663 N.E.2d 1333 | Ohio Ct. App. | 1995
Defendant-appellant, city of Beavercreek, appeals from a judgment of the trial court, in an appeal from an action by the Beavercreek City Council, holding that an ordinance passed by the Council in accordance with R.C.
We agree that the City Council's decision to adopt the board's recommendation was not a decision of an administrative agency of a political subdivision, as defined in R.C.
Our decision that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to hear the administrative appeal in this case moots all other assignments of error. However, because the trial court's holding, that the procedure set forth in R.C.
The project plan and estimated assessments were filed with the Beavercreek Clerk of Council, and the affected landowners were given proper notice of the project and proposed assessments. Plaintiffs-appellees, Stewart W. Thomas and the other aggrieved property owners, filed timely objections to the proposed assessments. In response, the City Council of Beavercreek appointed an Assessment Equalization Board ("the board") to conduct a hearing on the objections and provided the property owners with notice of the time, date, and location of the hearing. After conducting the hearing, the board overruled the property owners' *353 objections and recommended to the City Council that the assessments be made in accordance with the plan set forth in the resolution of necessity. The City Council accepted the board's recommendation.
Stewart W. Thomas and the other aggrieved property owners (hereinafter referred to collectively as "Thomas") appealed the Beavercreek City Council's adoption of the board's recommendation to the Greene County Court of Common Pleas on August 25, 1993. Thomas asserted that the Beavercreek City Council's decision to adopt the special assessments as approved by the board was unconstitutional, illegal, arbitrary, capricious, and unsupported by the preponderance of substantial evidence regarding the special benefit conferred.
In response, Beavercreek asserted that the City Council's decision to adopt the recommendation of the board lacked finality and was a legislative, not a quasijudicial, action. As such, Beavercreek argued that the decision was not an "appealable order" within the meaning of R.C.
On October 14, 1993, a hearing on the matter was held in the Greene County Court of Common Pleas. In a judgment entered August 22, 1994, the trial judge presumed the court's jurisdiction to hear the appeal and held that R.C.
The city of Beavercreek appeals from the judgment of the trial court.
"The court below was in error by finding that the resolution of city council accepting and approving the recommendation of the Board of Equalization was subject to an administrative appeal."
Section
"Every final order, adjudication, or decision of any officer, tribunal, authority, board, bureau, commission, department, or other division of any political subdivision of the state may be reviewed by the court of common pleas of the county. * * * A `final order, adjudication, or decision' means an order, adjudication, or decision that determines rights, duties,privileges, benefits, or legal relationships of a person * * *." (Emphasis added.)
In addition to the finality requirement set forth in R.C.
To be considered a quasijudicial proceeding, the proceeding must resemble a court proceeding in that an exercise of discretion is employed in adjudicating the rights and duties of parties with conflicting interests. Talbut v. Perrysburg (1991),
In the case before us, Thomas appealed from the Beavercreek City Council's decision to adopt the board's recommendation. Accordingly, we must determine whether the decision made by the Beavercreek City Council was a final, quasijudicial decision that the court of common pleas had jurisdiction to review.
R.C.
In this appeal, Beavercreek asserts that the City Council's decision to adopt the board's recommendation was not a final order within the definition of R.C.
Thomas responds that the City Council's decision to adopt the board's recommendation regarding the special assessments was a final order within the purview of R.C.
Although Thomas correctly asserts that the proceedings before the board provided him with notice and an opportunity to present evidence and was, therefore, a quasijudicial proceeding, he mischaracterizes the decision from which he appeals. He is not appealing from the recommendation of the board that resulted from the quasijudicial hearing; instead, he is appealing from the City Council's adoption of the recommendation, which was a decision that did not require any notice or opportunity to be heard. Accordingly, the fact that the proceedings before the board, had it finally decided anything, might have been of a quasijudicial nature does not make quasijudicial the action of the City Council in approving the board's recommendation. In other words, the action of the Assessment Equalization Board, while otherwise quasijudicial, was not final, whereas the action of the City Council was not quasijudicial.
Thomas cites Tolson v. Oregon (1976),
We are unable to reconcile the conclusion reached in theTolson decision with the requirements for finality and a quasijudicial decision recognized by the Ohio Supreme Court; therefore, we decline to follow Tolson.
As discussed above, the procedure set forth in R.C. Chapter 727 does not require the City Council to provide property owners with notice or an opportunity to be heard before it determines whether it will adopt the board's recommendation. Moreover, because the City Council's adoption of the board's recommendation does not conclusively determine the rights or duties of the parties, the City Council's acceptance of the board's recommendation is not a final order. Instead, it is a preliminary measure that must be taken before the City Council can decide to proceed with the improvement as planned and before the City Council can levy the actual assessment in a later ordinance after the project is completed.
