Appeals Court Rules in Florida Fund-Raising Case

By JENNIFER MOORE

A federal appeals court has ruled that a coalition of national charities and fund-raising consultants has the right to challenge a key portion of a Florida county´s charitable-solicitations law.

The appeals court reversed the ruling of a lower court in a case brought by organizations questioning the legitimacy of a law that requires consultants to register with the county if any of their paying clients send fund-raising letters or make other appeals to county residents.

The lawsuit against Pinellas County is being pursued by a coalition known as American Charities for Reasonable Fundraising Regulation and by a Virginia company called The Creative Advantage.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit concluded that a federal district court had erred when it decided in 1998 not to rule on what level of minimum contacts with the county would be necessary before the registration requirement must be fulfilled.

The lower court had ruled that the charities could not sue until Pinellas County sought to force them to register.

But the appeals court disagreed: We conclude plaintiffs offered sufficient evidence of a threat of enforcement.

The groups that sued argue that Pinellas County, which includes St. Petersburg, has overstepped its authority when applying its charitable registration requirements. The appeals court said the coalition may be correct, adding that an abstract, indirect, and unaimed level of involvement with the county would not be sufficient for the county to regulate plaintiffs. But the judges also said that they cannot determine from the record the extent of the contacts between fund-raising consultants and the county, and so they sent the case back to the district court to decide.

A copy of the court´s opinion in the case, American Charities for Reasonable Fundraising Regulation v. Pinellas County, No. 99-10945, is available on the Internet at http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/courts/11th.html.