Lawrence v. City of Rawlins

• Decision Date: 25 January 2010
• Docket Number: No. S-09-0134.,S-09-0134.
• Citation: 2010 WY 7,224 P.3d 862
• Parties: Joan Cozort LAWRENCE, a/k/a Joan Lawrence, a/k/a Joan Cozort, Appellant (Defendant), v. CITY OF RAWLINS, a municipal corporation, Appellee (Plaintiff), and Transportation Commission of Wyoming, Appellee (Third-Party Defendant).
• Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

224 P.3d 862

2010 WY 7

Joan Cozort LAWRENCE, a/k/a Joan Lawrence, a/k/a Joan Cozort, Appellant (Defendant), v. CITY OF RAWLINS, a municipal corporation, Appellee (Plaintiff), and Transportation Commission of Wyoming, Appellee (Third-Party Defendant).

No. S-09-0134.

Supreme Court of Wyoming.

January 25, 2010.

Representing Appellant: Bruce T. Moats, Law Office of Bruce T. Moats, Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Representing Appellee City of Rawlins: Daniel T. Massey and Amy L. Bach of City of Rawlins, City Attorney's Office, Rawlins, Wyoming. Argument by Mr. Massey.

Representing Appellee Transportation Commission of Wyoming: No appearance.

Before VOIGT, C.J., and HILL, KITE, and BURKE, JJ, and ARNOLD, D.J.

VOIGT, Chief Justice.

[¶ 1] This is an appeal from two related district court orders in a declaratory judgment action between the Appellant and the City of Rawlins (City) over a junkyard, which action was consolidated with the appeal of the Appellant's municipal court conviction for violation of a nuisance ordinance. The first order granted the City partial summary judgment. The second order was entered after a bench trial on the issues left undecided by the summary judgment. We will affirm in part and reverse in part, remanding for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

ISSUES

[¶ 2] 1. Whether the district court erred as a matter of law in concluding that the Appellant was bound by a certain settlement agreement?

2. Whether the Appellant has a "grandfathered" right to use as a junkyard certain areas of her property not zoned industrial?¹

3. Whether the Appellant has abandoned or discontinued the use as a junkyard of certain areas of her property zoned industrial?

FACTS

[¶ 3] Tom Lawrence began operating a junkyard in the contested area in 1958. Mr. Lawrence and the Appellant were married in 1972, after which they jointly operated the junkyard in the same location. The Appellant became sole owner and proprietor of the business after her husband's death in 1999. The record is unclear as to the exact location of the junkyard over the years, nor does it explain how the Lawrences began operation of the junkyard several years before they purchased any of the parcels upon which the junkyard was being operated or had previously been operated at the time of trial.²

[¶ 4] The Lawrence property is comprised of eight parcels, generally configured as follows:

NOTE: OPINION CONTAINING TABLE OR OTHER DATA THAT IS NOT VIEWABLE

[¶ 5] The City first adopted a zoning ordinance in 1973. That ordinance was readopted in 1989 after the district court found it invalid, in an unrelated matter, due to lack of publication.³ In the interim, two matters of significance had occurred. In 1979, at Mr. Lawrence's request, the City redesignated a large part of his property as an industrial zone. This area included all of parcels 1, 2, and 5, the western part of parcel 3 (south of parcel 5), and all but the northern portions of parcels 4 and 6. Under the 1973 ordinance, the northern portions of parcels 4 and 6 were zoned residential. Parcel 7 and the eastern portion of parcel 3 (the area south of parcels 1, 2, and 6) were zoned highway business. Parcel 8 was zoned industrial.

[¶ 6] The second significant occurrence between 1973 and 1989 was that in 1982, the City and Mr. Lawrence settled a lawsuit over the operation of the junkyard by filing a Settlement Agreement. In the Settlement Agreement, Mr. Lawrence agreed never to deny the validity of the 1973 zoning ordinance, agreed that he had no "grandfathered" rights in certain areas zoned residential and highway business, and agreed to fence and otherwise organize his business, known as Tom's Body Shop, located on parcel 8 shown above. See supra ¶ 4. The Settlement Agreement also provided that its terms would be considered covenants running with the land described in attached exhibits. It is notable that this lawsuit was filed shortly after the 1979 zoning change, and that the effect of the Settlement Agreement was Mr. Lawrence's admission that he had no right to operate the junkyard in the areas not contained in the industrial zone defined in that zoning change, and in parcel 8, which was also zoned industrial.

