Case Title: RICHARD COFFINBERRY v. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF THE COUNTY OF HOT SPRINGS, WYOMING

Citation: 

Docket Number: S-08-0053

State: wyoming

Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Date: 2008-08-18T00:00:00Z

Document:
RICHARD COFFINBERRY v. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF THE COUNTY OF HOT SPRINGS, WYOMING2008 WY 110Case Number: No. S-08-0053Decided: 08/18/2008NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in Pacific Reporter Third. Readers are requested to notify the Clerk of the Supreme Court, Supreme Court Building, Cheyenne, Wyoming 82002, of any typographical or other formal errors so correction may be made be fore final publication in the permanent volume.
APRIL 
TERM, A.D. 2008

 
 
RICHARD 
COFFINBERRY,Appellant(Plaintiff),v.BOARD OF 
COUNTYCOMMISSIONERS OF THE COUNTY OF HOT 
SPRINGS, WYOMING,Appellee(Defendant).

 
 
Appeal 
from the DistrictCourtofHot 
SpringsCounty

The 
Honorable Gary P. Hartman, Judge

 
 

Representing 
Appellant:

Richard 
Coffinberry, Pro Se.

 
 

Representing 
Appellee:

Jerry 
D. Williams, Hot SpringsCountyAttorney, Thermopolis, Wyoming.

 
 
Before 
VOIGT, C.J., and GOLDEN, HILL, KITE, and BURKE, 
JJ.

 
 
VOIGT, 
Chief Justice.

 
 
[¶1]      The Board of 
County Commissioners of Hot Springs 
County, Wyoming, issued 
and advertised a Request for Proposals for Lease and Management of Airport 
Facilities.  The Board received 
three proposals, including one from the appellant.  When the Board did not accept his 
proposal, the appellant filed in the district court a Petition for Declaratory 
Judgment in which he sought monetary damages in the amount of his bid, a 
declaration that the contract awarded was null and void, and a determination of 
his "rights, status or other legal relations as allowed by § 1-37-103."1  Both parties filed motions for summary 
judgment, the Board via a motion so denominated, and the appellant by a single 
sentence in the prayer for relief in his extensive "traverse" to the Board's 
motion.  The district court granted 
the Board's motion on dual grounds:  
that the appellant's petition did not meet the dictates of the Wyoming 
Governmental Claims Act found at Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 1-39-101 et seq. (LexisNexis 2007), and that the appellant had failed 
to identify with particularity any contract, ordinance, statute, or 
constitutional provision upon or under which his "rights, status, or legal 
relations" could be determined.2  This appeal followed.  We will affirm.

 
 
ISSUES

 
 
[¶2]      We re-phrase the 
parties' stated issues as follows:

 
 
1.    Was summary judgment 
appropriate on the appellant's claim for monetary damages?

 
 
2.    Was summary judgment 
appropriate on the appellant's claim for declaratory 
relief?

 
 
STANDARD 
OF REVIEW

 
 
[¶3]      Summary judgment 
may be the appropriate resolution in a declaratory judgment action.  Coffinberry v. Town of Thermopolis, 2008 WY 
43, ¶ 4, 183 P.3d 1136, 1137 (Wyo. 2008).

 
 
            
When this court reviews a grant of summary judgment entered in response 
to a petition for declaratory judgment, we invoke our usual standard for review 
of summary judgments.  The summary 
judgment can be sustained only when no genuine issues of material fact are 
present and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.  In this instance, there is no contention 
that any genuine issue of material fact exists, and our concern is strictly with 
the application of the law.  An 
issue of statutory interpretation presents a question of law.  We accord no deference to the district 
court on issues of law and may affirm the summary judgment on any legal grounds 
appearing in the record.

 
 

Wyo. 
Cmty. Coll. Comm'n v. Casper Cmty. Coll. Dist., 
2001 WY 86, ¶11, 31 P.3d 1242, 1247 (Wyo. 2001) (citations 
omitted).

 
 
DISCUSSION

 
 
[¶4]      The appellant's 
Petition for Declaratory Judgment does not allege or reflect compliance with the 
required claims procedures contained in the Wyoming Governmental Claims Act 
found at Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 1-39-101 et 
seq. (LexisNexis 2007).  As a result, both the district court and 
this Court lack jurisdiction to consider the monetary claim.  Amrein v. Wyo. Livestock Bd., 851 P.2d 769, 771 (Wyo. 1993).  Therefore, we will give no further 
consideration to the claim for monetary damages.

 
 
[¶5]      As to the second 
basis for the summary judgmentthat the appellant failed to identify a 
particular contract, ordinance, statute, or constitutional provision upon which 
the district court could exercise its authority to declare the appellant's 
rightswe will come to the same conclusion as did the district court, but we 
will travel along a somewhat different path.  The district court's inability to 
determine the exact nature of the declaratory relief being sought by the 
appellant is certainly understandable, given the dearth of guidance provided in 
the petition, and the misguided nature of the same in the "traverse."  We believe, however, that we can discern 
the appellant's statutory argument.

