Brundage v. Cumberland Cnty.

• Decision Date: 19 December 2011
• Citation: 357 S.W.3d 361
• Parties: Dave BRUNDAGE et al. v. CUMBERLAND COUNTY et al.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

357 S.W.3d 361

Dave BRUNDAGE et al.

v.CUMBERLAND COUNTY et al.

Supreme Court of Tennessee, at Nashville.

June 1, 2011 Session.Dec. 19, 2011.

Elizabeth L. Murphy, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellants, Dave Brundage; Black Cat Lodge, LLC; John Coye; Barbara Coye; David Cobb; Sonja Cobb; Michael Lollar; Sherry Lollar; Larry Oran; Mary Oran; Troy Melton; Sandra Melton; Louse Devillon; Joan Devillon; Carolyn Jozwiak; Vincent Jozwiak; Phillip Miller; and Patty Miller.

Randal R. Boston, Crossville, Tennessee, for the appellees, Cumberland County and Cumberland County Commission.

William L. Penny and Corinne E. Martin, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellees, Smith Mountain Solutions, LLC.

OPINION

WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which CORNELIA A. CLARK, C.J., JANICE M. HOLDER, GARY R. WADE, and SHARON G. LEE, JJ., joined.

This appeal calls into question the proper procedure for obtaining judicial review of a local legislative body's land use decision under the “Jackson Law,” Tenn.Code Ann. §§ 68–211–701 to –707 (2011). The opponents of a coal ash landfill, approved by the Cumberland County Commission, filed a petition for a statutory writ of certiorari in the Chancery Court for Cumberland County seeking judicial review of the Commission's decision. The trial court dismissed the petition because it was not verified as required by Tenn.Code Ann. § 27–8–106 (2000). The Court of Appeals affirmed. Brundage v. Cumberland Cnty., No. E2010–00089–COA–R3–CV, 2010 WL 3025538, at *4 (Tenn.Ct.App. Aug. 4, 2010). We granted the petitioners' application for permission to appeal because the Jackson Law does not specifically define the procedure for seeking judicial review of a local legislative body's decisions. We have determined (1) that a local legislative body's decision under the Jackson Law may be challenged either by a petition for a statutory writ of certiorari or by a complaint for declaratory judgment and (2) that the trial court and the Court of Appeals erred by failing to treat the statutory petition for writ of certiorari as a complaint for declaratory judgment.

I.

Wright Brothers Construction (“Wright Brothers”) decided to construct a coal ash landfill on Smith Mountain in Cumberland County. The company and the county officials entered into a “Host Agreement” which obligated Wright Brothers to form a new entity, Smith Mountain Solutions, LLC, that would construct and operate the landfill and pay “a substantial host fee” to the county. After rumors about the negotiations between Wright Brothers and the county began to spread, Dave Brundage, a property owner on Smith Mountain, asked the mayor of Cumberland County about the landfill and was told that it “was a done deal.”

The county officials presented Resolution 0609–12 approving the plans for the landfill to the Cumberland County Commission (“Commission”). After proper public notice, the Commission held a hearing on the resolution on June 2, 2009. In papers filed in the later court proceeding, the landfill's opponents characterized this hearing as one-sided and tumultuous. Following the meeting, seven hundred persons signed a petition opposing the landfill and presented the petition to the mayor and the county commissioners. Nevertheless, the Commission approved Resolution 0609–12 on June 15, 2009.

On August 12, 2009, seventeen individuals and the Black Cat Lodge, LLC, filed a “statutory petition for writ of certiorari” in the Chancery Court for Cumberland County against Cumberland County, the Cumberland County Commission, and Smith Mountain Solutions (“Cumberland County defendants”) seeking judicial review of the county's approval of the landfill in accordance with Tenn.Code Ann. § 68–211–704(c) (2011). On October 1, 2009, the Cumberland County defendants moved to dismiss the petition on the ground that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction because the residents' petition “was not verified by sworn affidavit.” They also asserted that the residents could not cure this defect in their petition because more than sixty days had elapsed since the Commission's approval of Resolution 0609–12.¹

On November 4, 2009, the petitioners filed an “amended petition for judicial review” that omitted any reference to a statutory writ of certiorari. Each petitioner attached an affidavit to the amended petition affirming the truth of the allegations in the petition. On November 12, 2009, the petitioners also filed a response to the Cumberland County defendants' motion to dismiss insisting that they were also seeking judicial review under the Jackson Law's judicial review provision, which they believed operated independently and separately from the judicial review proceeding under a statutory writ of certiorari.

