controversial so-called ‘’exposed zone’’ — within 1,900 feet of a tree that had the disease. Chain-sawing all trees in the zone was part of a failed effort to stop the spread of citrus canker into the commercial citrus groves of Central Florida.

Florida Department of Agriculture officials have argued from the start that simply being within 1,900 feet of an infected tree makes it likely that nearby trees will be affected by canker. But they have no evidence that that is true for every tree, homeowners’ lawyers note, nor should it make any difference what may happen in the future.

Rothschild ruled earlier that there is ‘’no known scientific basis that all citrus trees’’ in the 1,900-foot zone would become infected. Witnesses in the trial will not be allowed to say that trees in the 1,900 feet will get the canker, only that some may.

The homeowners rested their case Monday.

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