Crosby v. Town of Belgrade

• Decision Date: 10 August 1989
• Citation: 562 A.2d 1228
• Parties: Leslie A. CROSBY v. TOWN OF BELGRADE.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

Page 1228

562 A.2d 1228

Leslie A. CROSBY v. TOWN OF BELGRADE.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Argued May 9, 1989.

Decided Aug. 10, 1989.

John E. Nale (Orally), Nale & Nale, Waterville, for plaintiff.

Patrick J. Scully (orally), Bernstein, Shur, Sawyer & Nelson, Portland, for defendant.

Before McKUSICK, C.J., and ROBERTS, WATHEN, GLASSMAN, CLIFFORD and COLLINS, JJ.

McKUSICK, Chief Justice.

On March 3, 1988, the Planning Board of the Town of Belgrade denied plaintiff Leslie Crosby a permit to build a house on her land on Great Pond, on the ground that the lot did not meet the current zoning requirement of a 200-foot lakeshore frontage. Almost eight years earlier, however, the Belgrade Zoning Board of Appeals had ruled that the same lot, then owned by Crosby's parents, Richard and Audrey Cooke, was grandfathered as a nonconforming lot of record. We affirm the judgment of the Superior Court (Kennebec County, Alexander, J.) holding that the Town is bound by the 1980 decision and ordering the Town to issue Crosby's building permit provided she meets all other zoning requirements.

The Superior Court decided this case on stipulated facts. In two separate transactions in September of 1969, the Cookes bought four adjacent parcels of vacant land in the Horse Point Shores subdivision on Great Pond. ¹ Taken together, these parcels encompassed two of the lots described in the recorded subdivision plan, each with 100 feet of lakeshore frontage. In 1970 the Cookes built a cottage on one of those lots. That cottage conformed fully with all area, frontage, and setback requirements then in force and would have remained conforming even if the vacant lot had been sold to someone else. In 1977, however, the Town amended its Shoreland Zoning Ordinance to raise the minimum frontage from 100 feet to 200 feet; after that date the Cooke land would be conforming only if the improved and vacant lots together were treated as a single parcel. See Belgrade, Me., Revised Shoreland Zoning Ordinance § 11(H)(3) (Mar. 1, 1975, as amended Mar. 5, 1977).

Although it seems that the two lots had never been in separate ownership, they were designated as separate lots on a recorded subdivision plan as well as on the Belgrade tax maps. On February 1, 1980, apparently having reason to believe that town officials were taking a contrary position, the Cookes wrote the Belgrade selectmen, the body then vested with all relevant code enforcement duties, arguing that their lots must be treated as grandfathered nonconforming lots. According to the Cookes, it would be unfair to subject them to the 200-foot frontage requirement because that would make their vacant lot "virtually worthless." The Cookes requested authorization to build a second cottage and to sell one of their lots. On March 20, while awaiting a reply, they listed their cottage and its lot with a real estate broker. On April 15, on behalf of the selectmen, the Town's administrative assistant responded that a sale of either "part of" their "conforming lot" would create a nonconforming lot and would therefore be unlawful.

The Cookes then appealed to the Belgrade Zoning Board of Appeals. The Board held a public hearing on June 24 on the Cookes' "request for relief from the Code Enforcement Officer[s'] citation of the appellants creating non-conforming lots." On July 15, 1980, the Board issued a two-page decision with detailed findings of fact and conclusions of law. The Board held that the Cookes' two lots were grandfathered as nonconforming lots of record, that "[t]he proposed conveyance of either lot ... to a single owner conforms to th[e applicable frontage] requirement," and that the selectmen in ruling otherwise "acted contrary to the provisions of the Belgrade Shoreland Zoning Ordinance." The Board advised the Cookes "to return to the Code Enforcement Officer/Selectmen for a decision reversing the citation issued April 15, 1980."

The Belgrade selectmen did not contest the Board's decision in court. Neither, on the other hand, did they reconsider their own ruling, despite a written request by the Cookes. Without the Town's interference or endorsement, the Cookes kept the cottage on the market at least through 1982, but it did not sell. After 1982 the stipulated facts are silent until July 29, 1987, when the Cookes applied for a building permit for the vacant lot. The Belgrade Planning Board, which had by then been assigned the selectmen's former code enforcement role, denied the permit on multiple grounds, including the asserted merger of the vacant lot with the improved lot. The Cookes then placed the vacant lot on the market. It too did not sell, and the Cookes conveyed the lot to their daughter, plaintiff Crosby, on October 23, 1987. The following January she applied for a building permit, which the Planning Board denied on March 3, 1988, citing only the lakeshore frontage and current lot merger provisions of the shoreland ordinance as its basis for denial. ²

Crosby sought judicial review of the Planning Board denial directly in the Superior Court under M.R.Civ.P. 80B. ³ Deciding the case on the basis of an agreed statement of facts, the court ruled

that the decision of the Belgrade Zoning Board of Appeals of July 15, 1980 is valid and binding upon the parties to this appeal as a valid and final determination that the Plaintiff's lot is a legal, non-conforming lot of record.

The Superior Court ordered the Planning Board to issue the building permit requested, unless it found an independent ground for denial. The Planning Board subsequently met and determined that insufficient lakeshore frontage was its sole ground for denying the permit and the Town has so stipulated on appeal.

We affirm the judgment. In general, a final adjudication in an administrative proceeding has the same preclusive effect as a final adjudication in a former court proceeding. See Town of North Berwick v. Jones, 534 A.2d 667, 670 (Me.1987). Whether the lot in question is exempt from the frontage requirement is in no way affected by the conveyance from the Cookes to Crosby; the prior adverse adjudication binds the Town no more and no less than it would bind the Town if the Cookes still owned the land. See Bourgeois v. Sprague, 390 A.2d 464, 466 (Me.1978); Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 29 (1982).

On appeal the Town advances only two bases for its claim that the Board's 1980 decision is not res judicata: (1) that the Board's decision was a nullity because the selectmen's letter reviewed by the Board was merely an advisory opinion nonreviewable by the Board and (2) that the Town lacked standing to seek direct judicial review of the Board's 1980 decision and could therefore correct an erroneous decision only on collateral attack as in the present proceeding. We conclude that neither of these contentions defeats the res judicata effect of the Board's adjudication that Crosby's lot is grandfathered.

First, the Town's jurisdictional challenge, whether or not it could have succeeded in 1980, comes too late by some eight years. Jurisdiction is not subject to collateral attack once a judgment has become final unless there was a "manifest abuse of authority," "substantial[ ] infringe[ment of] the authority of another tribunal," or a need to entertain a belated challenge "as a matter of procedural fairness." Standish Tel. Co. v. Saco River Tel. & Tel. Co., 555 A.2d 478, 481 (Me.1989) (quoting Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 12). None of those grounds is present in ...