Following a hearing on the Cumberland County defendants' motion to dismiss, the trial court filed an order on December 20, 2009, dismissing the petition. The court, relying on Tennessee Waste Movers, Inc. v. Loudon County, 160 S.W.3d 517 (Tenn.2005), found that a writ of certiorari was the only way to obtain judicial review of a county's decision under the Jackson Law. The court also concluded that petitions for a writ of certiorari must be verified and must be filed within sixty days following the action to be reviewed and that the court “lost subject matter jurisdiction of this case” because the residents' petition had not been verified. The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's decision. Brundage v. Cumberland Cnty., 2010 WL 3025538, at *4. We granted the petitioners' application for permission to appeal to determine whether Tenn.Code Ann. § 68–211–704(c) limits the procedure for seeking judicial review of a county legislative body's decision under the Jackson Law to a statutory writ of certiorari. We have determined that it does not.

II.

Our task in this case is to determine the meaning of Tenn.Code Ann. § 68–211–704(c), which provides that “[j]udicial review of the legislative body's determination shall be a de novo review before the chancery court for the county in which the landfill is proposed to be located.” The Cumberland County defendants insist that the statute's language limits the procedure for obtaining judicial review of a local legislative body's decision under the Jackson Law to a statutory writ of certiorari. The petitioners assert that the statute should be read more broadly and that it does not limit the vehicle for obtaining judicial review of a local legislative body's decision to a statutory writ of certiorari.

Issues of statutory construction are questions of law that we review de novo with no presumption of correctness attaching to the lower courts' decision. Seals v. H & F, Inc., 301 S.W.3d 237, 241–42 (Tenn.2010); Hayes v. Gibson Cnty., 288 S.W.3d 334, 337 (Tenn.2009).

Our role in construing a statute is first to ascertain and then to give the fullest possible effect to its purpose without unduly restricting its coverage or expanding it beyond its intended scope. Carter v. Bell, 279 S.W.3d 560, 564 (Tenn.2009); State v. Sherman, 266 S.W.3d 395, 401 (Tenn.2008); Walker v. Sunrise Pontiac–GMC Truck, Inc., 249 S.W.3d 301, 309 (Tenn.2008).

The natural place to start is with the language of the statute itself. When that language is “clear and unambiguous,” this Court will apply its plain meaning without adopting a forced interpretation that would restrict or broaden the statute's scope. Eastman Chem. Co. v. Johnson, 151 S.W.3d 503, 507 (Tenn.2004). Only when the language is ambiguous may we look to the legislature's intent, which may be discerned from the “broader statutory scheme, the history of the legislation, or other sources.” Seals v. H & F, Inc., 301 S.W.3d at 242; see also Lee Med., Inc. v. Beecher, 312 S.W.3d 515, 527 (Tenn.2010); Houghton v. Aramark Educ. Res., Inc., 90 S.W.3d 676, 679 (Tenn.2002). A statute is ambiguous if it “can reasonably have more than one meaning.” Lee Med., Inc. v. Beecher, 312 S.W.3d at 527 & n. 20 (citing LeTellier v. LeTellier, 40 S.W.3d 490, 498 (Tenn.2001); Bryant v. HCA Health Servs. of N. Tenn., Inc., 15 S.W.3d 804, 809 (Tenn.2000)).

Guiding our inquiry is the presumption “that the General Assembly was aware of its prior enactments and knew the state of the law at the time it passed the legislation.” Seals v. H & F, Inc., 301 S.W.3d at 242. We also presume that the General Assembly is aware of how courts have previously construed its statutes, Lee Med., Inc. v. Beecher, 312 S.W.3d at 527; Hicks v. State, 945 S.W.2d 706, 707 (Tenn.1997), and that it would not wish to enact an “absurdity.” Fletcher v. State, 951 S.W.2d 378, 382 (Tenn.1997).

III.

The ownership of property has been considered to be a fundamental right ever since the founding of this country. It was so important to the colonists that an early draft of the Declaration of Independence stated that all individuals are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Property.² Although Thomas Jefferson eventually substituted “the pursuit of Happiness” for “the pursuit of Property,” for many, the pursuit of happiness still entails acquiring and owning property.³

Even though the right to acquire, possess, and use property remains fundamental, see Nollan v. California Coastal Comm'n, 483 U.S. 825, 831, 107 S.Ct. 3141, 97 L.Ed.2d 677 (1987); Stratton Claimants v. Morris Claimants, 89 Tenn. 497, 513–15, 15 S.W. 87, 90–91 (1891); State ex rel. Elvis Presley Int'l Mem'l Found. v. Crowell, 733 S.W.2d 89, 96 (Tenn.Ct.App.1987), a person's possession and use of property is not beyond the reach of the appropriate exercise of the state's power to protect the health, safety, and welfare of its citizens. We have noted that

Rights of property, like all other social and conventional rights, are subject to such reasonable limitations in their enjoyment, as shall prevent them from being injurious, and to such reasonable restraints and regulations...