Santa Rosa Beach attorney Daniel Uhlfelder, who garnered public attention after going to beaches dressed as the grim reaper, was recently left unsatisfied by a ruling in Florida's First District Court of Appeals, as he continues his crusade to force Gov. Ron DeSantis to close the state's beaches and issue a strong stay-at-home order.
Ultimately, the three-judge panel ruled that Uhlfelder did not have "even an arguable legal basis for reversal" of the ruling of the lower court, according to the one-page opinion issued by the court.
Uhlfelder's case goes back to March, when he first filed his suit against DeSantis, according to coverage by Florida Politics. Leon County Circuit Judge Kevin Carroll ruled against Uhlfelder in April, holding that the suit was asking the court to usurp the decision-making powers of the governor's office.
“There are 599 circuit judges in Florida at last count, and I don’t think we need to have 599 governors-in-waiting,” Carroll said during a telephone hearing on the case, according to Florida Politics.
Carroll stated that a judge attempting to order the governor to issue orders closing or commanding state residents to stay home would ultimately violate the constitutional separation of powers.
In response to Uhlfelder's appeal, the opinion from the three-judge panel also ordered Uhlfelder to respond within 15 days regarding any argument for why he should not be held responsible for attorney's fees and costs related to the appeal, the initial brief and the request for oral argument. The opinions states that all "appear to be frivolous and/or filed in bad faith."
In a phone interview, Uhlfelder said he does intend to respond to the court.
"This was not a frivolous appeal or effort," he told the Florida Record. "It's to try to help people and save lives.
Uhlfelder said that the approximately 18,000 deaths in the state related to COVID-19 are the fault of not having greater restrictions.
Florida is currently 15th in the country in terms of deaths per million, with 842, according to Worldometers.info. That places it just behind neighboring Georgia, with 888 deaths per million. However, the top of the list is still occupied by mostly northeastern states, such as New Jersey, with 1,903 deaths per million, and New York, with 1,762 deaths per million.