Shepherd Montessori Ctr. Milan v. Ann Arbor Charter Twp.

• Decision Date: 18 June 2010
• Docket Number: Docket No. 137443.
• Citation: 486 Mich. 311,783 N.W.2d 695
• Parties: SHEPHERD MONTESSORI CENTER MILAN, a Michigan not for profit corporation, Plaintiff-Appellee,v.ANN ARBOR CHARTER TOWNSHIP, Ann Arbor Charter Township Zoning Official, and Ann Arbor Charter Township Zoning Board of Appeals, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

486 Mich. 311

783 N.W.2d 695

SHEPHERD MONTESSORI CENTER MILAN, a Michigan not for profit corporation, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.ANN ARBOR CHARTER TOWNSHIP, Ann Arbor Charter Township Zoning Official, and Ann Arbor Charter Township Zoning Board of Appeals, Defendants-Appellants.

Docket No. 137443.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

June 18, 2010.

Prior report: 280 Mich.App. 449, 761 N.W.2d 230.

Opinion

HATHAWAY, J.

At issue is whether defendants violated plaintiff's right to equal protection by denying a request for a zoning variance. We hold that defendants' denial of plaintiff's variance request does not violate equal protection principles because plaintiff has not met the threshold burden of proof for its equal protection challenge by showing disparate treatment of similarly situated entities based on religion. Accordingly, we reverse the Court of Appeals judgment and reinstate the trial court's order granting defendants' motion for summary disposition.

I. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

This case originates from a zoning dispute in Ann Arbor Township. The property at issue is zoned as an office park (OP) district pursuant to the township zoning ordinance, and is located within Domino's Farms office complex. Among the uses permitted in the township's OP zoning district are daycare facilities for use by children of office park employees. Rainbow Rascals, a former tenant of Domino's Farms, had operated a 100-child-capacity secular preschool daycare facility in the office park limited to children of office park employees. In 1991, Domino's Farms, on behalf of Rainbow Rascals, applied to Ann Arbor Township for a variance to allow children whose parents did not work at the Domino's Farms office complex to attend the Rainbow Rascals daycare. The township's Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) granted the requested variance.

In 1998, plaintiff Shepherd Montessori opened a Catholic preschool daycare facility in this same office park complex. The facility was originally limited to children of office park employees. Thereafter, Domino's Farms applied to Ann Arbor Township for a variance to allow children whose parents did not work at the office park to attend Shepherd Montessori's facility, a variance virtually identical to the one granted to Rainbow Rascals. The ZBA again granted the requested variance.

In 2000, Rainbow Rascals moved out of the office park, and Shepherd Montessori proposed to move into the vacated space and operate a K-3 primary school program. Shepherd Montessori sent a letter to the township's zoning administrator describing the proposal. The zoning administrator denied plaintiff's proposed use of the property, explaining that the operation of a primary school is not a permitted use within an OP district as designated in the township's zoning ordinance. Plaintiff filed a petition with the ZBA seeking in the alternative either (1) reversal of the zoning administrator's decision, (2) a use variance, or (3) a determination that plaintiff's proposed use of the property can be considered a “substituted use” of the prior “nonconforming” Rainbow Rascals daycare program.

The ZBA held a hearing on plaintiff's petition. During the hearing, plaintiff's attorney asserted that plaintiff should receive special consideration because its primary school would have a religious component that would be a use favored by the Constitution. One ZBA member questioned plaintiff's attorney regarding this assertion and inquired whether counsel believed that plaintiff “has some additional right to relief that she [sic] would not have as a nonsectarian private school without a religious affiliation based on the Constitution.” Plaintiff's attorney responded that he believed plaintiff is afforded additional rights under the Constitution, which favors education and religion.

At the conclusion of the hearing, the ZBA indicated that it agreed with the zoning administrator's decision and denied plaintiff's request because a primary school is not a permitted use within an OP district as designated in the township's ordinance. The ZBA also ruled that plaintiff's proposed nonconforming primary school use could not be substituted for Rainbow Rascals' use of the property because the daycare was a permitted use whereas a school is not. Finally, the ZBA voted to deny plaintiff's request for a use variance to operate a primary school in the OP district because plaintiff did not prove that without the variance, there could be no other viable economic use of the property. The vote on all three issues was unanimous.

