City of St. Louis v. State

• Decision Date: 13 November 2012
• Docket Number: No. SC 92159.,SC 92159.
• Parties: CITY OF ST. LOUIS, Respondent/Cross–Appellant, Francis G. Slay, et al., Respondents, v. STATE of Missouri, Appellant/Cross–Respondent.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

382 S.W.3d 905

CITY OF ST. LOUIS, Respondent/Cross–Appellant,
Francis G. Slay, et al., Respondents,
v.
STATE of Missouri, Appellant/Cross–Respondent.

No. SC 92159.

Supreme Court of Missouri,
En Banc.

Nov. 13, 2012.

[382 S.W.3d 908]

Michael A. Garvin, Patricia A. Hageman, Christine L. Hodzic and Daniel J. Emerson, St. Louis City Counselor's, St. Louis, for Respondents.

Ronald R. Holliger, General Counsel, Emily A. Dodge, Atty. General's Office, Jefferson City, for Appellant/Cross–Respondent.

Michael R. Gibbons, Charles W. Hatfield And Nicholas G. Frey, Stinson Morrison Hecker LLP, Jefferson City, for International Association of Fire Fighters Local 73.

LAURA DENVIR STITH, Judge.

The city of St. Louis (“City”) appeals the trial court's holding that the prohibition against special laws contained in article III, section 40 of the Missouri Constitution is not violated by section 320.097, RSMo Supp.2010. That statute exempts certain veteran firefighters who live in areas with unaccredited or provisionally accredited school districts from any local laws requiring them to live in their home district. The State also appeals, alleging the trial court erred in holding that section 320.097 does violate what the trial court believed was the “broad measure of complete freedom from State legislative control” given to constitutional charter cities by article VI, section 22 of the Missouri Constitution. The State also appeals the trial court's holding that the statute violates the equal protection clauses of the Missouri and United States constitutions because it is not rationally related to any legitimate state purpose.

This Court affirms the holding that section 320.097 is not a special law. The statute's classifications are not close-ended but rather are based on open-ended characteristics under which any city may qualify if it adopts a residency requirement and if its school district lacks full accreditation.

This Court reverses the trial court's holding that section 320.097 impermissibly infringes on the City's authority over its employees as set out in its city charter. While article VI, section 22, often referred to as the “home rule law,” gives constitutional charter cities such as St. Louis the right to set its employees' powers, duties and compensation, residency requirements are not a part of an employee's powers, duties or compensation. Section 320.097 addresses only residency requirements for fire departments. Accordingly, section 320.097 does not interfere with the City's charter powers. Neither does it violate equal protection principles, as it is rationally related to the legitimate state purposes of improving children's education and retaining experienced firefighters.

I. STATEMENT OF FACTS

In 2010, the legislature enacted section 320.097, RSMo.¹ Applicable to all Missouri cities, subsection 2 of that statute provides:

[382 S.W.3d 909]

No employee of a fire department who has worked for seven years for such department shall, as a condition of employment, be required to reside within a fixed and legally recorded geographical area of the fire department if the only public school district available to the employee within such fire department's geographical area is a public school district that is or has been unaccredited or provisionally accredited in the last five years of such employee's employment.
Id.² If an eligible firefighter chooses to reside outside of the department's boundaries, the firefighter must reside within a one-hour response time. Id.

St. Louis is a constitutional charter city. All parties concede that the City's public schools currently are not fully accredited ³ and that article VIII, section 2 of the City's charter requires all its employees to reside in the City beginning no later than 120 days after the date of their employment and throughout their employment thereafter. Section 320.097 applies to the City unless the statute is invalid.

The City, Mayor Francis Slay, a member of the City's civil service commission and a City employee brought a four-count action seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to prevent application of section 320.097 to the city. The thrust of the petition is that the statute attempts to supersede the residency requirement of the City's charter, and that in so doing, the statute attempts to supplant the City's authority and violates Missouri's constitutional provisions discussed above concerning special laws, home rule rights for constitutional charter counties and equal protection of the laws. ⁴

The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. The trial court granted the State's motion for summary judgment on the City's allegation that section 320.097 is a special law, finding that as the law applies to any city that has a residency requirement and an unaccredited or provisionally accredited school district, it is based on open-ended characteristics and so is a general rather than a special law. The City appeals this ruling.

