Opinion handed down January 12, 2016
In
City of DeSoto v. Nixon, the Supreme
Court of Missouri held that a law excluding cities that meet six narrowly drawn
criteria from a generally applicable procedure for making post-annexation
payments to a fire protection district violated Missouri’s constitutional
prohibition against special laws.[1]
I. Facts
and Holding
Section
321.322 establishes how a city is to make payments to a fire protection
district after the city annexes part of the fire protection district.[2] In 2013, the legislature added section
321.322.4, which excludes from these procedures any city that meets six
specific criteria:
The provisions of
[section 321.322.1] shall not apply where the annexing city or town operates a
city fire department, is any city of the third classification with more than
six thousand but fewer than seven thousand inhabitants and located in any
county with a charter form of government and with more than two hundred
thousand but fewer than three hundred fifty thousand inhabitants, and is
entirely surrounded by a single fire protection district.[3]
The
City of De Soto brought a lawsuit arguing that section 321.322.4 violates
Missouri’s constitutional ban on local or special laws because De Soto is the
only city that fits each of the six narrowly drawn criteria.[4] The State responded that section 321.322.4 is
not a local or special law because the criteria are open-ended: although De
Soto is the only city currently excluded from the payment procedures described
in section 321.322, other cities might fall within the exclusion in the future
– and De Soto might fall outside of the exclusion – as a result of population
growth or political decisions.[5]
On cross-motions for summary judgment, the circuit court
granted the State’s motion and overruled De Soto’s, finding that section 321.322.4
was not an unconstitutional local or special law because its criteria were
open-ended.[6] De Soto appealed.[7]
II. Legal
Background
Like
most state constitutions, Missouri’s constitution prohibits the legislature
from passing any “local or special law . . . where
a general law can be made applicable.” [8] The Supreme Court of Missouri has described a
“special law” as one where “members of a stated class are omitted from the
statute’s coverage whose relationship to the subject matter cannot by reason be
distinguished from that of those included.”[9] A “local law,” by contrast, is one “which
relates or operates over a particular locality instead of over the whole
territory of the state.”[10] Recent decisions, however, have tended to use
the terms interchangeably, interpreting Missouri’s prohibition of local and
special laws as a general requirement that “[a] law may not include less than
all who are similarly situated.”[11]
In Jefferson County Fire Protection
Districts Ass’n, the Supreme Court of Missouri
established a multipart test for determining whether a law that includes
population-based classifications is a “special law.”[12] First, the court must determine if the law is
facially special.[13] Generally speaking, “[a] law is facially
special if it is based on close-ended characteristics, such as historical
facts, geography, or constitutional status.”[14] If a law is facially special, it is
unconstitutional unless the party defending the law can show a “substantial
justification” for the classification.[15] Laws that have classifications based on
open-ended characteristics, on the other hand – including population
classifications – are presumed constitutional, and the party challenging the
law must show that the classification has no rational relationship to a
legitimate purpose.[16]
In Jefferson County,
however, the Supreme Court of Missouri recognized that a population-based classification
– although open-ended – might be drawn so narrowly that the presumption of
constitutionality should not be applied.[17] As a result, the court held that
The
presumption that a population-based classification is constitutional is
overcome if: (1) a statute contains a population classification that includes
only one political subdivision, (2) other political subdivisions are similar in
size to the targeted political subdivision, yet are not included, and (3) the
population range is so narrow that the only apparent reason for the narrow
range is to target a particular political subdivision and to exclude all
others.[18]
Applying this new test, the court
had no trouble finding that the statute challenged by Jefferson County – which
applied to “any county . . . with more than one hundred
ninety-eight thousand but fewer than one hundred ninety-nine thousand two
hundred inhabitants” – was facially special.[19]
III. Instant
Decision
In City of DeSoto, a unanimous court reversed the circuit court’s
judgment and granted summary judgment in favor of De Soto, finding that section
321.322 violated Missouri’s constitutional prohibition against special laws.[20] The court’s holding was based on its
determination that the statute was facially special according to the test
established in Jefferson County, and
that the State had failed to articulate a “substantial justification” for De
Soto’s special treatment.[21]
Applying the test established in Jefferson County, the court concluded
that the first two elements were easily satisfied because De Soto was the only
