ROLAND JOHNSON AND KAREN JOHNSON, TRUSTEES OF THE ROLAND AND KAREN JOHNSON TRUST, APPELLEES, V. CITY OF FREMONT, NEBRASKA, A MUNICIPAL CORPORATION, APPELLANT.
No. S-13-668
Nebraska Supreme Court
April 18, 2014
287 Neb. 960
- Summary Judgment. Summary judgment is proper if the pleadings and admissible evidence offered at the hearing show that there is no genuine issue as to any material facts or as to the ultimate inferences that may be drawn from those facts and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
- Statutes: Appeal and Error. Statutory interpretation presents a question of law, for which an appellate court has an obligation to reach an independent conclusion irrespective of the determination made by the court below.
- Special Assessments: Municipal Corporations: Appeal and Error. The power and authority delegated to municipalities to construct improvements and to levy special assessments for their payment is strictly construed, and every reasonable doubt as to the extent or limitation of such power and authority and the manner of exercise thereof is resolved in favor of the taxpayer.
- Statutes: Legislature: Intent. In order for a court to inquire into a statute‘s legislative history, the statute in question must be open to construction, and a statute is open to construction when its terms require interpretation or may reasonably be considered ambiguous.
- Statutes: Appeal and Error. The language of a statute is to be given its plain and ordinary meaning, and an appellate court will not resort to interpretation to ascertain the meaning of statutory words which are plain, direct, and unambiguous.
- ____: ____. Absent anything to the contrary, an appellate court will give statutory language its plain and ordinary meaning.
- ____: ____. When construing a statute, an appellate court must look to the statute‘s purpose and give to the statute a reasonable construction which best achieves that purpose, rather than a construction which would defeat it.
- Statutes. It is not within the province of the courts to read a meaning into a statute that is not there or to read anything direct and plain out of a statute.
- ____. A court must attempt to give effect to all parts of a statute, and if it can be avoided, no word, clause, or sentence will be rejected as superfluous or meaningless.
- Summary Judgment. Summary judgment is proper where the facts are uncontroverted and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
- Summary Judgment: Final Orders: Appeal and Error. Although the denial of a motion for summary judgment, standing alone, is not a final, appealable order, when adverse parties have each moved for summary judgment and the trial court has sustained one of the motions, the reviewing court obtains jurisdiction over both motions and may determine the controversy which is the subject of those motions or make an order specifying the facts which appear without substantial controversy and direct such further proceedings as it deems just.
Appeal from the District Court for Dodge County: GEOFFREY C. HALL, Judge. Reversed and remanded with direction.
Steven G. Ranum and Martin P. Pelster, of Croker, Huck, Kasher, DeWitt,
HEAVICAN, C.J., WRIGHT, CONNOLLY, STEPHAN, MCCORMACK, MILLER-LERMAN, and CASSEL, JJ.
CASSEL, J.
INTRODUCTION
A city relied upon Nebraska‘s “gap and extend” law1 to pave one block of a street and assess the paving costs against abutting property owners. At one end, the new paving adjoined a paved intersection of two paved streets. At the other end, there was no connecting paved street. We must decide whether the paving was authorized under the second sentence of
BACKGROUND
The relevant streets are located in the City of Fremont, Nebraska (City). An excerpt from a map in evidence will best illustrate the situation, both before and after the project which is the subject of the instant appeal. We note that the quality of the image, although limited by its source, still provides a useful reference tool.
We first identify the extent of previous paving of relevant streets. On the east end of the map, Garden City Road was previously paved. A portion of Donna Street, from the Garden City Road intersection to the Jean Drive intersection, was also already paved. The paved segment of Donna Street ran parallel to a railroad right-of-way (lower right corner). Jean Drive was entirely paved, including both the Garden City Road and Donna Street intersections. On the west end of the map, a portion of Howard Street was previously paved, but this paving ended well north of the intersection of Howard and Donna Streets.
Roland Johnson and Karen Johnson, trustees of the Roland and Karen Johnson Trust (trustees), who initiated the lawsuit now before us, are the legal titleholders of real estate in the City. Their property abuts upon and is adjacent to Donna Street.
