Sheek v. City of Newport News

• Decision Date: 08 October 1973
• Citation: 199 S.E.2d 519,214 Va. 288
• Parties: Paul L. SHEEK et al. v. CITY OF NEWPORT NEWS, a municipal corporation in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and W. E. Lawson, Jr., City Manager.
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Page 519

199 S.E.2d 519

214 Va. 288

Paul L. SHEEK et al. v. CITY OF NEWPORT NEWS, a municipal corporation in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and W. E. Lawson, Jr., City Manager.

Supreme Court of Virginia.

Oct. 8, 1973.

Herbert V. Kelly, Newport News (H. Duncan Garnett, Jr., Jones, Blechman, Woltz & Kelly, Newport News, on brief), for appellants.

Panos A. Yeapanis, City Atty., for the City of Newport News (Frank M. Morton, III, Asst. City Atty., for the City of Newport News, on brief), for appellees.

Before SNEAD, C.J., and I'ANSON, CARRICO, HARRISON, COCHRAN, HARMAN and POFF, JJ.

COCHRAN, Justice.

Petitioners Paul L. Sheek, J. C. Stortz, Sam Baugerss, J. O. Carrington and Robert Mallison appeal from a final decree entered June 7, 1972, by the trial court dismissing their petition to enjoin the City of Newport News and its City Manager from terminating garbage and refuse collection service rendered to them. A preliminary injunction entered January 26, 1972 requires the City to continue this service during the pendency of this appeal.

The Newport News City Council approved, effective February 1, 1972, Ordinance No. 1563 adding Article III, entitled 'Required Containers', to Chapter 20 of the City Code. Article III requires the 'operator of the premises' of all 'Business and Commercial Establishments' to provide 'storage for collection of refuse in dumpmaster-type containers'; defines 'Business and Commercial Establishments' to include '(t)he rental of mobile home spaces and apartment units'; and provides that 'failure to comply with the requirements of this Article shall operate to terminate any garbage and/or refuse collection service provided by the City.'

Petitioners own and live in mobile homes located on spaces which they rent from the owner and operator of Warwick Mobile Home Estates, a mobile home park with streets which are paved, curbed and guttered. Each home is connected to municipal sewer and water systems and is individually served by gas, oil and electric companies. Bills for the use of these services are paid directly by individual residents. Although the homes, prefabricated in two parts, were 'mobile' when moved to their lots, once joined and fixed in place they will remain immobile until cut in half, disconnected from the utilities, and loaded on wheels. In design, construction and use they are comparable to conventional single-family detached dwellings of equivalent size.

The City operates a garbage and refuse collection service serving, without direct charge, all business, commercial, industrial and residential areas within the municipality. In residential areas, including mobile home parks, the City has been collecting refuse by hand from conventional trash containers placed adjacent to individual residences. Under the new ordinance collection is to be made mechanically from larger dumpmaster containers located at central points in or near mobile home parks, 'private schools, churches, nursing homes, homes for the aged, convalescent homes, hospitals, hotels, social, fraternal, civic or educational clubs, health clubs, boarding houses, lodging houses and motels, and all other institutions of a similar nature.' In some mobile home parks it may be necessary for the most remote residents to transport their own garbage 'nearly a half mile' to the nearest dumpmaster.

Petitioners contend that, as it affects residents of mobile homes located in mobile home parks, Ordinance No. 1563 constitutes an unreasonable, arbitrary, discriminatory, and invalid classification and is an unlawful exercise of the police power. The City contends that the ordinance's classification of business users of the garbage collection service and non-business users is reasonable and that the ordinance is a lawful exercise of the police power.

The ordinance is presumptively valid. In Kisley v. City of Falls Church, 212 Va. 693, 697, 187 S.E.2d 168, 171--172 (1972), we stated:

'. . . There exists . . . a presumption favoring the validity of municipal ordinances and the presumption governs unless it is overcome by unreasonableness apparent on the face of the ordinance or by extrinsic evidence which clearly establishes the unreasonableness. . . .

'Classifications found within an ordinance carry with them the same presumptions and burdens, and are not in and of themselves discriminatory. (Citation omitted.)'

Unless clear and convincing proof demonstrates that an ordinance is arbitrary and unreasonable, the ordinance must be upheld. '(I)f the question of reasonableness is fairly debatable, (we will) not substitute (our) judgment for that of the legislative body charged with the primary duty and responsibility of deciding the question. (Citation omitted.)' Martin v. City of Danville, 148 Va. 247, 250, 138 S.E. 629, 630 (1927).

The City of Newport News had ample justification for an ordinance which requires the operators of businesses to provide dumpmaster containers. The use of these containers promotes the public welfare by reducing the cost of municipal garbage collection.

The City Council could reasonably place mobile home parks, motels and apartment buildings in a different classification from neighborhoods of single-family dwellings for purposes of garbage collection. It is impractical for the owner or occupant of every single-family residence to acquire a dumpmaster container because the containers are expensive and are designed for the greater volume incident to multi-family and business use. In a business establishment, such as a mobile home park or an apartment complex, there is a centralized management which can purchase necessary dumpmasters, locate them conveniently, and allocate the cost fairly among the residents. In conventional residential neighborhoods, however, acquisition of dumpmasters would be left to the action of individual citizens. It would be reasonable for the City Council to conclude that residential areas that are not operated as businesses should be exempted from the ordinance because they typically contain no central authority to provide for the efficient acquisition and use of dumpmasters.

The City Council could also have concluded that residents of apartments and mobile home parks would incur less inconvenience than other citizens from the use of dumpmasters. Mobile home parks and apartment buildings characteristically have higher population densities than neighborhoods of conventional single-family houses. The City Council could reasonably have believed that the average distance which a person would have to walk between his residence and a dumpmaster would be less in apartments and mobile home parks than in other residential areas. It is not unreasonable for the City to require dumpmasters only for the types of neighborhoods whose residents would be least inconvenienced by this method of garbage collection.

It is undoubtedly true that in some conventional residential areas cooperating homeowners could purchase and allocate dumpmasters efficiently. It is also true that the population density in some conventional neighborhoods may be greater than in some mobile home parks. But legislative classifications are not required to be perfect. The United States Supreme Court has stated:

'. . . If the classification has some 'reasonable basis,' it does not offend the Constitution simply because the classification 'is not made with mathematical nicety or because in practice it results in some inequality.' . . . 'The problems of government are practical ones and may justify, if they do not require, rough accommodations--illogical, it may be, and unscientific.' . . . 'A statutory discrimination will not be set aside if any state of facts reasonably may be conceived to justify it.' (Citations omitted.)' Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 485, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 1161, 25 L.Ed.2d 491 (1970). (State Welfare statute held not to violate Fourteenth Amendment to United States Constitution.)

Here, the City has chosen to furnish garbage collection services to the public. In so doing, it has said that as to one segment of the garbage-generating public, occupants of conventional single-family residences, it will furnish individual collection services. But as to the other segment, the operators of businesses within the City, it has proclaimed that it will provide only central-point collection...