State ex rel. County of St. Charles v. City of St. Peters, WD

• Decision Date: 24 May 1994
• Docket Number: No. WD,WD
• Parties: STATE ex rel. COUNTY OF ST. CHARLES, Mo., Respondent, v. CITY OF ST. PETERS, Mo., Appellant, G. Tracy Mehan, III and Missouri Dept. of Natural Resources, Defendants. 48645.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

Page 46

876 S.W.2d 46

STATE ex rel. COUNTY OF ST. CHARLES, Mo., Respondent, v. CITY OF ST. PETERS, Mo., Appellant G. Tracy Mehan, III and Missouri Dept. of Natural Resources Defendants.

No. WD 48645.

Missouri Court of Appeals Western District.

May 24, 1994.

Rollin J. Moerschel, St. Charles, for appellant.

James Trimble, Kansas City, Stephen A. Martin, County Counselor, St. Charles County, St. Charles, Thomas W. Rynard, Jefferson City, for St. Charles County.

Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon, Atty. Gen., Timothy P. Duggan, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for G. Tracy Mehan, III, and Mo. Dept. of Natural Resources.

Before TURNAGE, P.J., C.J., and KENNEDY and HANNA, JJ.

HANNA, Judge.

This case is lodged in this court for the third time. This appeal is occasioned by the trial court's decision on remand of State ex rel. County of St. Charles v. Mehan, 854 S.W.2d 531 (Mo.App.1993), divesting the City of St. Peters of its ownership interest in real estate located in St. Charles County. The issue is whether the trial court's order which followed our remand exceeded the mandate in Mehan.

Appellant St. Peters raises five points on appeal and all of the claims of error are concerned with the trial court's post-mandate judgment that the city was not the owner of the property in question. The city's first point wherein it claims the trial court exceeded the decision and mandate issued by this court is dispositive. The facts are more fully set forth in Mehan above. For our purposes, the factual review is limited.

In Mehan, we held that appellant City of St. Peters did not have the authority to acquire a site for a sanitary landfill outside its corporate limits by the threat of or use of eminent domain. The court's mandate remanded the case to the Cole County Circuit Court for entry of judgment in favor of St. Charles County on Count II of its Second Amended Petition and ordered judgment against the City of St. Peters prohibiting it "from acquiring the designated property for a landfill by condemnation or the threat of it and for other orders consistent with this opinion." Id. at 537.

On remand, the trial court entered judgment for St. Charles County on Count II of its Second Amended Petition, stating in pertinent part as follows:

The court enters its declaratory judgment that the City of St. Peters has no power to acquire the property in St. Charles County outside its city limits for the purpose of operating a landfill by condemnation or threat of condemnation, that the City did not lawfully acquire the property and, therefore, is not the owner of the property described in the second amended petition.... (emphasis added)

The City of St. Peters argues that the trial court mistakenly entered its order determining that the City of St. Peters "did not lawfully acquire the property and, therefore, is not the owner of the property" which was the subject matter of the lawsuit. The County of St. Charles claims that the act of acquiring the property was ultra vires; i.e., the city could not acquire the property in the manner that it did and, therefore, the city was not an owner of property exempt from county zoning. The trial court made its entry concerning the city's interest in the property following our mandate and opinion. A timely motion was filed by City of St. Peters to vacate the trial court's post-mandate judgment that denied the existence of lawful title to the landfill site. The motion was not ruled within the time provided by Missouri Supreme Court Rule 73.01 and was thereby automatically overruled. Rule 81.05. This appeal followed.

This court ruled that the City of St. Peters did not have the authority to acquire property outside of its corporate limits for a landfill by condemnation or the threat of condemnation. Our order included a provision "for other orders consistent with this opinion"; an entry made because there were numerous other counts in the second amended petition, some of which were not argued before this court, and because the City of St. Peters had a pending counterclaim. That portion of our order seems to have been the basis for the trial court's decision that the City of St....