Squires v. City of Saraland
Decision Date | 12 January 2007 |
Docket Number | 2030874. |
Citation | 960 So.2d 666 |
Court | Alabama Court of Civil Appeals |
Parties | Shirley SQUIRES and Ronald Squires v. CITY OF SARALAND. |
William W. Watts III of Hudson & Watts, LLP, Mobile, for appellants.
T. Dwight Reid of T. Dwight Reid & Associates, Mobile, for appellee.
After Remand from the Alabama Supreme Court
In November 2005, this court affirmed a judgment of the Mobile Circuit Court denying the claims that Shirley Squires and Ronald Squires ("the Squireses") had asserted against the City of Saraland ("the City"). Squires v. City of Saraland, 960 So.2d 651 (Ala.Civ.App.2005) ("Squires I"). Among other things, the main opinion of this court in Squires I stated that one of the issues raised by the Squireses — whether the City's zoning ordinance was unconstitutionally applied to the Squireses — was procedurally barred because the Squireses had failed to serve the attorney general with a copy of their complaint pursuant to § 6-6-227, Ala.Code 1975. 960 So.2d at 655. We thus did not reach "the issue whether the City is guilty of discriminatory selective enforcement under principles recognized in cases such as Hunt v. State, 642 So.2d 999, 1003-04 (Ala. Crim.App.1993), aff'd, 642 So.2d 1060 (Ala. 1994), and S.H. v. State, 868 So.2d 1110, 1118 (Ala.Civ.App.2003) (plurality opinion)." Squires I, 960 So.2d at 660. The Alabama Supreme Court granted certiorari review as to that conclusion only, reversed the judgment of this court, and remanded the cause to this court "for further review consistent with [that court's] opinion." Ex parte Squires, 960 So.2d 661, 666 (Ala.2006) ("Squires II"). In compliance with the Supreme Court's mandate in Squires II, we now consider the merits of the sole issue not addressed in Squires I.
The Squireses contend on appeal that the judgment in favor of the City should be reversed because, they say, the City has not consistently enforced the requirement that a special exception be obtained before a "day care center" or other potentially suitable home business may begin operation in an R-1 district. In doing so, the Squireses have explicitly invoked the federal constitutional guarantee1 of equal protection of the laws as the basis of their claim that the zoning ordinance cannot lawfully be applied to them.
As the citation in the main opinion in Squires I of Hunt v. State would indicate, the Squireses' argument as to selective enforcement ventures into an area of constitutional law that is more commonly examined in criminal cases. Hunt summarizes the applicable basic legal principles:
Hunt, 642 So.2d 999, 1003-04. However, a noted treatise in the field of municipal planning, one cited in the main opinion in Squires I, does address the scope of the doctrine of selective enforcement in the specific context of zoning law:
4 Edward H. Ziegler Jr., et al., Rathkopf's Law of Zoning and Planning § 65.37 (4th ed.2004).
In this case, although the City's building inspector testified that, to his knowledge, approximately 160 other business (including two day-care businesses) had operated in locations in the City in which, according to the zoning ordinance, a...
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