Drury v. Vill. of Barrington Hills

• Citation: 123 N.E.3d 31,2018 IL App (1st) 173042,428 Ill.Dec. 567
• Decision Date: 12 December 2018
• Docket Number: No. 1-17-3042,1-17-3042
• Parties: James J. DRURY III, as Agent of the Peggy D. Drury Declaration of Trust Under Agreement Dated February 4, 2000; Jack E. Reich; and James T. O'Donnell, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. The VILLAGE OF BARRINGTON HILLS, an Illinois Municipal Corporation, Defendant-Appellee (Benjamin B. LeCompte III ; Cathleen B. LeCompte; John J. Pappas Sr.; Barrington Hills Polo Club, Inc.; Barbara McMorris; Victoria Kelly; Marianna Bernardi; Pasquale Bernardi; Judith K. Freeman; BHFW, LLC, d/b/a Barrington Hills Farms, Intervenors-Appellees).
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

2018 IL App (1st) 173042

123 N.E.3d 31

428 Ill.Dec. 567

James J. DRURY III, as Agent of the Peggy D. Drury Declaration of Trust Under Agreement Dated February 4, 2000; Jack E. Reich; and James T. O'Donnell, Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.The VILLAGE OF BARRINGTON HILLS, an Illinois Municipal Corporation, Defendant-Appellee

(Benjamin B. LeCompte III ; Cathleen B. LeCompte; John J. Pappas Sr.; Barrington Hills Polo Club, Inc.; Barbara McMorris; Victoria Kelly; Marianna Bernardi; Pasquale Bernardi; Judith K. Freeman; BHFW, LLC, d/b/a Barrington Hills Farms, Intervenors-Appellees).

No. 1-17-3042

Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, THIRD DIVISION.

December 12, 2018

Thomas R. Burney, of Law Office of Thomas R. Burney, LLC, of Crystal Lake, for appellants.

Bond, Dickson & Conway, of Wheaton (Patrick K. Bond, of counsel), for appellee Village of Barrington Hills.

Patrick Fitzgerald, Mark E. Rakoczy, Jennifer Berman, and Brooke A. Winterhalter, of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP, of Chicago, for appellee Barrington Hills Farm.

James P. Kelly, of Matuszewich & Kelly, LLP, of Crystal Lake, for other appellees.

JUSTICE ELLIS delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

¶ 1 Forty miles northwest of Chicago sits the Village of Barrington Hills, which prides itself on its "equestrian heritage," consisting in large part of sizeable lots amenable to the breeding, training, and raising of horses, and with miles of interwoven trails suitable for horseback riding. To that end, by ordinance, the Village permits its residents to engage in horse-boarding activities on their residential property.

¶ 2 In 2006, the Village amended its zoning code to permit residential horse boarding as a "home occupation," which essentially meant residents could board horses but subject to strict limitations and only during specified hours. Two years later, the Village cited intervenor-defendant Benjamin LeCompte III for violating the ordinance, claiming that he was conducting a large-scale commercial horse boarding operation that exceeded any "home occupation" as defined by ordinance. LeCompte fought the citation administratively and in court. While he held off the Village, other Village residents filed a lawsuit of their own, attempting to restrain his operation.

¶ 3 After he lost his appeal in this court against the Village and while he fended off a legal challenge from his neighbors, LeCompte turned to the Village's board of trustees (Board) for a legislative remedy.

¶ 4 His effort succeeded. In February 2015, the Board adopted an ordinance (Ordinance 14-19) over the president's veto that permitted large-scale horse boarding operations on residential property throughout the Village as a matter of right. It also made this rezoning retroactive to 2006, thus effectively validating LeCompte's operations from their inception and thereby eliminating the fines LeCompte had accumulated from the Village. The ordinance, in essence, gave LeCompte a legislative pardon.

¶ 5 Not everyone was pleased. Days after Ordinance 14-19's adoption, plaintiffs, residents of the Village who fear that large-scale horse boarding will destroy the residential character of the neighborhoods and lower their property values, filed suit in this case—lawsuit number three in this saga, the one before us now—alleging, among other things, that Ordinance 14-19 violated substantive due process because it was passed for the benefit of LeCompte only and was wholly unrelated to the public health, safety, and welfare.

¶ 6 Two months later, in April 2015, the composition of the Board changed following the consolidated election. The newly constituted Board now agrees with plaintiffs here that Ordinance 14-19 was unconstitutional. It also repealed Ordinance 14-19 in 2016, less than a year after it took effect.

¶ 7 What's more, the Village entered into an agreed settlement order with plaintiffs, agreeing that Ordinance 14-19 was void ab initio , and asked the trial court to enter judgment on that agreed order.

¶ 8 LeCompte and others intervened in this lawsuit below, moving to dismiss the constitutional challenge and objecting to the Village's and plaintiffs' attempt to "agree" that Ordinance 14-19 was void ab initio .

¶ 9 The circuit court refused to enter the agreed settlement order and then granted the intervenors' motion to dismiss the complaint, reasoning that this lawsuit was simply asking it to take sides in a policy debate, which it declined to do. Both of those rulings are challenged on appeal.