But the trial court granted the City's motion for summary judgment on its claim that section 320.097 violates article VI, section 22 of the Missouri Constitution, finding that the residency requirement exemption provided for in the statute “cannot be harmonized with the acknowledged constitutional intent to provide charter cites with a broad measure of complete freedom from State legislative control over municipal employment decisions and to reverse a pattern of meddling by the State in municipal employment decisions that are obviously local in nature.”

The trial court also found that the acknowledged standard for determining whether a statute bears a rational relationship to a legitimate state purpose provides too low a threshold when reviewing an equal protection claim. Applying an unexplained higher standard, it then held without further explanation that the statute is insufficiently related to the purposes of improving children's education and of encouraging

[382 S.W.3d 910]

firefighters not to change departments just to get into a better school district. The State appeals these rulings.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

The right to summary judgment is solely an issue of law that does not require any deference to the trial court. ITT Commercial Fin. Corp. v. Mid–Am. Marine Supply Corp., 854 S.W.2d 371, 376 (Mo. banc 1993). Accordingly, an appellate court reviews the grant of summary judgment de novo. Id. It “will review the record in the light most favorable to the party against whom judgment was entered,” according the non-movant “the benefit of all reasonable inferences from the record.” Id.

III. SECTION 320.097 IS CONSTITUTIONALA. Article VI, Section 22 does not Conflict with Section 320.097.

The City argues, and the trial court held, that article VI, section 22 of Missouri's Constitution gives charter cities “a broad measure of complete freedom from State legislative control over municipal employment decisions.” The City argues that it used this freedom to enact a provision in its charter requiring all permanent, full-time City employees to become residents of the City within 120 days of employment.⁵ The City argues that as its charter makes residency a qualification for permanent employment by the City, the legislature's attempt in section 320.097 to pass a statute exempting certain municipal employees from municipal residency requirements is a violation of the City's constitutional authority under article VI, section 22 of Missouri's Constitution.

The City's argument gives section 22 a far broader reach than its words permit. The home rule law does not state that it provides charter cities with “a broad measure of complete freedom from state legislative control.” Neither does it prohibit the legislature from addressing qualifications for municipal employment. It provides simply that:

No law shall be enacted creating or fixing the powers, duties or compensation of any municipal office or employment, for any city framing or adopting its own charter under this or any previous constitution, and all such offices or employments heretofore created shall cease at the end of the terms of any present incumbents.

Mo. Const. art. VI sec. 22 (emphasis added).

The home rule law is quite straightforward. It gives charter cities authority to set the powers, duties and compensation of their employees. Residency does not constitute, nor is it claimed to constitute, a power or duty of firefighters, nor does it concern their compensation. These are the only matters that section 22 states that charter cities may take solely unto themselves to regulate. And, contrary to the City's additional argument,

[382 S.W.3d 911]

the statute does not affect the city commission's power or duty to consider and grant exemptions to the City's residency requirement. The commission still may grant such exemptions should it so choose.

The City argues that the case law has expanded the authority granted to cities under article VI, section 22 to include the sole power to set employment qualifications in addition to the authority to set an employee's powers, duties and compensation. This argument also is rejected for a number of reasons.

First, it is well-settled that case law cannot expand the constitution; it only can clarify it. See generally Farmer v. Kinder, 89 S.W.3d 447, 452 (Mo. banc 2002). Article VI, section 22 does not mention qualifications.

Second, it is not clear that residency fairly can be characterized as an employment qualification or whether it more aptly can be characterized as a condition to employment (or, as here, to continued full-time permanent employment, inasmuch as the charter does not require residency for part-time or temporary employees or for new employees until they have been employed for a certain period). But assuming that residency constitutes an employment qualification,⁶section 22 does not take from the legislature the authority to set out employment qualifications.

Third, the only case cited by the City for the proposition that case law has...