Meador v. City of Nashville
| Decision Date | 30 April 1949 |
| Citation | 220 S.W.2d 876,188 Tenn. 441 |
| Parties | MEADOR et al. v. CITY OF NASHVILLE. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Rehearing Denied June 18, 1949.
Appeal from Chancery Court, Davidson County; Thos. A. Shriver Chancellor.
Suit by Odis G. Meador and wife and cross-bill by J. E. Meggs and wife against the City of Nashville for declaration that an ordinance of the city is invalid. From a decree of the Chancellor sustaining a demurrer, Odis G. Meador and wife appeal.
Affirmed.
E. J. Walsh, J. G. Stephenson and J. G. Lackey Jr., all of Nashville, for appellants.
E. C Yokley and W. C. Cherry, both of Nashville, for appellees.
Section 12, paragraph G, of the zoning law of the City of Nashville reads as follows: 'No building in the rear of the principal building on the same lot shall be used for residence purposes except for domestic employees of the owner or tenants of the principal building, unless such rear building shall conform to the open space requirements of this ordinance for the principal building and shall have on the same lot an easement of access, unoccupied to a street at least twelve feet wide, in addition to any other open space requirements of this Article.'
Meador and wife are the owners of a lot within the zoning district embraced in the above regulation. They purchased it from Meggs and wife in 1945.
At the time of the aforesaid purchase, as now, there was a small building on the rear of the lot and a larger or principal building on the front of the lot. Both buildings are residences. The rear building does not conform with the open space requirements of the above quoted ordinance, nor does it have an easement of access twelve feet wide unoccupied to a street. Meador and wife, the owners of the lot, reside in the principal dwelling. The rear dwelling is occupied by a renter who is not a domestic employee of Meador.
In response to the direction of city officials that the renters vacate the rear building, Meador and wife and their vendors, Meggs and wife, by bill and cross-bill insist that this ordinance is an unreasonable and arbitrary interference with the rights of the owners of this lot, and amounts to a taking of the property without due process of law, contrary to applicable constitutional provisions of our State and Federal Governments.
The City of Nashville challenged this insistence by appropriate demurrer. The Chancellor sustained that demurrer. Meador and Meggs have appealed, and by their assignments of error present for determination here the constitutional question stated.
In considering the question, it must be with recognition of the fact that this ordinance, as do most zoning ordinances, interferes with the owner's right of dominion over his own property. While the right of the individual to do with his property as he pleases must yield to the superior duty of that individual's government to place thereupon such limitations as are reasonably necessary to prevent conditions inimical to the safety, health, morals and ordinary well being of all his neighbors and their property, yet such police power of the government may not be imposed arbitrarily under either our State or Federal Constitution.
Whether the imposition of a given limitation upon this right of the individual to do as he pleases with his property is wise or not is solely a matter for determination by the legislative branch of government. The sole power of the judiciary is to determine whether such legislation has any reasonable tendency to prevent conditions inimical to these superior rights of the people, as a unit, and if not, to declare it unconstitutional.
In response to the exercise of this police power of the State the quantity and extent of zoning ordinances have everywhere increased with the increase of concentration of population in cities and towns, and with it, an increase of the complex problems thereby created. The validity of such ordinances have been challenged frequently by property owners. A very fine and comprehensive discussion of...
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Templeton v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County
...districts making up the zoning plan, is a legislative exercise of the police power, and not a judicial function. Meador v. City of Nashville, 188 Tenn. 441, 220 S.W.2d 876. Than the late, great Oliver Wendell Holmes, there was never a Judge who viewed with a more sardonic eye, any modern co......