Western Line Consol. School Dist. v. City of Greenville, 55337
| Decision Date | 06 March 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 55337,55337 |
| Citation | 465 So.2d 1057 |
| Parties | WESTERN LINE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL DISTRICT, P.L. Bell, et al. and Farmers, Inc. v. CITY OF GREENVILLE, Mississippi. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
This cause comes to us upon Petitions For Rehearing filed by both parties after our original opinion in this cause was handed down December 19, 1984. The Petitions for Rehearing are denied; however, our original opinion is withdrawn and this one is substituted therefor.
This is an appeal from the Chancery Court of Washington County wherein the chancellor, sitting pursuant to Sec. 21-1-33 Miss.Code Ann. (1972), decreed the City of Greenville's proposed annexation reasonable. The appellants were objectors to the annexation at that hearing.
We begin by noting that the briefs and argument of all counsel involved in this cause have been of the finest quality and most beneficial to our decision. We also note that, although we are forced to reverse this cause, the chancellor is to be commended for his studious attention to the extensive testimony and numerous exhibits which constitute the record in this cause.
Under Sec. 88 of our State Constitution the legislature is given the power to control the creation and organization of municipalities.
Section 88. The legislature shall pass general laws, under which local and private interest shall be provided for and protected, and under which cities and towns may be chartered and their charters amended, and under which corporations may be created, organized, and their acts of incorporation altered; and all such laws shall be subject to amendment.
Miss. Const. of 1890, Art. 4, Sec. 88.
Beginning with Section 2913 of the Mississippi Code of 1892, the legislature took advantage of the authority given to it by Section 88 of the Constitution by establishing a statutory procedure for the expansion or contraction of municipal boundaries. That provision and subsequent modifications of the State Code provided that appeals from municipal ordinances contracting or expanding city boundaries were to be made to the circuit court. In 1950, the legislature changed the forum. With the adoption of Sec. 3374-12 of the Mississippi Code (1942), the legislature presented the state with our modern scheme of realizing municipal growth. The entire process is now embodied in Secs. 21-1-27 through 21-1-41 Miss.Code Ann. (1972). For purposes of this appeal, our attention is drawn to Secs. 21-1-31 and 21-1-33. These sections provide that once a municipal ordinance enlarging or contracting that municipality's boundaries is passed by the city council, the reasonableness of the city's actions is to be determined by the chancery court.
The appellants argue that the chancery court is constitutionally the wrong forum. They take the position that the chancery court is one of limited jurisdiction and that it has no constitutional authority to hear municipal annexation cases. We turn directly to the language of the Mississippi Constitution of 1890 for resolution of this issue.
Article 6 Sec. 159 of our State Constitution reads:
The chancery court shall have full jurisdiction in the following matters and cases, viz:
(a) All matters in equity;
(b) Divorce and alimony;
(c) Matters testamentary and of administration;
(d) Minor's business;
(e) Cases of idiocy, lunacy, and persons of unsound mind;
(f) All cases of which the said court had jurisdiction under the laws in force when this Constitution is put in operation.
Section 159 must be read in conjunction with Article 6 Sec. 156 which states:
The circuit court shall have original jurisdiction in all matters civil and criminal in this state not vested by this Constitution in some other court, and such appellate jurisdiction as shall be prescribed by law.
In order to determine whether the legislature may constitutionally vest the chancery courts with jurisdiction to review municipal annexation we must consider the nature of the review intended. Section 21-1-33 states that the chancellor's power to review is limited to a determination of the "reasonableness" of the proposed annexation. Numerous decisions of this Court have recognized that standard. Extension of Boundaries of City of Clinton, 450 So.2d 85 (Miss.1984); Extension of Boundaries of Horn Lake v. Renfro, 365 So.2d 623 (Miss.1978); Extension of Boundaries (Wise) v. City of Biloxi, 361 So.2d 1372 (Miss.1978).
We have attempted to establish criteria by which chancellors may gauge the reasonableness of an annexation. Dodd v. City of Jackson, 238 Miss. 372, 118 So.2d 319 (1960); Extension of Boundaries of Horn Lake v. Renfro, supra. These criteria require that the chancellor evaluate the services to be offered to the annexation area, the city's ability to offer those services, the city's need to grow and the needs of the area to be annexed. While the Dodd and Renfro criteria are helpful, they were never intended to be conclusive as to reasonableness. Other factors, including the interest of, and consequences to, landowners in the annexation area are relevant. The economic and personal impact on these landowners is as important a concern as the city's need to grow. Only by reviewing the annexation from the perspective of both the city and the landowner can the chancellor adequately determine the issue of reasonableness. In short, the common thread that must run through any reasonableness criteria is fairness. An unreasonable annexation is an unfair one and, as fairness is the foundation of equity, an annexation cannot be both unreasonable and equitable. The converse is equally true for an annexation cannot be both inequitable and reasonable.
In reviewing cases of this nature the chancellor must balance the equities of the parties by weighing all relevant factors to determine if the city's claim of need is defeated by inequitable consequences to those in the annexation area. Undoubtedly the legislature intended the process it mandated to be thus based in equity as it vested jurisdiction in the one court specifically designed to balance equities and determine fairness and reasonableness. Because the judicial review of a proposed annexation is equitable in nature, we are of the opinion that the chancery court's...
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