 
 
[¶6]      In his petition, 
the appellant claims that the Board "violated the intent of Title 
10 . . . ."  This is, no 
doubt, a reference to Title 10 of the Wyoming Statutes, which is entitled 
"Aeronautics."  In his "traverse," 
the appellant cites Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 10-5-101(a)(iv) (LexisNexis 2007), which reads as 
follows:

 
 
(a)   Municipal corporations and counties 
within the state are authorized at the discretion of their governing boards, 
acting either singly or jointly, to:

 
 
        . . . 
.

 
 
(iv)    Lease or let any portion of 
the area, buildings or facilities to any private person or corporation, upon 
terms deemed satisfactory.  Notice 
shall be given by publication at least once a week for two (2) consecutive weeks 
in a newspaper published in a town or county in which the airport is located 
when it is proposed that all the area and total facilities are to be 
leased[.]

 
 
[¶7]      It is at this 
point that the appellant's legal argument falls apart.  He opines that the statute's publication 
requirement translates into a requirement that the Board may accept only the 
lowest cost bid, yet he cites no authority directly establishing this 
proposition.  He does cite numerous 
unrelated statutes from other titles, and then further opines that the reading 
of those statutes in pari materia 
requires his desired result.3  General statutes governing public works 
and public contracts do not, however, control over a specific statute governing 
the leasing of airport facilities, especially where some of those statutes do 
not even apply to counties.   See Prokop v. Hockhalter, 2006 WY 75, ¶ 
14, 137 P.3d 131, 135 (Wyo. 2006) (specific statute controls over a general 
statute on the same subject).  Wyo. 
Stat. Ann. § 10-5-101(a)(iv) gives boards of county commissioners the discretion 
to lease all or part of an airport "upon terms deemed satisfactory."  This discretion is not unfettered, of 
course, but beyond the unsupported accusations of his "traverse," the appellant 
provides no sworn proof of an abuse of discretion on the part of this Board.4

 
 
[¶8]      The affidavit of 
the Hot Springs County Clerk attached to the Board's Motion for Summary Judgment 
sets forth the details of the notice and advertisement process involved in 
regard to the airport project, and states that no contract was made with the 
appellant.  The appellant has 
supplied no affidavits, deposition testimony, or other sworn evidence in 
response to the Board's motion, or in support of his own, that could stand as 
the basis for the court's declaration that the contract signed by the Board 
should be declared null and void as violative of Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 
10-5-101(a)(iv).  The record 
presents no disputed issues of material fact.  Further, the Board is entitled to 
summary judgment as a matter of law because the appellant has provided neither 
citation to pertinent authority nor cogent argument to establish that, as a 
person whose lease proposal was not accepted, he has personal rights under 
Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 10-5-101(a)(iv) that could be determined or declared under 
Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 1-37-103.  See Amrein, 851 P.2d  at 
772.

 
 
[¶9]      We 
affirm.

 
 
FOOTNOTES

 
 

1Wyo. Stat. 
Ann. § 1-37-103 (LexisNexis 2007) 
provides as follows:

 
 
Any 
person interested under a deed, will, written contract or other writings 
constituting a contract, or whose rights, status or other legal relations are 
affected by the Wyoming constitution or by a statute, municipal ordinance, 
contract or franchise, may have any question of construction or validity arising 
under the instrument determined and obtain a declaration of rights, status or 
other legal relations.

 
 

2These 
rulings are contained in the district court's written order.  When the court ruled from the bench 
after the hearing upon the Board's motion, it used the term "no standing" in 
describing the appellant's failure to identify a particular contract, ordinance, 
statute, or constitutional provision as the basis for his request for 
declaratory relief.  It is our 
perception, having reviewed the context of the court's pronouncement and the 
later written order, that the district court was not using the word "standing" 
in its technical, jurisdictional, sense, but rather as a means of describing the 
absence of an identified instrument upon which the court could exercise its 
authority under the declaratory judgment act.

 
 

3The 
appellant cites, for example:  Wyo. 
Stat. Ann. § 15-1-113(c) (LexisNexis 
2007), which deals with bids for municipal public improvement projects; Wyo. 
Stat. Ann. § 16-6-102 (LexisNexis 
2007), which deals with residential preferences and low bid requirements for 
bids let for public building and public work projects; and Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 
36-5-101(b) (LexisNexis 2007), which 
sets the formula by which the rental amount for state lands is 
calculated.

 
 

4Unsubstantiated 
allegations in the "traverse," which was not signed under oath, include 
allegations that the Board had ulterior motives in accepting a particular 
proposal connected to an attempt to build a new airport at F.A.A. expense, that 
the advertising and interviews were a sham, that the Board had not enforced the 
terms of the previous contract, that the previous lessees spent little time at 
the airport, that the number of aircraft using the airport had declined, that 
the Board and the previous lessee had conspired to hide or disguise operational 
statistics, that the Board spread the costs of running the airport over many 
accounts not related to the airport, and that the contract-letting was a 
"good-old-boy" process.