Civil Service Merit Bd. of City of Knoxville v. Burson

• Decision Date: 16 September 1991
• Docket Number: No. 319,319
• Citation: 816 S.W.2d 725
• Parties: CIVIL SERVICE MERIT BOARD OF THE CITY OF KNOXVILLE, Tennessee, Robert D. Madigan, M.D., Chairman, John R. Ruggles, Member, Henry W. Anderson, Sr., Member, Lindsay W. McDonough, Member, Erma G. Greenwood, Member and Wayne Day, Individually and as President of the City Employees League for and in Behalf of Employees of the City of Knoxville, Appellants, v. Charles BURSON, Attorney General of the State of Tennessee in his Official Capacity, Victor Ashe, Mayor of the City of Knoxville, Tennessee, in his Official Capacity, and City of Knoxville, Tennessee, Appellees.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

Page 725

816 S.W.2d 725

CIVIL SERVICE MERIT BOARD OF THE CITY OF KNOXVILLE,

Tennessee, Robert D. Madigan, M.D., Chairman, John R.

Ruggles, Member, Henry W. Anderson, Sr., Member, Lindsay W.

McDonough, Member, Erma G. Greenwood, Member and Wayne Day,

Individually and as President of the City Employees League

for and in Behalf of Employees of the City of Knoxville, Appellants, v. Charles BURSON, Attorney General of the State of Tennessee in his Official Capacity, Victor Ashe, Mayor of the City of

Knoxville, Tennessee, in his Official Capacity, and City of

Knoxville, Tennessee, Appellees.

No. 319.

Supreme Court of Tennessee,

at Jackson.

Sept. 16, 1991.

Wayne R. Kramer, Knoxville, for the Civil Service Merit Bd. and its members.

Timothy A. Priest, Knoxville, for Wayne Day, Individually and as President of the City Employees League.

Charles W. Burson, Atty. Gen. & Reporter, Andy D. Bennett, Deputy Atty. General, Nashville, Thomas A. Varlan, Law Director, City of Knoxville, for appellees.

OPINION

DAUGHTREY, Justice.

The principal question in this declaratory judgment action is whether legislation passed in 1989 affecting municipal civil service boards in Tennessee's most populous counties violates the home rule provisions of Article XI, Section 9 of the Tennessee Constitution. The plaintiffs also allege that the legislation in question is based upon and utilizes unreasonable classifications, in violation of both the state and federal constitutions. The chancellor found that the statute, T.C.A. § 6-54-114, was constitutional in all respects. We agree and affirm the judgment.

I. Background

The genesis for local self-government by cities and towns in this state first appeared in Tennessee law in 1835. The state constitution adopted that year gave the General Assembly the discretion "to vest such powers in the courts of justice, with regard to private and local affairs, as may be expedient." Tenn. Const. 1834, Art. XI, § VIII. That same provision was carried over into the Constitution of 1870, but its main implementation was in the creation of county courts to carry on local governance. In Tennessee, as in most other American jurisdictions, the right of municipalities to autonomous self-government has never been considered inherent, but has always been interpreted as a matter of constitutional entitlement or legislative delegation of authority. Laska, The Tennessee State Constitution, 151 (1990); McQuillen, Municipal Corporations § 1.42 (3d ed. 1987). The possibility of truly independent municipal self-government, free from continuing legislative intervention and control, did not come into existence in this state until the constitution was amended in 1953 to establish the right to home rule.

Under the provisions of Article XI, Section 9, a municipality can opt for home rule by "an affirmative vote by a majority of its qualified voters." It is then authorized to operate under a charter of its choosing and becomes immune to local legislation passed by the General Assembly, which thereafter can "act with respect to such home rule municipality only by laws which are general in terms and effect." Id. (emphasis added).

The City of Knoxville, one of the named defendants in this action, adopted home rule in August 1954, shortly after it became available, and began operating under a city charter. In August 1980, the voters of Knoxville approved an amendment to that charter to provide for the creation of the Civil Service Merit Board of the City of Knoxville. Under this amendment, Article X, Section 1003(B) of Knoxville's charter provides as follows:

(1) Members of the board shall be nominated by the board and shall be confirmed by a majority vote of the council. In the event there are no board members serving to make the appointments, the mayor shall make appointments to the board which shall be subject to the confirmation by a majority vote of the council. Each member shall be appointed for a term of five (5) years. No member shall serve more than two (2) consecutive terms.