In August 2009, the mayor and city council of the City passed a resolution creating “Improvement Unit No. 97.” The resolution stated that under the authority granted in
The trustees filed a petition on appeal, alleging that the levy of special assessments was invalid. They claimed that the street improvement in Improvement Unit No. 97 did not fill an unpaved gap between paved streets, but, rather, merely extended the paving on Donna Street. The trustees requested an order vacating the special assessments levied upon the property and a refund of the special assessment they had paid. In the City‘s answer, it stated that Donna Street intersects with South Howard Street one block west of
Upon the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment, the district court sustained the trustees’ motion and overruled the City‘s motion. The court observed that the parties argued different interpretations of the same factual scenario. The court stated that it found Turner v. City of North Platte2 to be compelling, and the court then quoted the following language that can be found in Iverson v. City of North Platte3: “It is clear
that the Legislature intended that the gap and extend procedure be used only to fill one- or two-block unpaved gaps which exist between paved streets.” The court stated that Donna Street extended in the direction of an unpaved area and did not connect with or fill a gap with a paved intersection. Thus, the court concluded that the City did not “comport with the limitations and restrictions required by the gap and extend law.” The court ordered the City to refund to the trustees the assessment payments they had made.
The City timely appealed, and we moved the case to our docket under our statutory authority to regulate the caseloads of the appellate courts of this state.4
ASSIGNMENTS OF ERROR
The City assigns that the district court erred in (1) sustaining the trustees’ motion for summary judgment, (2) finding the City exceeded the limitations imposed by
STANDARD OF REVIEW
[1] Summary judgment is proper if the pleadings and admissible evidence offered at the hearing show that there is no genuine issue as to any material facts or as to the ultimate inferences that may be drawn from those facts and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.6
[2] Statutory interpretation presents a question of law, for which an appellate court has an obligation to reach an independent conclusion irrespective of the determination made by the court below.7
ANALYSIS
[3] At the outset, we recall that the power and authority delegated to municipalities to construct improvements and to levy special assessments for their payment is strictly construed, and every reasonable doubt as to the extent or limitation of such power and authority and the manner of exercise thereof is resolved in favor of the taxpayer.8
Any city or village may, without petition or creating a street improvement district, . . . pave any portion of a street otherwise paved so as to make one continuous paved street, but the portion to be so improved shall not exceed two blocks, including intersections, or thirteen hundred and twenty-five feet, whichever is the lesser. Such city or village may also . . . pave any unpaved street or alley which intersects a paved street for a distance of not to exceed one block on either side of such paved street. The improvements authorized by this section may be performed upon any portion of a street or any unpaved street or alley not previously improved to meet or exceed the minimum standards for pavement set by the city or village for its paved streets.
The City concedes that the first sentence of
The trustees argue that a more narrow interpretation of
legislative history, and the case law interpreting
We disagree.
[4] First, we determined long ago that the provisions of the gap and extend law are clear and unambiguous.13 In order for a court to inquire into a statute‘s legislative history, the statute in question must be open to construction, and a statute is open to construction when its terms require interpretation or may reasonably be considered ambiguous.14 Because we have determined that provisions of the gap and extend law are clear and unambiguous, they are not open to construction. Thus, we need not inquire into the statute‘s legislative history.
Second, the ordinary principles governing statutory interpretation lead to the same conclusion in the case before us. Several principles apply, and we discuss each in turn.
[5-7] The plain language of the statute‘s second sentence clearly applies to the City‘s extension of Donna Street. The language of a statute is to be given its plain and ordinary meaning, and an appellate court will not resort to interpretation to ascertain the meaning of statutory words which are plain, direct, and unambiguous.15
defeat it.17 Plainly, the first two sentences of
[8,9] The trustees’ interpretation would effectively eliminate the second sentence of
The district court‘s reliance on Iverson, as urged by the trustees, was misplaced. The court‘s order quotes the following language that can be found in Iverson: “It is clear that the Legislature intended that the gap and extend procedure be used only to fill one- or two-block unpaved gaps which exist between paved streets.”20 But the situation presented
in Iverson was entirely different. There, the municipality, using a “gap-stacking strategy,” attempted to circumvent the necessity of creating a paving district, which would require consent of the landowners prior to its initiation.21 Moreover, the Iverson court recognized that two related paving districts, not affected by the Iverson decision, had been “created under the provision of
[10,11] The district court correctly recognized that there was no genuine issue of material fact, but because of its erroneous statutory interpretation, the court granted summary judgment to the wrong party. Summary judgment is proper where the facts are uncontroverted and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.23 Both parties moved for summary judgment. The court should have sustained the City‘s motion but instead sustained the trustees’ motion. Although the denial of a motion for summary judgment, standing alone, is not a final, appealable order, when adverse parties have each moved for summary judgment and the trial court has sustained one of the motions, the reviewing court obtains jurisdiction over both motions and may determine the controversy which is the subject of those motions or make an order specifying the facts which appear without substantial controversy and direct such further proceedings as
it deems just.24 Because there is no issue of fact and the City is entitled to judgment as a matter of law, we determine the controversy accordingly.
CONCLUSION
We conclude that the improvement unit mandating the paving of one block of Donna Street, which intersected Jean Drive, was plainly authorized by the second sentence of
REVERSED AND REMANDED WITH DIRECTION.