Plaintiff sued the township, alleging, among other things, that its equal protection rights were violated by defendants' denial of the variance request. ¹ The matter currently before us addresses plaintiff's equal protection challenge. On the most recent remand from this Court, the Court of Appeals affirmed its prior decision that the defendants' application of the zoning ordinance violated the Equal Protection Clause. Applying the strict scrutiny standard of review, the panel held that defendant “treated a secular entity more favorably than plaintiff, a religious entity,” and that defendant offered no evidence to show that the denial of plaintiff's variance was “precisely tailored to achieve a compelling governmental interest.” The Court of Appeals remanded the case to the trial court for entry of a judgment in favor of plaintiff.² Defendants filed an application for leave in appeal to this Court, and we granted defendants' application limited to consideration of “(1) whether the Court of Appeals applied the correct standard of review in determining that the defendants violated the plaintiff's right to equal protection; and (2) whether the defendants violated the plaintiff's right to equal protection in denying the plaintiff's request for a variance.” ³

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

A trial court's ruling on a motion for summary disposition is a question of law, which this Court reviews de novo.⁴ Underlying constitutional issues are also reviewed de novo by this Court.⁵

III. ANALYSIS

At issue in this case is whether defendants' denial of plaintiff's zoning variance request was constitutionally permissible. In order to resolve this issue, we apply the following principles of equal protection law.

The equal protection clauses of the Michigan and United States constitutions provide that no person shall be denied the equal protection of the law. ⁶ This Court has held that Michigan's equal protection provision is coextensive with the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. ⁷ The Equal Protection Clause requires that all persons similarly situated be treated alike under the law.⁸ When reviewing the validity of state legislation or other official action that is challenged as denying equal protection, the threshold inquiry is whether plaintiff was treated differently from a similarly situated entity.⁹ The general rule is that legislation that treats similarly situated groups disparately is presumed valid and will be sustained if it passes the rational basis standard of review: that is, the classification drawn by the legislation is rationally related to a legitimate state interest.¹⁰ Under this deferential standard, “the burden of showing a statute to be unconstitutional is on the challenging party not on the party defending the statute[.]” ¹¹

However, when legislation treats similarly situated groups disparately on the basis of a suspect classification, such as race, alienage, or national origin, or infringes on a fundamental right protected by the Constitution, such as the free exercise of religion, the legislation will only be sustained if it passes the rigorous strict scrutiny standard of review: that is, the government bears the burden of establishing that the classification drawn is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest.¹²

If entities are treated differently on the basis of the quasi-suspect classes of gender and illegitimacy, intermediate scrutiny applies, and the burden is on the government to show that the classification serves important governmental objectives and that the means employed are substantially related to the achievement of those objectives.¹³

The ordinance in question is indisputably facially neutral in that it does not, on its face, treat religious and secular entities differently. Here, plaintiff complains that, in applying the ordinance, the township treated it differently from one other entity: Rainbow Rascals. The United States Supreme Court allows such “class of one” claims to be brought, but requires a plaintiff to show that it was actually treated differently from others similarly situated and that no rational basis exists for the dissimilar treatment. ¹⁴ The Court of Appeals erred in concluding that strict scrutiny applied to plaintiff's equal protection claim because, as discussed below, defendants' actions did not substantially burden plaintiff's free exercise of religion.¹⁵

In order to determine whether plaintiff's equal protection rights were violated, we begin by analyzing the threshold inquiry for an equal protection challenge, that being whether plaintiff was treated differently from a similarly situated entity. Plaintiff asserts that Rainbow Rascals and plaintiff are similarly situated and that defendants treated them differently. Plaintiff argued that defendants conceded Rainbow Rascals and plaintiff were similarly situated by stating in their brief that “[t]he similarity of the two entities is not in dispute.” The Court of Appeals agreed and used this statement as the basis for holding that Rainbow Rascals and plaintiff were similarly situated. In reaching its conclusion, the Court stated:

Defendants conceded that plaintiff and Rainbow Rascals were similarly situated, and defendants failed to offer a reason for refusing to permit plaintiff to operate its school

in the same space that Rainbow Rascals had operated its day care program.

* * *

Thus, we hold that defendants have

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