The prosecution rests … and rests and rests.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has not made a court filing in a lawsuit against Sarasota Bay stilt-house builder Raymond “Junior” Guthrie in nearly a year.
The agency’s inactivity could lead to the dismissal of the case, according to a court employee.
The DEP successfully sued Guthrie in 2018 for building the 1,200-square-foot structure over state-owned submerged land a short distance from the A.P. Bell Fish Co. docks in Cortez.
The structure remains standing thanks to a series of extensions on a court order it be removed from the bay by June 3, 2020.
On May 11, 2021, Guthrie’s attorney, Robert Schermer, filed a second motion for a stay of enforcement on the demolition order, citing letters of support for the structure written by Manatee County commissioners and state legislators in April 2021.
The DEP had not responded to the motion as of The Islander’s press time Jan. 31.
According to a Jan. 18 email to The Islander from Manatee County Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller probate supervisor Nikki Monfils, cases are typically reviewed for lack of prosecution around the 11-month mark.
“The court will review cases to set for hearing around that time. If the plaintiff fails to show good cause, the case can be dismissed,” she said.
Following Monfils’ 11-month timeline, the court could review the Guthrie case sometime around April.
Stetson University College of Law professor Paul Boudreaux told The Islander Jan. 20 that, in instances of prolonged inactivity, judges have discretion about the future of cases.
In the absence of a response to a motion, a judge can rule in favor of either party based on the judge’s interpretation of the motion, Boudreaux said.
A judge also can extend the amount of time a party has to respond to a motion or simply let the case remain in limbo.
Boudreaux said it’s possible the DEP and Guthrie’s representatives are in the process of making a deal.
“The fact that nothing has happened for the better part of a year maybe makes me think that there’s something going on, perhaps that we don’t know about, that the parties have gotten together and maybe they’re trying to work out a settlement,” Boudreaux said.
Guthrie built the stilt-house in 2017 near a former net house he said had been in his family for three generations.
Guthrie and Karen Bell, A.P. Bell Fish Co. owner, who has been assisting Guthrie in his fight against the DEP, and the April 2021 support letters characterize the stilt-house — built with the amenities of a residence, including utilities, sliding glass doors and a steel roof — as a historic net camp or net camp replica.
Net camps were barren shacks built over the water in the 19th century to store cotton fishing nets, which were vulnerable to the elements.
The advent of durable monofilament nets in the 1960s rendered the camps obsolete and a hurricane destroyed most of the camps on the Cortez waterfront.
According to Guthrie and Bell, Guthrie transferred ownership of the stilt-house to Cortez Core, a nonprofit Bell founded in 2019.
The transfer, which allegedly took place in late May-early June 2021, was part of a stilt-house preservation plan laid out in the April 2021 support letters.
There is no record with the clerk’s office or the property appraiser’s office of the transfer.
