Town of Ekalaka v. Ekalaka Volunteer Fire Dep't, Inc.
| Decision Date | 19 October 2021 |
| Docket Number | DA 20-0594 |
| Citation | 497 P.3d 255,406 Mont. 30 |
| Parties | TOWN OF EKALAKA, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. EKALAKA VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT, INC. Defendant and Appellant. |
| Court | Montana Supreme Court |
For Appellant: Courtney Lawellin, Attorney at Law, Livingston, Montana, Catherine L. Dinwiddie, Law Office of Catherine Locke Dinwiddie, PLLC, Belgrade, Montana
For Appellee: Albert R. Batterman, Batterman Law Offices, P.C., Baker, Montana
¶1 Ekalaka Volunteer Fire Department, Inc., ("the Department") appeals an October 9, 2020 order from the Sixteenth Judicial District Court in Carter County denying its motion for summary judgment and granting summary judgment to the town of Ekalaka ("the Town"). We simplify the central issue on appeal as follows:
Did the District Court err when it found that Ekalaka's fire department is municipally owned as a matter of law?
¶2 We affirm.
¶3 The fire department in Ekalaka predated the Town. Then, in 1915, the year after Ekalaka incorporated as a third-class municipality, the Town passed an ordinance to create a municipal fire department out of the "old fire department." The ordinance made the existing fire chief of the old department the first fire chief of the municipal department, and it authorized and directed the mayor and town clerk to purchase the fire equipment, building, and "all property of every name, nature, and kind" from the old department. Through 1940, the Town followed statutory procedures for municipal departments by nominating and appointing fire chiefs and taking other required steps.
¶4 After 1940, such formalities largely went by the wayside. The volunteer-run Department operated with a degree of independence and trust. It also contained interpersonal overlap with other parts of the Town's government. For example, Elston Loken, the fire chief from around 1983 to 2013, worked as the Town's public works director. And Stephen DeFord, the Ekalaka mayor from 2014 to 2018, during which time the present controversy arose, had volunteered with the Department and was assistant fire chief before his election.
¶5 Loken and DeFord asserted that they have always recognized and understood the municipal character of the Department. This remains true, they say, despite some of the Department's independence in practice. That independence manifests in the Department's handling of its own decisions on things like personnel, as well as in the fact that the Department conducts its own fundraisers to supplement what the Town can budget for it, maintaining those funds in separate bank accounts.
¶6 In an affidavit, Loken referenced "considerably less community-minded" attitudes in new Department members as a catalyst for his retirement. Indeed, personal relationships aside, the Department did begin to pursue more extra-municipal work following Loken's departure. Mutual aid agreements with the rest of Carter County and other nearby communities had begun as early 1983, and the Department entered state contracts to fight wildland fires under Loken's leadership, too; he said they were good practice, team building, and fundraising opportunities. But beginning around 2014, the contract money in the Department's separate coffers began to swell and outmatch that coming from Town and community funds. The Department now contends that the budget-strapped Town is trying to seize the assets of a private association.
¶7 The Department's current fire hall is approaching a century old and lacks bathrooms and other much-desired features. In 2016, the Town and the Department began seriously discussing how to construct a new fire hall. The Town considered incorporating the Department as a nonprofit entity that could more promptly facilitate the necessary steps. The town attorney helped the Department draw up the paperwork to incorporate that entity, Ekalaka Volunteer Fire Department, Inc. However, personalities clashed, and progress halted. Plans for the hall were never finalized. After finding out that municipal workers compensation insurance coverage would be impossible if the Department went private, the Town decided not to pursue that option.
¶8 The Department contends that although the 1915 ordinance may have subsumed the "old fire department," the private volunteer fire company's identity somehow remained intact—either that or the Town's lenient oversight caused municipal ownership to evaporate in the intervening decades. The Department claims it was always a private fire company that existed as an unincorporated association until 2016, when it filed its incorporation paperwork following the town attorney's advice.
