Edwards v. City of Sallisaw

• Decision Date: 21 October 2014
• Docket Number: No. 112132.,112132.
• Citation: 339 P.3d 870,2014 OK 86
• Parties: Shaloa EDWARDS, individually, Plaintiff/Appellee, v. CITY OF SALLISAW, a municipal corporation, Shannon Vann, in his capacity as mayor of Sallisaw, Oklahoma, and Bill Baker, in his capacity as city manager of Sallisaw, Oklahoma, Defendants/Appellants.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

339 P.3d 870

2014 OK 86

Shaloa EDWARDS, individually, Plaintiff/Appellee

v.CITY OF SALLISAW, a municipal corporation, Shannon Vann, in his capacity as mayor of Sallisaw, Oklahoma, and Bill Baker, in his capacity as city manager of Sallisaw, Oklahoma, Defendants/Appellants.

No. 112132.

Supreme Court of Oklahoma.

Oct. 21, 2014.

John Robert Montgomery, Montgomery and Montgomery, P.C., Sallisaw, Oklahoma, for the defendants/appellants.

Sam Sexton, III, McCutchen & Sexton, Fort Smith, Arkansas, for the plaintiff/appellee.

TAYLOR, J.

I. ISSUES

¶ 1 The question before this Court is whether a city charter which directs the city board of commissioners to set the powers and duties of an elected police chief allows the board to limit those powers and duties by removing the police chief's supervisory and management authority over the police department by ordinance. We answer this question in the affirmative.

II. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶ 2 Plaintiff, Shaloa Edwards, the elected police chief,¹ filed a petition for declaratory and injunctive relief against the mayor, city manager, and City of Sallisaw (collectively “Defendants”). Edwards asked the Sequoyah County District Court to invalidate and enjoin the enforcement of Ordinance 2013–01, which removed his authority to supervise and manage the police department. The Defendants jointly filed a motion for summary judgment. The district court held a summary-judgment hearing and heard witness testimony. All parties then submitted post-hearing briefs in lieu of argument at the hearing. The district court denied the Defendants' summary-judgment motion and issued a permanent injunction against the enforcement of Ordinance 2013–01. The Defendants then filed their petition in error. This Court retained the appeal.

III. FACTUAL RECORD

¶ 3 The facts are undisputed. The City of Sallisaw, Oklahoma, (Sallisaw), is organized as a municipal corporation through a city charter. The charter establishes a commissioner-manager form of government, vesting “all powers of the City of Sallisaw ... in and exercised by an elective board of commissioners.” Charter of the City of Sallisaw, Oklahoma, art. I, § 3. The police chief is elected, but has a limited set of enumerated charter powers. Id. art. III. All other police-chief duties and responsibilities are set by city ordinance—a charter duty that falls to the board of commissioners:

The Chief of Police shall enforce the municipal ordinances and the laws and Constitution of the State of Oklahoma and shall have such other powers, duties and functions as may be prescribed by ordinance.

Id. art. III, § 3.

¶ 4 The people of Sallisaw elected Edwards as police chief in 2005 and reelected him in 2008 and 2011. Upon his election, Edwards had the following duties as set by the Sallisaw Board of Commissioners:

There is a police department, the head of which is the chief of police, or police chief. The chief of police is an officer of the city, and has supervision and control of the police department. All police officers are officers of the city.

City of Sallisaw Code of Ordinances, pt. II, ch. 54, art. II, § 54–31 (repealed 2013). Edwards supervised and managed the Sallisaw Police Department following this grant of authority from the date of his initial election until the ordinance was repealed.

¶ 5 The board of commissioners met publicly on February 11, 2013, having earlier provided notice of the meeting at city hall, to the local newspaper, and to the city clerk. Edwards received a copy of the meeting agenda prior to February 11th. At the meeting, the board of commissioners discussed a proposed ordinance to repeal and replace section 54–31. Ordinance No. 2013–01 revised the distribution of authority to manage and supervise the police department:

The Chief of Police is an officer of the City and is authorized to supervise and manage the Police Department; however, the City Manager may assume supervision and management of the Police Department, if the Board of City Commissioners deem [sic] it in the best interest of the City.

City of Sallisaw Code of Ordinances, Ordinance No. 2013–01 (Feb. 11, 2013) [enacted as Sallisaw Code of Ordinances, pt. II, ch. 54, art. II, § 54–31].² At the February 11th meeting, Edwards addressed the board of commissioners and presented his case against the proposed ordinance. After Edwards finished, the board of commissioners passed and enacted the new ordinance; a commissioner then moved for the board to assign responsibility for supervising and controlling the police department directly to the city manager for 90 days. The board of commissioners passed the motion.

