City of Slater v. State

• Decision Date: 03 May 2016
• Docket Number: WD 78016
• Citation: 494 S.W.3d 580
• Parties: City of Slater, Missouri Municipal League, Christine Cates, Barbara Shaeffer and Jacob K. Albarelli, Appellants, v. State of Missouri, Office of State Courts Administrator, and Missouri Sheriff's Retirement System, Respondents.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

494 S.W.3d 580

City of Slater, Missouri Municipal League, Christine Cates, Barbara Shaeffer and Jacob K. Albarelli, Appellants,

v.State of Missouri, Office of State Courts Administrator, and Missouri Sheriff's Retirement System, Respondents.

WD 78016

Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District.

FILED: May 3, 2016

Motion for Rehearing and/or Transfer to Supreme Court Denied May 31, 2016

Application for Transfer Denied August 23, 2016

Bernard A. Garner, Independence, MO, and Ryan Bertels, Jefferson City, MO, for MO Municipal League, City of Slater, MO, Christine Cates, Barbara Schaffer, and Jacob Albarelli.

Robert L. Presson, Jefferson City, MO, for respondents State of Missouri and Office of State Courts Administrator; Rodney D. Gray, Jefferson City, MO, and Timothy J. Sear, Overland Park, KS, for Sheriffs' Retirement System.

Before Division Four: Alok Ahuja, C.J., Gary D. Witt, J. and John M. Torrence, Sp.J.

Alok Ahuja

, Chief Judge

The Appellants filed a petition seeking declaratory and injunctive relief in the circuit court. The petition challenged the Respondents' interpretation of § 57.955.1,¹ to require municipal courts to collect a $3.00 surcharge from litigants for the benefit of the sheriffs' retirement fund. The Circuit Court of Cole County granted the Respondents' motion to dismiss, on the grounds that some of the Appellants lacked standing, and that sovereign immunity barred any remaining claims. This appeal followed. Because we conclude that none of the Appellants have standing to challenge the Respondents' interpretation of § 57.955.1, we affirm the circuit court's dismissal of the petition.

Factual Background

Section 57.955.1 states:

There shall be assessed and collected a surcharge of three dollars in all civil actions filed in the courts of this state and in all criminal cases including violation of any county ordinance or any violation of criminal or traffic laws of this state, including infractions, but no such surcharge shall be assessed when the costs are waived or are to be paid by the state, county or municipality or when a criminal proceeding or the defendant has been dismissed by the court. For purposes of this section, the term “county ordinance” shall not include any ordinance of the city of St. Louis. The clerk responsible for collecting court costs in civil and criminal cases, shall collect and disburse such amounts as provided by sections 488.010 to 488.020.^{[2 ]}Such funds shall be payable to the sheriffs' retirement fund. Moneys credited to the sheriffs' retirement fund shall be used only for the purposes provided for in sections 57.949 to 57.997 and for no other purpose.

The statute was initially enacted in 1983, and was amended most recently in 1996. Prior to 2013, the statute had been interpreted to be inapplicable to the municipal courts. On April 17, 2013, however, the Attorney General issued an opinion concluding that “the legislature intended that the surcharge be collected in municipal courts.” Op. Mo. Att'y Gen. 20–2013 (2013). Following that opinion, the Missouri Supreme Court issued a revised “Schedule for Collection of Court Costs, Fees, Miscellaneous Charges and Surcharges,” effective August 28, 2013, which indicated that the $3.00 surcharge required by § 57.955.1 should be collected by municipal courts.³

Appellants are the City of Slater, Christine Cates, Barb Schaffer, the Missouri Municipal League (“MML”), and Jacob Albarelli. Cates is the Assistant City Administrator for the City of Blue Springs, and Schaffer is the Court Clerk and Court Administrator for the Municipal Court of Jefferson City. The City, Cates, Shaffer, and MML first filed their petition challenging the applicability of the surcharge in municipal courts on August 27, 2013. The Appellants later filed an amended petition naming Jacob Albarelli as an additional plaintiff.⁴ The petition named the State of Missouri, the Office of State Courts Administrator, the Missouri Sheriffs' Retirement System, and Chris Koster in his official capacity as Attorney General, as defendants.

The Circuit Court dismissed the First Amended Petition without prejudice, finding that the City, Cates, Schaffer, and the MML lacked standing; that Albarelli's claim against the state was barred by sovereign immunity; and that the petition stated no viable claims as to Koster or the Retirement System.

Appellants then filed a Second Amended Petition. The Second Amended Petition sought declaratory and injunctive relief that § 57.955 did not apply to municipal courts; the petition also contended that interpreting the statute to apply to municipal courts would be unconstitutional under Article I, § 14 of the Missouri Constitution

.