The City Council's decision to adopt the recommendation of the Assessment Equalization Board was not rendered as the result of an exercise of the City *357 Council's quasijudicial powers, and the decision to approve the recommendation was not a final determination of the rights of the parties. Accordingly, we conclude that the court of common pleas did not have jurisdiction to review the decision.
In support of its position that the City Council's decision to adopt the recommendation of the board was not an appealable decision within the purview of R.C.
We agree with the Motz court's conclusion that the passage of an ordinance to levy a special assessment is not a decision that a trial court has jurisdiction to review in an administrative appeal. However, we cite different reasons for this conclusion.
According to the procedure set forth in R.C. Chapter 727 for making an assessment, the proceeding before the Assessment Equalization Board can fairly be characterized as quasijudicial in nature; however, the outcome of that proceeding is not a final order, but merely a recommendation to the legislative authority. On the other hand, although the City Council has the ability to pass an ordinance levying an assessment, and that is a final determination of the rights and duties of the parties, that decision is not the result of the exercise of the council's quasijudicial authority. Based on the foregoing, we conclude that the procedure set forth in R.C. Chapter 727 for the imposition of a special assessment does not result in an administrative decision that a court of common pleas has jurisdiction to review pursuant to R.C.
Because the Beavercreek City Council's decision to approve the Assessment Equalization Board's recommendation was not an appealable order of an administrative agency within the definition of R.C.
The city of Beavercreek's third assignment of error is sustained.
"The court below was in error in finding that Section
Thomas's first assignment of error has been rendered moot under App.R. 12(A)(1)(c) by our ruling on the third assignment of error. Therefore, the first assignment of error is overruled. However, we will discuss the question of law raised by this assignment of error for whatever assistance it might be to the parties in subsequent actions involving the issues raised in the present case.
The Ohio Supreme Court has held that a municipality may raise money to pay for a public improvement by levying an assessment against a property owner for the amount of the special benefit conferred on the land by the improvement, even if a part of the property owner's land has been taken by condemnation for making the improvement, and that the assessment may include a part of the cost of appropriating the land taken. Pickering Hardware Co.v. Cincinnati (1948),
Earlier, after some conflicting decisions on the issue, inState ex rel. Shafer v. Otter (1922),
"The property owner under the Constitution receives full compensation for the lands taken without deduction for benefit. He then has parted with his land, and has in its place its value in money, and, as to his remaining lands, he is in exactly the same position as his neighbors. If such remaining lands and the lands of his neighbors receive special benefits, benefits different from and in addition to the benefits which he and his neighbors received as members of the general public, there is, on principle, no reason why such lands should not bear ratably and in proportion to the special benefits an assessment therefor." Id. at 433-434,
The court's decision in Otter was in harmony with Section
Although the Ohio Supreme Court has held that a municipality can assess part of the cost of appropriating property, it has not addressed the question of the proper amount that may be assessed for the cost of appropriating land. The specific constitutional question raised by the parties in the case before us involves the extent of the constitutional limitations set forth in Section
Section
"Any municipality appropriating private property for a public improvement may provide money therefor in part by assessments upon benefitted property not in excess of the special benefits conferred upon such property by the improvements. Said assessments, however, upon all the abutting, adjacent, and other property in the district benefitted, shall in no case be levied for more than fifty per centum of the cost of such appropriation."
Pursuant to Section
"The cost of any public improvement to be paid for directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, by funds derived from special assessments may include but not be limited to:
"(A) The purchase price of real estate or any interest therein when acquired by purchase, or not more than fifty per cent of the cost of acquiring such real estate or any interest therein when acquired by appropriation."
The particular language of Section 11 involved in the present controversy is the meaning of "[s]aid assessment." Specifically, the question arises regarding which assessment is being limited to fifty percent of the cost of the appropriation — the assessment for the cost of appropriating property or the whole assessment for the total cost of the improvement project?
In the case before us, in addition to recognizing the "special benefit" constitutional limit on an assessment, the trial judge interpreted Section 11, Article XVIII as further limiting the total amount of an assessment for a project *360
involving the appropriation of property to fifty percent of the cost of acquiring the property by appropriation. Based on this interpretation of the Ohio Constitution, the trial judge held that R.C.
In contrast, the construction of Section 11 advanced by the city of Beavercreek, and the construction presumably followed by the General Assembly when enacting R.C.
When construing the meaning of a constitutional provision or a statute, we are bound by the rule of construction that requires that "[w]ords and phrases shall be read in context and construed according to the rules of grammar and common usage." R.C.
When considering the meaning of "said assessment" within the context of the language of Section 11, we conclude that the most natural and reasonable reading of the section supports the conclusion that the "said assessment" being limited to fifty percent of the cost of the appropriation is the assessment for the appropriation *361 of property authorized in the preceding sentence. We also find this construction to be supported when considered within the overall context of the impetus behind the enactment of the Section 11.