¶ 6 After February 11, 2013, the Sallisaw City Manager supervised and managed the Sallisaw Police Department, but Edwards retained the title of police chief. Edwards also continued to receive the police-chief salary, and he was able to enforce laws and ordinances, use the police-chief office, wear the uniform, carry a weapon, make arrests, and assist in the formulation of the department's budget with the city manager. The city manager appointed a captain on the police force as supervisor for day-to-day operations; the captain in turn reported to the city manager. The police captain did not supervise Edwards.

IV. STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶ 7 Summary judgment settles only questions of law. See Pickens v. Tulsa Metropolitan Ministry, 1997 OK 152, ¶ 7, 951 P.2d 1079, 1082. The standard of review of questions of law is de novo. Id. Summary judgment will be affirmed only if the appellate court determines that there is no dispute as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Id. n. 1. Summary judgment will be reversed if the appellate court determines that reasonable men might reach different conclusions from the undisputed material facts. See Runyon v. Reid, 1973 OK 25, ¶ 15, 510 P.2d 943, 946.

V. ANALYSIS

A. Edwards's Allegations

¶ 8 Edwards claimed in his district-court petition that the board of commissioners usurped the inherent authority of the police chief by removing the chief's ability to supervise and manage the police department. Edwards alleged that as an elected official, he retained the ability to manage and supervise the police department despite those duties not being explicitly set out in the city charter. Edwards also argued to the district court that the Defendants violated his due process protections—Ordinance 2013–01 functionally removed him from office without following the procedures outlined by city ordinance or state statute. We address Edwards's arguments in turn.

B. Construction of Sallisaw's Municipal Charter

¶ 9 A municipal charter is a home-rule city's governing constitution.³ We will look to rules of construction for constitutions in our analysis of the Sallisaw charter. As with Oklahoma's own governing document, we strictly construe a charter's terms to give effect to the intent of the framers and the people adopting it. Latting v. Cordell, 1946 OK 217, ¶ 0, 197 Okla. 369, 172 P.2d 397, 397 (Syllabus by the Court 1). If the terms are “plain and unambiguous,” the meaning and intent of the document is found on its face “without resort to judicial rules” of construction. See Twin Hills Golf & Country Club, Inc. v. Town of Forest Park, 2005 OK 71, ¶ 6, 123 P.3d 5, 6–7. We look for the document's intent “in the instrument itself,” and we must not “search for ... meaning beyond the instrument.” Latting, 1946 OK 217, ¶ 0, 172 P.2d at 397 (Syllabus by the Court 1).

¶ 10 The Oklahoma Constitution empowers Oklahoma citizens who live in municipalities exceeding 2,000 people to “frame a charter for [their] own government, consistent with and subject to the Constitution and laws of this State.” Okla. Const. art. 18, § 3(a). The municipal charter then becomes the “organic law of the city.” Caruth v. State ex rel. Tobin, 1923 OK 980, ¶ 4, 101 Okla. 93, 223 P. 186, 187 ; In re Initiative Petition, 1923 OK 199, ¶ 5, 214 P. at 187. Article 18 of the Oklahoma Constitution gives governing and legislating power to these municipalities, commonly referred to as home-rule cities. In fact, municipal law “supersede[s] the laws of the state in conflict therewith, in so far as such general laws attempt to regulate purely municipal matters.” City of Sapulpa v. Land, 1924 OK 92, ¶ 8, 101 Okla. 22, 223 P. 640, 642. But this Court has demarcated this principle—municipal authority can be overcome despite “chiefly local interest” if “the state has a sovereign interest” in the municipal matter. Thurston v. Caldwell, 1913 OK 714, ¶ 10, 40 Okla. 206, 137 P. 683, 687.

¶ 11 With the approval of a municipality's charter, the state has surrendered a portion of its authority by giving home-rule cities sovereignty over their “municipal affairs.” Moore v. Oklahoma City, 1927 OK 49, ¶ 16, 122 Okla. 234, 254 P. 47, 51. The line between a chiefly municipal affair and a sovereign state interest is not well illuminated. We have recognized specific issues that are of sovereign state interest, including taxation,⁴ public education,⁵ control and regulation of public highways,⁶ and “state control over local police protection.”⁷ This Court has carved out certain duties and responsibilities of municipal police officers that are of state concern; but we have also left a significant degree of autonomy to home-rule cities to control their police departments.⁸ We find where to draw the line in relation to what a home-rule city can authorize by city charter, including the duties and authority of a police chief, from precedent and statutes. We now turn to our jurisprudence.

¶ 12 In State ex rel. Burns v. Linn, 1915 OK 1037, 49 Okla. 526, 153 P. 826, this Court held that the state has a “sovereign interest in the enforcement of its general laws against the traffic in intoxicating liquors, against gambling and prostitution, within the territorial limits of the city of Tulsa.” Id. ¶ 0, 153 P. at 826 (Syllabus by the Court 3). It was alleged by grand jury that the police chief in Tulsa (a...