The Second Amended Petition named only the State and OSCA as defendants. The Retirement System was granted leave to intervene as a defendant. The defendants, who are the Respondents in this Court, again filed a motion to dismiss, on the grounds of lack of standing, failure to state a claim, and sovereign immunity. On August 29, 2014, the Circuit Court again dismissed the City, MML, Cates and Schaffer for lack of standing. Although the court found that Albarelli had standing because he had actually paid the disputed surcharge, it found that sovereign immunity barred his claims. The court's judgment also found that no viable claim was stated against the Retirement System. This appeal followed.

Appellate Jurisdiction

Because the Appellants allege, in part, that it would be unconstitutional to interpret § 57.955.1 to apply to municipal courts, a question arises as to whether this appeal falls within the exclusive appellate jurisdiction of the Missouri Supreme Court under article V, § 3 of the Missouri Constitution

. We conclude that the case falls within our appellate jurisdiction, based on at least two separate considerations.

First, the Jurisdictional Statement of Appellants' Brief explicitly states that “[t]his case does not involve ... the validity of a statute ... of this State.” This assertion in Appellants' Jurisdictional Statement confirms that the Appellants only invoke constitutional principles to support the reading of § 57.955.1 which they advocate. This “conditional” constitutional argument does not invoke the Supreme Court's exclusive appellate jurisdiction.

To present a constitutional question for review on the ground that a statute is unconstitutional, the constitutionality of the statute must be directly challenged. To say that a statute would be unconstitutional if construed in a certain manner does not meet the requirement. To vest appellate jurisdiction here on a constitutional issue, the attack on the constitutionality of a statute must be that whatever it means and under any construction of which it is susceptible, it is unconstitutional.

Knight v. Calvert Fire Ins. Co. , 260 S.W.2d 673, 675 (Mo.1953)

(citations and internal quotation marks omitted); see also

Mo. Prosecuting Att'ys Retirement Sys. v. Pemiscot Cnty. , 217 S.W.3d 393, 399 (Mo.App.S.D.2007) ; Whitaker v. City of Springfield, 889 S.W.2d 869, 875 (Mo.App.S.D.1994).

Second, none of the parties to this appeal ask us to address the merits of Appellants' underlying claims, whether those claims involve issues of statutory interpretation, or a challenge to the constitutionality of § 57.955.1. Instead, the parties ask us to decide only whether Appellants have standing, and whether sovereign immunity bars their claims. “The Missouri Supreme Court ... does not have exclusive jurisdiction, and transfer to that court is not required, where it is not necessary to construe the constitution or determine the constitutionality of a statute to resolve the issues presented on appeal.” Evans v. Empire Dist. Elec. Co., 346 S.W.3d 313, 315 n. 2 (Mo.App.W.D.2011)

(court of appeals had jurisdiction where “this appeal involves only the correctness of the trial court's dismissal of the case on primary jurisdiction grounds, without reaching Appellants' constitutional arguments”); see also, e.g.,

State v. Jones, 892 S.W.2d 737, 739 (Mo.App.W.D.1994) (“this court has jurisdiction to determine if the appellant has standing to raise a constitutional argument”; citing State v. Ellis, 853 S.W.2d 440, 446 (Mo.App.E.D.1993) ).

For these reasons, jurisdiction of this appeal is properly vested in this Court, and we proceed to the merits of the issues Appellants raise.

Standard of Review

This court reviews a trial court's grant of a motion to dismiss de novo. A motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted is solely a test of the adequacy of the plaintiff's petition. All facts alleged in the petition are treated as true, and the petition is construed favorably to the plaintiff to determine whether the averments invoke substantive principles of law which entitle the plaintiff to declaratory relief. This court tests the sufficiency of a petition for a declaratory judgment by asking whether the petition entitles the plaintiff to a declaration of rights or status on the facts pleaded. The petition must set forth facts, not mere conclusions, which support the allegations and demonstrate a justiciable controversy.

State ex rel. Chastain v. City of Kansas City, 289 S.W.3d 759, 763 (Mo.App.W.D.2009)

(citations omitted).

Further, “[o]ur review of a dismissal ... for lack of standing is de novo. ” White v. White, 293 S.W.3d 1, 8 (Mo.App.W.D.2009)

(citation omitted). “In addition, the existence of sovereign immunity, and questions of statutory interpretation, are issues of law which we review de novo. ” Wyman v. Mo. Dep't of Mental Health, 376 S.W.3d 16, 18 (Mo.App.W.D.2012).

Analysis

Appellants challenge the trial court's conclusions concerning their standing to sue, and concerning the applicability of sovereign immunity to bar their requests for declaratory and injunctive relief. Because we find the standing issue determinative, we address only that issue.

If a plaintiff lacks standing to sue, this presents an issue of justiciability which implicates the circuit court...