political subdivision that met both of the population requirements set out in section
321.322.4, even though other cities are similar in size to De Soto.[22] As a result, whether the statute was facially
special depended on if it satisfied the third element: whether “the population
range is so narrow that the only apparent reason for the narrow range is to
target a particular political subdivision and to exclude all others.”[23]
Significantly, the court rejected
the State’s contention that this element should be analyzed by looking at each
of the six statutory criteria individually and asking whether any city other
than De Soto might someday meet one or more.[24] Instead, the court held that a court must
consider the likelihood that a city other than De Soto could meet all six of
the criteria in the future.[25] Applying that principle, the court concluded
that “[t]he likelihood of all of these factors converging and of
another city coming within the scope of section 321.322.4 is sufficiently
unlikely that, in the words of Jefferson County, ‘the only
apparent reason for the narrow range is to target a particular political
subdivision and to exclude all the others.’”[26]
Because section 321.322.4 satisfied all three of the Jefferson County elements, the law was
presumptively special, and the State was required to provide a substantial
justification for the special treatment.[27] In this case, the State apparently offered no
such evidence.[28] As a result, the court concluded that the
trial court’s judgment upholding the law required reversal; moreover, because
the merits of the State’s motion for summary judgment and De Soto’s motion for
summary judgment were “intertwined,” the court determined that it was proper to
enter judgment for De Soto rather than remand the case for further proceedings.[29]
IV. Comment
The court’s decision in City of DeSoto may be most significant because
it rejected the State’s contention that the “specialness” of a law should be
analyzed by looking at each of the law’s classification characteristics
individually, which would have rendered the test established in Jefferson County – and Missouri’s
constitutional prohibition against special laws generally – relatively
toothless. It would be absurd if
legislators were able to circumvent the prohibition against special laws by
simply stacking open-ended classifications in such a way that only one city or
group satisfies all of the classifications, so the court was wise to close that
potential loophole.
City
of DeSoto is also
interesting because it demonstrates how Missouri’s “special law” doctrine
differs from federal equal protection doctrine.
State constitutional bans on “special laws” were intended “to protect the people of each state from domination by narrow
economic elites, who would use their economic power to win grants of privilege
from the state legislatures.”[30]
However, most courts have interpreted their state’s prohibition against
special laws as simply requiring a rational basis review modeled on federal equal
protection doctrine, essentially reading “special prohibitions out of state constitutions.”[31]
Missouri’s prohibition against special laws, by contrast,
appears to be alive and well – a constitutional protection that is additional
to, rather than repetitive of, the equal protection doctrine.[32]
In this case, if De Soto had challenged section 321.322.4 on equal
protection grounds, the court would likely have reviewed the law under the
rational basis standard typically applied to economic regulations. But the court in City of DeSoto applied a more stringent standard – requiring the State
to show a substantial justification for the law’s classification, demonstrating
that Missouri’s special laws doctrine actually provides greater protection from
“legislative capture” than the equal protection doctrine.
-
Bill Kistner
[1] City of DeSoto v. Nixon, 476 S.W.3d 282,
290 (Mo. 2016) (en banc).
[2] Mo. Ann.
Stat. § 321.322 (West 2016), held unconstitutional by City of DeSoto, 476 S.W.3d at 291.
[3] Id.
§ 321.322.4.
[4] City
of DeSoto, 476 S.W.3d at
285.
[5] Id.
at 286.
[6] Id.
[7] Id.
[8] Mo. Const. art. III, § 40 (West, Westlaw through Nov. 2014) (“[W]hether
a general law could have been made applicable is a judicial question to be
judicially determined without regard to any legislative assertion on that subject.”).
[9] State ex rel. Bunker Res. Recycling & Reclamation, Inc. v. Mehan,
782 S.W.2d 381, 385 (Mo. 1990) (en banc).
[10] City
of DeSoto, 476 S.W.3d at
286.
[11] Bunker,
782 S.W.2d at 385.
[12] Jefferson Cty. Fire Protec. Dists.
Ass’n v. Blunt, 205 S.W.3d 866, 870–71 (Mo. 2006) (en banc).
[13] Id. at 870.
[14] Id.
[15] Id.
[16]
Id.
[17] Id.
[18] Id. at 870–71.
[19]
Id. at 872.
[20] City
of DeSoto v. Nixon, 476 S.W.3d 282, 291 (Mo. 2016) (en banc).
[21] Id.
[22] Id.
at 288.
[23] Id.
[24] Id.
[25] Id.
at 289.
[26] Id.
at 290.
[27] Id.
[28] Id.
[29] Id.
at 290–91.
[30] Justin R. Long, State Constitutional Prohibitions on Special Laws, 60 Clev. St. L. Rev. 719, 719 (2012).
[31] Id.
[32] See generally Alderson v. State, 273 S.W.3d 533
(Mo. 2009) (en banc). However, the
analyses converge where an economic regulation is not “facially special” –
either as a result of close-ended classifications or the Jefferson County test – because both doctrines apply rational basis
review in those circumstances. Id.
