Sullivan v. Chafee, 97-156-A

• Decision Date: 14 November 1997
• Docket Number: No. 97-156-A,97-156-A
• Citation: 703 A.2d 748
• Parties: Council President Linda SULLIVAN et al. v. Lincoln D. CHAFEE, in His Capacity as Mayor of the City of Warwick. ppeal.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 748

703 A.2d 748

Council President Linda SULLIVAN et al. v. Lincoln D. CHAFEE, in His Capacity as Mayor of the City of Warwick.

No. 97-156-Appeal.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

Nov. 14, 1997.

Russell Bramley, John J. Harrington, Warwick, for Plaintiff.

William E. Smith, Providence, Marc A. Crisafulli, for Defendant.

Before WEISBERGER, C.J., and LEDERBERG, BOURCIER, FLANDERS and GOLDBERG, JJ.

OPINION

FLANDERS, Justice.

We speak here of judicial power and justiciability, of indispensable parties and mootness, and of city council budget votes and mayoral vetoes.

The plaintiffs, four current members and one former member of the nine-person Warwick City Council (the council), ¹ appeal from a Superior Court declaratory judgment concerning a dispute involving the city's municipal budget for the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 1997 (FY 1997). The Superior Court's judgment rejected the plaintiffs' proposed interpretation of various budgetary provisions contained in the Warwick City Charter (the charter) and adopted an interpretation favored by the defendant, Lincoln D. Chafee, the Mayor of the City of Warwick (the mayor).

However, in their appeal from this judgment, plaintiffs are no longer requesting any declaratory relief or other remedy concerning the city's FY 1997 budget. Nonetheless, asserting that the charter-interpretation issues raised by their FY 1997 budget dealings with the mayor are likely to recur in future years, plaintiffs ask us to correct the alleged legal errors in the Superior Court's analysis and to declare how the budget process is supposed to work under the city's charter so that the council and the mayor can be guided by our advice in future fiscal years.

For the reasons set forth below, we conclude that the present posture of this case is such that we no longer have a justiciable controversy that is suitable for declaratory relief and that, in any event, plaintiffs have failed to join indispensable parties. ² Accordingly we vacate the judgment of the Superior Court and dismiss the appeal.

I Facts and Travel

This litigation arose out of a disagreement between plaintiffs and the mayor over the adoption of the city's FY 1997 budget. The parties have stipulated to the facts.

Under the charter the mayor must submit a proposed budget and budget message to the council at least thirty days before the commencement of each fiscal year; that is, by June 1. On May 22, 1996, the mayor made such a budget submission (mayor's budget). It included a proposed tax rate of $34.75 per $1,000 of assessed value, an increase of $0.65 per $1,000 over the then-existing tax rate. On June 1, ten days after the mayor's initial budget submission, the council conducted a public hearing on the mayor's budget. (The council is required to hold public hearings on seven days' advance notice to the public before it adopts the annual budget.)

Initially the council placed the mayor's budget on its June 10 meeting agenda, but the council's finance committee held it until June 13. On June 13 the city's finance director, on behalf of the mayor, amended the mayor's budget to lower his proposed tax rate by $0.15 per $1,000 of assessed value to $34.60. Later that same day the council voted five to four to reject the mayor's amendment and to adopt a revised budget (council's budget). The council's budget imposed a lower tax rate of $34.10, which was the same rate used in the FY 1996 budget.

The next day, on Friday, June 14, the mayor advised the council by letter that because he disapproved of the council's budget, he was vetoing it and every line item therein except for school appropriations. In addition, he notified the council that pursuant to the "final action" provision of Article V, section 5-7 of the charter, ³ his June 13 amended budget, including its revised $34.60 tax rate, would become the operative budget for the city at midnight on June 15. The council did not meet before midnight on June 15 but next convened at its regularly scheduled meeting on Monday, June 17. There, plaintiffs attempted to override the mayor's veto and disapproval by mustering the requisite six votes. However this attempt failed when only the five plaintiffs voted to override the veto.