As was noted above, through the passage of Section 11, Article XVIII, the Constitutional Convention intended to overrule the Ohio Supreme Court's position precluding the inclusion of the cost of appropriating property in an assessment, and to allow municipal corporations to levy assessments to collect at least part of the cost of appropriating the property needed for a public improvement.
Based on our review of the proceedings and debates of the Constitutional Convention of 1912, it also appears that Mr. Harris, the chairman of the convention's committee on municipal corporations, proposed language, eventually adopted as Section 11, to strike a balance between the public's obligation to compensate for the public benefit, which is necessary to justify the appropriation of private property, and the municipality's right to require a property owner to contribute to the cost of providing a special benefit to his property. Mr. Harris justified his amendment by explaining that "while the municipality may take private property for public uses, it may not put upon the private property owners of that public property more than fifty per cent of the cost of making such improvements. * * * From my point of view I say the public is benefitted to the extent of no less than fifty per cent, otherwise, why does the public appropriate that individual's private property?" 2 Proceedings and Debates (1912) 1476-1477.
Mr. Rockel, who spoke in support of Mr. Harris's amendment, cited the positive effect that the amendment would have in deterring municipalities from excessively condemning private property by requiring them to pay fifty percent of the cost of acquiring the private property. Id. at 1478. Additionally, in support of his proposed amendment, Mr. Harris cited the legal brief written by an advocate of his proposal in which the author agreed that "[t]he public * should pay fifty per cent of the cost of the appropriation." Id. at 1477.
Based on the foregoing language of the debates of the convention, it appears that the framers of Section 11 intended to require the municipality to pay fifty percent of the cost of appropriating private property to compensate for the benefit that the public receives from the appropriation. Accordingly, the intentions of the framers of Section 11, as extrapolated from the debates of the convention, bolsters our construction of Section 11 as interpreted from the more natural reading of the language of the amendment.
We note that discerning the intent of the framers is not without difficulty. In fact, our inquiry into the debates of the constitutional convention of 1912 uncovers an interesting question — did the framers intend Section 11 to limit thetotal assessment for a public improvement involving, as one component, the appropriation of land, to fifty percent of thetotal cost of the project, as opposed to a *362 limitation merely of that component of the assessment corresponding to the appropriation of land to fifty percent of the cost of that component of the project involving the acquisition of land?1 Although this intention is not directly reflected in the language of Section 11, a close reading of the text of the debates lends some support to this interpretation.
For example, Mr. Harris stated that "[t]he intent of the amendment is to say that the total cost shall not be in excess of fifty per cent of the improvement." (Emphasis added.) Proceedings and Debates, supra, at 1477. Additionally, as previously noted, Mr. Harris stated that "while the municipality may take private property for public uses, it may not put upon the private owners of the public property more than fifty per cent of the cost of making improvements." (Emphasis added.)Id. at 1476. Moreover, in a statement of support for the passage of Section 11, Mr. Knight stated that "[i]t seems to me that this proposed amendment is wise and liberal and goes as far as it ought to go in providing that fifty per cent of the entire costof the improvement should be levied on the specially benefitted property and the remaining fifty per cent upon the municipality as a whole." (Emphasis added.) Id. at 1478.
On the one hand, the framers may have intended the limitation of assessments to fifty percent of the cost of the "improvement" to have been referring to the appropriation of land as "the improvement," thereby intending Section 11 merely to limit that part of an assessment for the appropriation of land to fifty percent of the cost of the appropriation. On the other hand, it is possible that the framers may have intended Section 11 to impose a much broader limitation that would limit the total assessments for all of the costs of an improvement to fifty percent of the total cost of the improvement.
We leave this issue to another day.
For the moment, we content ourselves with observing that we find no support in the debates for the construction of the limitation advanced by Thomas and adopted by the trial court. Nowhere in the text of the debates is it suggested that Section 11 was intended to limit the total assessments for a public improvement to fifty percent of the cost of appropriating the property on which the improvement is to be constructed. Nor do we find this conclusion to be supported by the more natural reading of Section 11.
Based on the foregoing, we conclude that the trial court's construction of the limitation set forth in Section 11 is contrary to law. *363
"The court below was in error by overruling defendant-appellant's motion to dismiss the administrative appeal.
"The court below committed error in ordering that a transcript of the proceedings before the Board of Equalization be prepared and made part of the record.
"The court below was in error on standard of review for administrative appeals and erred by not entering judgment in favor of appellants."
These assignments of error have been rendered moot, pursuant to App.R. 12(A)(1)(c), by our resolution of the third assignment of error. Accordingly, the second, fourth, and fifth assignments of error are overruled as moot.
Judgment accordingly.
GRADY and FREDERICK N. YOUNG, JJ., concur.