¶9 The Town went to the Carter County District Court and filed for a declaratory judgment that the Department was municipally owned. The Department responded with its theory of independence. Each party presented affidavits and voluminous documents to bolster its portrayal of the Department's status. The District Court granted summary judgment to the Town. The Department appeals.
¶10 We review summary judgment rulings de novo, taking up the district court's task anew and applying the same criteria. Lucas v. Stevenson , 2013 MT 15, ¶ 12, 368 Mont. 269, 294 P.3d 377. For summary judgment to be appropriate, there must be no genuine issues of material fact in dispute, and one party must be entitled to judgment as a matter of law. M. R. Civ. P. 56(c)(3). Declaratory judgments can turn on a district court's conclusions of law and findings of fact; we review legal conclusions for correctness and findings of fact for whether they are clearly erroneous. Karlson v. Rosich , 2006 MT 290, ¶ 7, 334 Mont. 370, 147 P.3d 196.
¶11 We first address two arguments the parties raised about the scope of our analysis. The Department claims that this matter should not have been decided by summary judgment given the existence of material facts in dispute. And both parties raise a theory of estoppel that is best dispensed with up front.
¶12 The Department has argued, albeit tersely, that the District Court erred in granting summary judgment to the Town because material facts remained in dispute. The Department did not make this argument below, and in fact, it filed its own motion stating that the undisputed facts favored summary judgment for the Department. No contents of the affidavits and supporting documents that accompanied the parties’ motions create material factual dispute. The Department contests minor aspects of the ways affiants for the Town portrayed things like the meetings about the new fire hall, but the Department does not cite any open questions of fact that are material to resolving the legal issue in this case. To the extent the Department disagrees about the materials provided, its main concern is the legal import of those documents and other evidence, not their factual existence or validity. See Sprunk v. First Bank Sys. , 252 Mont. 463, 466, 830 P.2d 103, 105 (1992) (). Summary judgment was and remains appropriate.
¶13 The Town asserts a theory of public policy estoppel to preventively cut off the Department's case. The Town points to two occasions when we have held that litigants could not challenge the existence of public corporations after they functioned for years with "the acquiescence of the public." Henderson v. School Dist. , 75 Mont. 154, 242 P. 979 (1926) (); Hammermeister v. Northern Mont. Joint Refuse Disposal Dist. , 278 Mont. 464, 925 P.2d 859 (1996) (). The Department, for its part, responds that estoppel should go the other way. The Department contends that years of allegedly independent operation should make its contention unassailable.
¶14 We note only that estoppel is not necessary to resolve this case. Each party's estoppel argument hinges first on validating its proposed version of the Department's status in the past. Therefore, we consider the legal requirements for municipal or independent fire departments and the evidence demonstrating which type of department formed and operated in Ekalaka. This analysis suffices to resolve the question presented for declaratory judgment.
¶15 Laws in effect in 1915 gave municipal town councils the power to establish fire departments and defined their components. Sections 3326, 3327, RCM (1907). The newly established town of Ekalaka did so through its 1915 ordinance purchasing everything from the "old fire department." The Department does not dispute these events.
¶16 What the Department does dispute is the Town's compliance with state law on fire departments ever since; it says that this noncompliance renders the attempted creation of a municipal department invalid. For example, state statutes govern things like the appointment of fire chiefs and firefighters, a municipality's duties to enforce qualifications for firefighters, and firefighter discipline. See Title 7, chapter 33, part 41, MCA. The Town quit making official appointments many decades ago. And the Department points out numerous areas where it has long disregarded these statutory rules, such as by hiring firefighters without the physical exams required in § 7-33-4107(5), MCA.
¶17 The Department also highlights its contravention of later municipal ordinances. For example, the Town's 1958 fire department ordinance describes application procedures that the Department has violated by instead operating under its bylaws. And the meeting times and locations differ significantly—because the Town copied the ordinance from another town, Malta, and mistakenly left many town-specific details unchanged. That the Department invokes the difference between its conduct and obvious clerical errors speaks to the weakness of this evidence; violating the municipal...
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