## Facts

- The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles suspended Kyle Melkonian’s driver’s license.
- Melkonian sought review by filing a petition for writ of certiorari in the appellate division of the Dade County Circuit Court under § 322.31, Florida Statutes (1993).
- Under an internal administrative arrangement, the administrative judge of the appellate division (Judge Murray Goldman) reviewed the petition alone and denied it for failure “to demonstrate a prima facie case.”
- Melkonian sought further review in the Third District Court of Appeal, styling his filing as a petition for writ of mandamus.

## Issues

1. Whether the Third District should treat the filing as mandamus or as common-law certiorari challenging an appellate-procedure error.
2. Whether a single circuit judge, acting in the circuit court’s appellate division, may deny a certiorari petition on the merits, or whether such petitions must be decided by a three-judge panel.

## Decision

- The Third District treated the filing as a petition for common-law certiorari, not mandamus, because the complaint was that the circuit court acted improperly rather than failed to act.
- The court granted certiorari and quashed the order denying Melkonian’s certiorari petition.
- The court held that a circuit judge acting in an appellate capacity cannot decide the merits of such a certiorari petition alone; the matter must be assigned to a three-judge panel in the appellate division.

## Legal Principles

- Mandamus compels performance of an indisputable ministerial duty; it is not the proper vehicle to correct alleged legal error in the performance of a judicial function.
- Common-law certiorari is available to review a lower tribunal’s departure from the essential requirements of law when the error is not adequately remediable through ordinary review.
- Under the Florida Supreme Court rule establishing the circuit court appellate division, certiorari petitions within that division’s jurisdiction must be heard on their merits by three-judge panels.
- An internal procedure allowing a single appellate-division judge to deny a certiorari petition on the merits constitutes a departure from the essential requirements of law.

## Conclusion

The Third District granted certiorari and quashed a single-judge appellate-division order denying an administrative-review certiorari petition, holding that the governing appellate-division rules require merits decisions by a three-judge panel and that deviation from that structure is certiorari-reviewable error.


Melkonian v. Goldman, 647 So. 2d 1008 (Fla. 3d DCA 1994)