¶ 10 We affirm the trial court's rejection of the Village's and plaintiffs' agreed settlement order. But we cannot agree with the circuit court's assessment of Drury's due-process claim. Drury's complaint does not allege that the 2015 amendment was unconstitutional because the Board chose the wrong policy. Rather, he claims that Ordinance 14-19 violated substantive due process because it was not rationally related to the public health, safety, or welfare of the Village—that instead, it was passed solely for the benefit of one person, LeCompte. He has pleaded sufficient facts to state that claim. We reverse the dismissal of that challenge only and remand for further proceedings.

¶ 11 BACKGROUND

¶ 12 The following facts are taken from Drury's first amended verified complaint (the complaint), as well as two related cases decided by this court to which Drury's complaint repeatedly refers. See LeCompte v. Zoning Board of Appeals , 2011 IL App (1st) 100423, 354 Ill.Dec. 869, 958 N.E.2d 1065 ( LeCompte I ); Drury v. LeCompte , 2014 IL App (1st) 121894-U, 2014 WL 1301534 ( LeCompte II ). Additional background regarding the intervenors has been taken from their complaints in intervention.

¶ 13 Plaintiff James Drury III is a resident of Barrington Hills whose property sits adjacent to LeCompte's property, upon which LeCompte is operating an "unlawful large scale commercial horse boarding operation." Plaintiffs Jack Reich and James T. O'Donnell are both residents of Barrington Hills. Defendant Village of Barrington Hills is an Illinois municipal corporation with home rule authority. (For ease, we refer to plaintiffs in the singular as "Drury.")

¶ 14 The intervenors are all residents of Barrington Hills. John J. Pappas Sr. resides on a 14-acre tract of land known as "Shamrock Farms" that has two barns with 18 horse stalls, an indoor riding arena, two outdoor arenas, and 10 fenced paddocks. When Pappas intervened, he had 12 horses stabled on his property, including horses owned by "others." LeCompte and his wife, Cathleen, reside at a property known as "Oakwood Farms," which has a polo field and a "large barn" with 60 horse stalls. Barrington Hills Polo Club, Inc., is an Illinois not-for-profit corporation with 45 members, "many of whom live in the Village of Barrington Hills as well as board and stable their horses in the Village of Barrington Hills." The club's main playing field is located at Oakwood Farms. Barbara McMorris maintains a barn on her property, which she uses to stable "up to 6 horses."

¶ 15 In June 2006, the Village amended its zoning code to permit residential horse boarding as a home occupation. The regulation was strict: except between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., only immediate family residing on the premises could participate in boarding activities or bring vehicles or machinery related to horse boarding onto the property. See Barrington Hills Municipal Code § 5-3-4(D)(3)(g) (eff. June 26, 2006) (the 2006 Ordinance).

¶ 16 In January 2008, the Village issued a cease-and-desist letter to LeCompte. The letter stated that LeCompte was running a large-scale commercial horse boarding operation at Oakwood Farms, in violation of the 2006 Ordinance.

¶ 17 LeCompte did not take the citation lying down. Instead, he appealed the citation—first to the Village's zoning board of appeals (ZBA), which upheld the order, and then to the circuit court, which also upheld the citation. LeCompte then appealed the circuit court's order to this court, precipitating our decision in LeCompte I .

¶ 18 During these proceedings, the Village did not enforce the citation against LeCompte. In December 2010, Drury sent a letter to the Village asking that it enforce the cease-and-desist order. In January 2011, the Village attorney wrote back and informed Drury that the Village had decided to take no further action against LeCompte.

¶ 19 That prompted Drury to take matters into his own hands. In January 2011, he filed a lawsuit against LeCompte under section 11-13-15 of the Illinois Municipal Code ( 65 ILCS 5/11-13-15 (West 2010) seeking a court order enjoining LeCompte from violating the 2006 Ordinance. The circuit court dismissed Drury's complaint, and he appealed to this court, precipitating our decision in LeCompte II .

¶ 20 After Drury filed his lawsuit, three things of note happened, according to the complaint. First, in February 2011, LeCompte made campaign contributions to the reelection campaigns of village trustees Joe Messer, Patty Meroni, and Karen Selman. The checks were endorsed by each candidate into the bank account for a group called "Save 5 Acres," but they did not indicate that LeCompte was the source of the funds. As a result, a complaint was filed against Messer, Meroni, Selman, and LeCompte with the Illinois State Board of Elections, and in June 2011, the State Board of Elections found each party guilty of violating the Election Code ( 10 ILCS 5/1-1 et seq. (West 2010) ). That is noteworthy because, according to the complaint, Messer and Meroni were on the Board when it refused to (1) enforce the 2008 cease-and-desist letter against LeCompte and (2) levy fines against LeCompte to recoup any of the substantial sums of money that the Village spent defending the 2006 ordinance in the proceedings that generated LeCompte I .

¶ 21 Second, on March 15, 2011—a mere month after LeCompte made the campaign contributions to Messer, Meroni, and Selman—LeCompte allegedly obtained a letter from Don Schuman, the Village's building and...