[¶ 7] At some unspecified time, Mr. Lawrence erected a fence running generally east-and-west along a hilltop, approximately halfway between the north and south borders of parcels 5 and 6, south of parcel 4, and just south of the northern border of parcel 2, shown by a dotted line on the above sketch. See supra ¶ 4. The main portion of the junkyard lies south of this fence and north of the south border of parcel 3. Perhaps the most significant aspect of this fence, as it relates to these proceedings, is that it created an area in the northern part of parcel 5, in the northern part of parcel 6 south of the residential zone, in the part of parcel 4 not in the residential zone, and in the very northern part of parcel 2, all of which area is in the industrial zone, but which is outside of the fenced area of the junkyard.

[¶ 8] In 2007, the City issued the Appellant a citation in municipal court for violation of a nuisance ordinance for having "derelict vehicles" and junk on parcel 7. The Appellant's defense to that citation was that she had a grandfathered right to use parcel 7 in her junkyard business. That defense was rejected, and she was convicted. She appealed to the district court, where her appeal was stayed by stipulation of the parties so that it could be heard along with this action.

[¶ 9] Both parties filed motions for summary judgment in the declaratory judgment action. The district court's Order Granting Partial Summary Judgment contained the following findings and conclusions:

1. Genuine issues of material fact exist as to whether the Appellant has abandoned her use of the property.

2. Genuine issues of material fact exist as to whether the junkyard was a legal use at the time the zoning ordinance was adopted in 1989.

3. The 1982 Settlement Agreement is, as a matter of law, valid and enforceable against both parties.

4. The Appellant is subject to the City's abatement of dangerous building ordinances.

5. Genuine issues of material fact exist as to whether the junkyard violates the City's licensing ordinance.

6. The Wyoming Junkyard Control Act, found at Wyo. Stat. Ann. §§ 33-19-101 through 33-19-110 (LexisNexis 2009), applies to the junkyard.

Based upon these findings and conclusions, the Appellant was ordered to suspend operations in, and remove inventory from, any residential areas, and to comply with the Wyoming Junkyard Control Act.

[¶ 10] Subsequently, the district court heard the issues left remaining after the summary judgment order. A two-day bench trial took place on May 28-29, 2008. In its decision letter thereafter, the district court made the following findings of fact and reached the following conclusions of law:

1. The 1989 zoning ordinance prohibits junkyards in residential zones and the Appellant therefore is prohibited from operating her junkyard in the northern 200 feet of parcels 4 and 6, which area is zoned residential.

2. The junkyard is not a legal use of parcel 7 or the eastern portion of parcel 3 because both are zoned highway business, where junkyards are not permitted, and, as to the eastern portion of parcel 3, for the additional reason that, in the 1982 Settlement Agreement, Mr. Lawrence gave up any grandfathered right to operate a junkyard.

3. The junkyard was, in 1989, a legal use in the industrially zoned areas of parcels 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8. The Appellant's failure to obtain a junkyard license and failure to comply with the Junkyard Control Act did not render the use illegal. Consequently, the junkyard is a grandfathered use in the industrially zoned areas.

4. Under the applicable municipal ordinances, the City failed to prove that the Appellant has abandoned her junkyard business "as a whole."

5. Under the applicable municipal ordinances, the City has proved that the Appellant abandoned her use of, and relinquished her grandfathered right to, the industrially zoned areas of parcels 4 and 6 north of the fence.

6. The City's nuisance and dangerous building ordinances apply to the Appellant and her property, but the nuisance ordinance may not be utilized to prohibit the storage of derelict vehicles on premises lawfully used as a junkyard where such vehicles are necessary to operation of the business.

7. The junkyard is subject to compliance with the Junkyard Control Act, and the Appellant immediately must contact the Transportation Commission of Wyoming to determine the requirements of compliance, particularly in regard to screening.

8. Because parcel 7 has never been zoned industrial, and because the Appellant has no grandfathered nonconforming use rights, her operation of a junkyard on that parcel is unlawful, meaning that her municipal court nuisance conviction should be affirmed.

[¶ 11] An Order based upon the decision letter was entered on June 26, 2008. Though not essential to resolution of the issues involved herein, we will note that the district court subsequently granted the Appellant's motion to join the Transportation Commission of Wyoming as a party defendant for the purpose of determining its obligations in regard to the Junkyard Control Act, and later issued a summary judgment order requiring the Commission to participate in the decision whether the Appellant's property should be screened at the Commission's expense or she should be ordered to relocate the salvage materials.

STANDARDS OF REVIEW

[¶ 12] "Summary judgment may be the appropriate resolution in a declaratory judgment action." Coffinberry v. Bd. of County Comm'rs of the County of Hot Springs, 2008 WY 110, ¶ 3, 192 P.3d 978, 979 (Wyo.2008).

Summary judgment is proper "if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admission on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact...