Dennis v. Village of Tonka Bay

• Decision Date: 24 October 1945
• Docket Number: No. 13130.,13130.
• Citation: 151 F.2d 411
• Parties: DENNIS et al. v. VILLAGE OF TONKA BAY et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

151 F.2d 411 (1945)

DENNIS et al. v. VILLAGE OF TONKA BAY et al.

No. 13130.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

October 24, 1945.

F. A. Whiteley, of Minneapolis, Minn., for appellants.

Ernest Malmberg, of Minneapolis, Minn. (Malmberg & Nelson, of Minneapolis, Minn.), for appellees.

Before GARDNER, SANBORN, and THOMAS, Circuit Judges.

SANBORN, Circuit Judge.

This appeal is from an order which denied a motion of the plaintiffs (appellants) for a preliminary injunction and granted the motion of the defendants to dismiss the action. The action is one to enjoin the defendants, The Village of Tonka Bay and its officers, from enforcing a zoning ordinance of the Village in so far as the ordinance prevents the plaintiffs from using a narrow strip of shore land on Lake Minnetonka, within the limits of the Village, for the business of renting boats. Briefly, the claim stated in the plaintiffs' complaint is that they have been engaged in that business; that they had intended to use for a boat-renting station this strip of shore land, belonging to the plaintiff Grace E. Dennis, which is usable and valuable only for that purpose; that the Village enacted a zoning ordinance which classified the strip as residence property and prohibited its use for any other purpose without a permit from the Village Council; that the plaintiffs were denied such a permit to use the land for their business of renting boats; that the land is valueless and unsuitable for residence purposes; that the ordinance, in so far as it affects the land in suit, is arbitrary and unreasonable and deprives the plaintiffs of property without due process of law and denies them the equal protection of the law, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

The plaintiffs made a motion for a preliminary injunction, supported by affidavits. These affidavits tended to show that the zoning ordinance was arbitrary and unreasonable in so far as it affected the property in suit. The defendants moved to dismiss the action upon the grounds that the court was without jurisdiction and "That the complaint does not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action against these defendants or either of them." The defendants also filed counter affidavits in resistance to the motion of the plaintiffs for a preliminary injunction. The plaintiffs filed answering affidavits.

The motion for a preliminary injunction and the motion to dismiss were heard together. The District Court correctly ruled that it had jurisdiction of the action as one arising under the Constitution of the United States. Village of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365, 386, 47 S.Ct. 114, 71 L.Ed. 303, 54 A.L.R. 1016; American Wood Products Co. v. City of Minneapolis, D.C. Minn., 21 F.2d 440, 443, affirmed, 8 Cir., 35 F.2d 657, 660. The District Court denied the motion of the plaintiffs for a preliminary injunction, and granted the motion of the defendants to dismiss the action on the ground that the complaint did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action.

The motion for a preliminary injunction was addressed to the sound judicial discretion of the District Court. See Pratt v. Stout, 8 Cir., 85 F.2d 172, 176, 177, and cases cited. The motion presented the question whether, during the pendency of the action, in order to prevent irreparable injury to the plaintiffs, the defendants should be restrained from enforcing the ordinance with respect to the land in suit. The affidavits filed in connection with the plaintiffs' motion showed that the land had not been used by them for commercial purposes prior to the enactment of the ordinance or prior to the commencement of the action, and that to grant the injunction would change, rather than preserve, the status which existed at the time the action was started. The District Court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion for a preliminary injunction.

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.A. following section 723c, govern the practice in the District Courts of the United States. Those rules do not...