(2) Present members of the board shall serve until the expiration date of their current terms or until their successors are appointed and confirmed by council. In order to facilitate an orderly transition from the present six-year terms to the five-year terms provided for herein, the present terms shall be modified.... In the event a vacancy occurs prior to the end of a term, the member appointed to fill the vacancy shall hold under such appointment only for the unexpired term.

(3) A member of the board may be removed only for cause by the unanimous vote of the remaining members of the board. Members of the board shall be residents of the City of Knoxville, or residents of Knox County, Tennessee, engaged in a business, profession or employment located within the corporate limits of the City of Knoxville. No person shall be appointed to the board who holds any salaried office or employment in the city government, nor shall any member be eligible for employment to any salaried office or service of the city. No person shall serve on the board who is an officer or member of a committee of any organized political party.

(Emphasis added.)

The plaintiffs in this case include the chairman and current members of the Knoxville civil service board, who were appointed pursuant to the 1980 charter amendment. Their tenure is threatened by the 1989 enactment of T.C.A. § 6-54-114, by which the state legislature proposed to make uniform the qualifications and procedures for the nomination of members serving on the municipal civil service boards in Tennessee's most populous counties. 1989 Pub. Acts, Ch. 463. Under the provisions of T.C.A. § 6-54-114:

(a) Notwithstanding any provision of any municipal charter to the contrary, each member of a municipal civil service board shall be a domiciled resident of the municipality which the board serves for at least one (1) year prior to appointment. During a member's term of office, no such member shall engage in any type of business with the municipality or any employee of such municipality. Upon May 31, 1989, any member engaged in such business shall cease doing such business immediately.

(b) Notwithstanding any provision of any municipal charter or ordinance to the contrary, all members of any municipal civil service board in any county with a population greater than three hundred thousand (300,000), created by ordinance or charter shall be appointed by the mayor of the municipality which the board serves. Such appointments shall be subject to confirmation by the municipal legislative body. At least one (1) member shall be a woman and one (1) member shall be a minority citizen. The provisions of this section shall not apply to municipalities with a mayor-alderman form of government.

In response to this legislation, the plaintiffs filed suit for declaratory judgment, alleging that the statute violates the constitutional guarantee of local control imbedded in the home rule provisions of Article XI, Section 9 of the Tennessee Constitution because, in effect, it applies only to the City of Knoxville. As a result, they contended, the legislation is improperly "local" in nature, rather than "general."

Furthermore, because the statute is applicable only to municipalities located in counties with a population greater than 300,000 and to those not operating under a mayor-aldermanic form of government, the plaintiffs contended that § 6-54-114 constitutes arbitrary class legislation. As such, they argued, the statute violates the provisions of Article XI, Section 8 and Article I, Section 8 of the Tennessee Constitution.

Article XI, Section 8 mandates that "general laws only [are] to be passed" by the Tennessee General Assembly and prohibits the legislature from exercising its power "to suspend any general law for the benefit of any particular individual" or corporation. Article I, Section 8 of the constitution provides that "no man shall be taken or imprisoned, or disseized of his freehold, liberties or privileges, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any manner destroyed of his life, liberty or property, but by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land." This language has been interpreted broadly by the Tennessee courts to guarantee not only due process but also equal protection of the law. See, e.g., City of Memphis v. State ex rel. Ryals, 133 Tenn. 83, 179 S.W. 631 (1915).

The trial court found no merit to any of the contentions advanced by the plaintiffs. The chancellor ruled that the terms of § 6-54-114 were not local in form and that, because the act also applies to the appointment procedures for civil service boards in Shelby and Davidson Counties, as well as to boards of municipalities located in counties that may grow to meet the act's population requirements, the terms of the statute are not local in effect.

The chancellor also determined that a reasonable basis existed for the disparate treatment of civil service systems in populous counties and those in less populous counties. Moreover, he held that the statute's one-year residency requirement both had a rational basis and served a compelling state interest.

As a result, the court found that the plaintiffs were unable to sustain their burden of establishing a constitutional violation. The chancellor thus held that the challenged provisions of § 6-54-114 are constitutional. This appeal followed.

II. The Home Rule Provisions of Article XI, Section 9 of the State Constitution

In order to strengthen local self-government, the drafters of the 1953 amendment to Article XI, Section 9 provided that "any act of the General Assembly [which is] private or local in form or effect [and] applicable to a particular county or municipality ... shall be void and of no effect unless the act [receives local approval]." Moreover, once a municipality adopts home rule, the General Assembly cannot pass local legislation affecting it, whether subject to local approval or not,...