State ex rel. Moretz v. City of Johnson City

581 S.W.2d 628, 1979 Tenn. LEXIS 435
CourtTennessee Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 26, 1979
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 581 S.W.2d 628 (State ex rel. Moretz v. City of Johnson City) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Tennessee Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State ex rel. Moretz v. City of Johnson City, 581 S.W.2d 628, 1979 Tenn. LEXIS 435 (Tenn. 1979).

Opinion

OPINION

ALLISON B. HUMPHREYS, Special Justice.

Petitioners brought suit under T.C.A. §§ 6-309, 310, in the nature of a quo war-ranto proceeding, T.C.Á. § 23-2801, et seq., to test the validity of a Johnson City ordinance annexing a contiguous area of land on which petitioners resided. The primary contention, which we shall notice first, is that annexation is not necessary for the health, safety, and welfare of the residents and property owners of the territory and the municipality as a whole, and so is contrary to the authorizing code sections and is void.

The city interposed defenses, challenging the right of petitioners to sue and the sufficiency of the petition to state a cause of action. These defenses were coupled with an answer denying the allegations of the [630]*630petition and affirming the legality of the ordinance.

At the trial, a jury was assembled as prayed and one of the issues submitted to it was whether or not the annexation ordinance was reasonable for the overall well-being of the communities involved taking into consideration the health, safety, and welfare of the citizens and property owners of the territory proposed to be annexed and the citizens and property owners of the municipality itself.

At the conclusion of the introduction of proof, the city moved to withdraw the issues from the jury and that the court direct a verdict on the ground that the reasonableness of the ordinance was fairly debatable. City’s counsel cited State ex rel. Wood v. City of Memphis, 510 S.W.2d 889 (Tenn. 1974), and State ex rel. Balsinger v. Town of Madisonville, 222 Tenn. 272, 435 S.W.2d 803 (1968).

This motion was sustained, the issues were withdrawn from the jury and the trial judge, applying the “fairly debatable” rule, adjudged the ordinance to be valid.

He predicated his holding on State ex rel. Hicks v. City of Chattanooga, 513 S.W.2d 780 (Tenn.1974); State ex rel. Wood v. City of Memphis, supra; State ex rel. Balsinger v. Town of Madisonville, supra; and Morton v. Johnson City, 206 Tenn. 411, 333 S.W.2d 924 (1960). All of these are cases applying the fairly debatable rule.

The case was appealed, and is here on assignments of error challenging this ruling on authority of City of Kingsport v. State ex rel. Crown Enterprises, 562 S.W.2d 808 (Tenn.1978); and Pirtle v. City of Jackson, 560 S.W.2d 400 (Tenn.1977).

Although it- is argued to the contrary by the city, there cannot be any doubt but that the trial judge decided the case on the fairly debatable rule. Nor can there be any doubt that this rule was abrogated by a 1974 Amendment of T.C.A. § 6-310, as recognized in both Pirtle and City of Kings-port.

In City of Kingsport this Court said:

“The municipality shall have the burden of proving that an annexation ordinance is reasonable for the overall well-being of the communities involved, (emphasis supplied) This legislative enactment destroyed all presumptions of validity and demolished the ‘fairly debatable’ rule. As we recently held in Pirtle v. City of Jackson, (Opinion filed December 19th, 1977) a Tennessee municipality ‘has the burden of proving the reasonableness of its annexation ordinance’.” 562 S.W.2d at 812.

Justifying the interment of the rule this Court said: “the demise of the ‘fairly debatable’ rule is not fairly debatable”. Id.

In fairness to the trial judge and counsel for the parties, it should be noted that the present case was tried prior to this Court’s opinion in Pirtle and City of Kings-port but subsequent to the enactment of the 1974 Amendment. So Pirtle and City of Kingsport control the disposition of the law question involved in this appeal.

But this doesn’t dispose of the case. The city argues that the judgment of dismissal should be affirmed on two grounds: first, that as shown by one of the issues made up for submission to the jury and by statements made by the trial judge from time to time, the effect of the Pirtle and City of Kingsport holdings was applied in the trial of the case; second, that in any event the result in the case is in accord with the record and, without any question, the annexation is reasonable and meets the standard enunciated by the Court in City of Kingsport so the judgment should be affirmed. In other words, it is contended that the evidence is not susceptible of but one interpretation, and that is that the ordinance is reasonable.

We cannot follow the first argument. While the record shows that the trial judge made up an issue submitting the reasonableness of the ordinance as a jury question, and from time to time made statements at odds with his ultimate application of the fairly debatable rule, there cannot be the slightest doubt but that he decided the [631]*631case on authority of Johnson City, supra, and its progeny, and applied with fullest force and effect the fairly debatable rule abolished by the 1974 Amendment.

There is more substance in the city’s second argument, that we should decide the case in its favor on the record. As city’s counsel points out, there are many cases [one of the latest being Cherokee Ins. Co. v. United States Fire Ins. Co., 559 S.W.2d 337 (Tenn.1977)], which hold that a correct result will not be reversed because the trial judge gave an insufficient or wrong reason therefor.

But, these cases are not in point. The point for which these cases stand is simply that when a case has been fully and completely tried, according to applicable jurisdictional and procedural rules, and the right result has been reached, it will not be reversed and remanded because the trial judge gave the wrong reason in reaching the right result. This is not the case we have here. Here, we have a case in which petitioners demanded a jury in accordance with T.C.A. § 21-1011 and Rule 38 T.R.C.P. to try the issue of “reasonableness” of an annexation ordinance, under a statute which puts the burden of proof with respect thereto on the city, only to have the issue withdrawn from the jury and adjudged by the trial judge under an inapplicable rule of law.

When the fairly debatable rule applied, the question whether there was evidence for and against an ordinance was one to be answered by the trial judge. The question whether there is any evidence on an issue is always a law question. So, when a trial judge decided there was evidence for and against the reasonableness of an ordinance, he had to withdraw the case from the jury and uphold the ordinance.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
581 S.W.2d 628, 1979 Tenn. LEXIS 435, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-ex-rel-moretz-v-city-of-johnson-city-tenn-1979.