On June 19 plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against the mayor under the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act, G.L.1956 chapter 30 of title 9, seeking a ruling that under the terms of the charter (1) the budget and the tax rate imposed by the mayor at midnight on June 15 were null and void, (2) the budget and the tax rate adopted by a majority of the council on June 13--before the mayor's disapproval and veto on June 14--were the operative budgetary provisions for FY 1997, and (3) the mayor possessed only a limited veto power as to budgetary matters which had not been properly exercised vis-a-vis the FY 1997 budget (to wit, the mayor could veto only that portion of the council's budget containing any additions or increases in the line items of the mayor's budget). On July 11, the Superior Court ruled and declared that (1) the mayor's budget was the operative budget for Warwick for FY 1997, (2) the mayor's revised tax rate of $34.60 per $1,000 of assessed valuation was the operative tax rate, and (3) the mayor's disapproval and line-item vetoes of the council's FY 1997 budget were lawful exercises of his powers under the charter.

In their appeal of the Superior Court decree to this court, plaintiffs no longer seek a declaration that the budget and the tax rate adopted by the council on June 13, 1996 should be imposed retroactively for the 1997 fiscal year. Because the 1997 fiscal year has already ended (after the city operated throughout that year under the mayor's budget), plaintiffs are concerned that such a retroactive ruling by this court on appeal could have a serious adverse financial impact on the city. Thus plaintiffs now seek to limit their appeal to the validity of the Superior Court's legal analysis concerning how the charter's budgetary provisions work between the mayor and the council. They also assert that if the Superior Court's ruling is not reversed it will precipitate "recurring problem[s] which will take place every year in the budget process."

II Analysis

A. Standard of Review

The decision to grant or to deny declaratory relief under the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act is purely discretionary. Woonsocket Teachers' Guild Local Union 951, AFT v. Woonsocket School Committee, 694 A.2d 727, 729 (R.I.1997); Lombardi v. Goodyear Loan Co., 549 A.2d 1025, 1027 (R.I.1988). However, that discretion is not absolute and is subject to appropriate appellate review. State v. Cianci, 496 A.2d 139, 146 (R.I.1985). When the Superior Court exercises its discretion to issue such a judgment, its decision should remain untouched on appeal unless the court improperly exercised its discretion or otherwise abused its authority. Woonsocket, 694 A.2d at 729. Accordingly we review a declaratory decree of the Superior Court with an eye to whether the court abused its discretion, misinterpreted the applicable law, overlooked material facts, or otherwise exceeded its authority.

B. Mootness

As a preliminary matter the mayor contends that plaintiffs' abandonment on appeal of any request for relief vis-a-vis FY 1997 means that there is no longer any justiciable case or controversy and that, therefore, their appeal should be dismissed because they are making an improper request for an advisory opinion.

It is well established in this state that a necessary predicate to a court's exercise of its jurisdiction under the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act is an actual justiciable controversy. ⁴ A declaratory-judgment action may not be used "for the determination of abstract questions or the rendering of advisory opinions," Lamb v. Perry, 101 R.I. 538, 542, 225 A.2d 521, 523 (1967), nor does it "license litigants to fish in judicial ponds for legal advice." Goodyear Loan Co. v. Little, 107 R.I. 629, 631, 269 A.2d 542, 543 (1970). We recently reaffirmed this well-settled principle in the Providence Teachers Union case, concluding that a potential dispute between substitute public school teachers and the city of Providence over the city charter's residency requirements was not yet ripe for decision nor appropriate for a declaratory-judgment action. Providence Teachers Union v. Napolitano, 690 A.2d 855, 856 (R.I.1997); see also Sasso v. State, 686 A.2d 88, 91 (R.I.1996) (refusing to provide declaratory relief concerning speculative and as yet unrealized future factual scenarios). With these familiar but important principles in mind, we turn to the case at hand.

First, the mayor contends that plaintiffs are seeking what amounts to advisory guidance from us in connection with the city council's future budget dealings with the mayor based on the alleged potential recurrence of the same budget brouhaha they faced as council members in 1996. But as the mayor points out, plaintiffs' request for legal guidance concerning the charter's meaning of "final action" is premised on a precise factual scenario that may never occur again--or at least not with the same parties and with the same factual underpinnings as occurred in connection with the FY 1997 budget.

Indeed, because plaintiffs are no longer asking us to invalidate the city's FY 1997 budget, our decision would rest upon a speculative future factual scenario that in whole or in part may never come to pass. Among the many facts that we would have to posit in reaching the merits of this claim are: first, we would have to assume a recurrence of the same sort of budget disagreement between the mayor and a majority of the council as existed in 1996; second, we would have to hypothesize the adoption by the council of a future budget that differs from the mayor's in the same way that the council's proposed FY 1997 budget differed from the mayor's budget for that year; third, we would need to presume a timely veto by the mayor...