An appeals court Wednesday allowed an Okaloosa County couple to pursue a lawsuit over noise from a neighboring gun range, saying a 1999 state law aimed at shielding gun ranges from liability violated the couple’s constitutional rights.
A three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal overturned a circuit judge’s ruling that rejected the lawsuit filed by Eugene and Adrienne Gartman, who in 1998 bought 80 acres of land that includes their home.
In 2017, BITN, LLC, and a subsidiary company, Southern Tactical Range, LLC, bought about 200 acres immediately south of the Gartmans’ property and began constructing what is now known as the Element Training Complex, according to the appeals court. The couple filed a lawsuit that included alleging a noise-related nuisance.
Circuit Judge Mary Polson in 2022 ruled in favor of the gun range, in part citing the 1999 law, which says a person who “operates or uses a sport shooting range is not subject to an action for nuisance, and a court of this state shall not enjoin the use or operation of a sport shooting range on the basis of noise or noise pollution, if the range is in compliance with any noise control laws or ordinances that applied to the range and its operation at the time of construction or initial operation of the range.”
But the appeals court Wednesday said the law, as applied to the Gartmans, violated a constitutional right of access to courts for the redress of injuries. Citing a 1973 Florida Supreme Court precedent, the appeals court said it was “looking to discern the 1999 Legislature’s intent for the existence of an overpowering public necessity to support the abolishment of the Gartmans’ common-law right to sue their neighbor for noise-based nuisance.”
Under the Supreme Court precedent, the appeals court also said it considered “whether there is a ‘reasonable alternative’ available to the Gartmans as they seek redress of their claimed injuries.”
“(The 1999 law) does not just reduce the Gartmans’ ability to bring a noise-based nuisance claim against the range; it prohibits it altogether without a ‘reasonable alternative’ in place or an ‘overpowering public necessity’ to do so,” said the 13-page ruling, written by Judge Rachel Nordby and joined by Chief Judge Timothy Osterhaus and Judge Thomas Winokur.
The ruling, however, also emphasized that it “provides narrow relief only to the Gartmans, who purchased their property before the (1999) statute’s enactment. Our reversal on this issue means that their noise-based nuisance claim may proceed in the trial court. We take no position on whether that claim will succeed.”
The range opened in 2018, “offering 240 shooting stations, along with long-range sniper shooting, machine gun training, 360-degree rifle and pistol events, and cowboy shooting events,” the ruling said. “At first for civilian use, the range became a contracted facility for both military and law enforcement training activities as well.”
In a brief filed in 2023 at the appeals court, the Gartmans’ attorneys wrote that as many as 150 to 200 shooters could be at the range at a time.
“Mr. Gartman actually has to take out his hearing aids to work in his yard whenever there is shooting on the range because otherwise it is physically painful to his ears to be outside his home,” the brief said.