Case Title: City of Adamsville v. City of Birmingham

Citation: 495 So. 2d 642

Docket Number: 

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 1986-09-19T00:00:00Z

Document:
495 So. 2d 642 (1986)
CITY OF ADAMSVILLE
v.
CITY OF BIRMINGHAM, et al.
85-19.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
September 19, 1986.
W. Eugene Rutledge and Kay S. Kelly, Birmingham, for appellant.
James K. Baker, City Atty. and David J. Vann of Carlton, Vann & Stichweh, Birmingham, for appellee City of Birmingham.
Henry I. Frohsin of Berkowitz, Lefkovits, Isom & Kushner, Birmingham, for intervening appellees.
*643 BEATTY, Justice.
The City of Adamsville in Jefferson County appeals from a final judgment enjoining it from conducting an annexation referendum election. We affirm.
On July 31, 1985, Adamsville adopted an ordinance calling for a September 10, 1985, referendum election whereby voters of Hillview-78 West Fire District could vote on whether to annex that district into the city. This ordinance was recorded in Jefferson County on August 1, 1985.
On that same date, August 1, 1985, the City of Birmingham adopted an ordinance annexing the Halstead shopping center development property. This Halstead property was located within the Hillview-78 West Fire District.
On August 2, 1985, Mayor Adams of Adamsville sent Mayor Arrington of Birmingham a letter informing him of Adamsville's ordinance and advising him that Adamsville considered Birmingham's ordinance illegal and of no effect. Birmingham claimed that it did not have knowledge of Adamsville's ordinance when it adopted its own ordinance.
On August 15, 1985, Birmingham filed an action seeking to enjoin the referendum election scheduled by Adamsville. Birmingham contended that Adamsville's ordinance was void, because it was passed under the authority of Act No. 113 of the fourth special session of the 1975 legislature, which act Birmingham contended was unconstitutional itself because it did not comply with § 106 of the Constitution of 1901, in that the act was not properly spread upon the journals of the Alabama House of Representatives and Senate in the fourth special session of the 1975 legislature.
The parties agreed, and the trial court consented, to try the cause on its merits. The trial court accelerated the trial on the merits and consolidated that trial with the trial of the preliminary injunction. Rule 65(a)(2), A.R.Civ.P.
On September 3, 1985, the trial court entered a final judgment enjoining Adamsville from conducting an election on the issue of the annexation of the Hillview-78 West Fire District pursuant to Adamsville's ordinance. This appeal ensued.
Three issues are presented here:
(1) Does § 106 of the Alabama Constitution, requiring certain procedural technicalities relative to passage of local laws, apply to Act No. 113 of the fourth special session of the 1975 legislature?
(2) Does § 106 require that legislation proposed for enactment at a special session be advertised prior to that special session, even though it was advertised prior to the preceeding regular session, though not enacted at that regular session?
(3) Did the trial court err by enjoining the annexation election?
Adamsville argues that § 106, Ala. Const. 1901, is not applicable to Act No. 113 but, rather, that Ala. Const. Amendments No. 239 and 314 must prevail. Adamsville, thus, relies on the legal doctrine which provides that, when sections of the Constitution conflict, the more specific shall prevail over the more general. State ex rel. Fowler v. Stone, 237 Ala. 78, 185 So. 404 (1938).
As for Adamsville's contention that Amendments No. 239 and 314 would govern the procedural technicalities rather than § 106, we recognize that Amendments No. 239 and 314 authorized the legislature to enact legislation to provide for the creation of fire districts in Jefferson County; however, those amendments did not change the constitutional procedures mandated for the adoption of such legislation.
In 1975, when Act No. 113 was passed, § 106, Ala. Const., read as follows (it has since been amended by Amendment No. 341):
Act No. 113 amended Act No. 79 of the fourth special session of the 1966 Alabama legislature, which set forth the authority and procedure whereby Jefferson County could create fire districts. Act No. 113, however, set forth the procedure for annexing a fire district to a Jefferson County municipality.
Act No. 113 was a local law according to the definition in § 110 of the Alabama Constitution of 1901: "[A] local law is a law which applies to any political subdivision or subdivisions of the state less than the whole." See Opinion of the Justices, No. 197, 284 Ala. 626, 227 So. 2d 396 (1969) (an act which was intended to apply to only one county, which is named, is a local act). Since Act No. 113 was a local act, it would necessarily be governed by § 106.
If Act No. 113 was approved without compliance with the notice and proof provision of § 106, then that section requires that Act No. 113 be pronounced void.
Adamsville argues that, even if § 106 applies to Act No. 113, that act was properly advertised prior to the 1975 regular session, which preceded the special session in which it was passed. Adamsville contends that there is no requirement that an act be advertised more than once during a legislative year.
We agree with Birmingham, however, that once an advertised bill has been introduced in the legislature but fails to pass, members of the public should be able to forget the matter, unless it is again advertised, and they should not be required to search the daily records of the legislative proceedings of all subsequent sessions for the reintroduction of the defeated bill unless it has again been advertised.
In Opinion of the Justices, No. 312, 469 So. 2d 108, 109 (Ala.1985), the Court stated:
Moreover, we also held that an advertisement in May 1984 was not sufficient under § 106, when the bill was not introduced until the 1985 regular session:
While we recognize the factual difference between the advertisement in Opinion of the Justices, No. 312, and the one in the present case, we are, nevertheless, compelled to hold that § 106 requires that *645 a proposed bill be advertised prior to each session in which the bill is introduced. It is only through this repeated advertising that the public can be kept apprised as to when a possibly objectionable bill should be protested.
Since Act No. 113 was not advertised prior to the fourth special session of the 1975 legislature, the session in which it was introduced and passed, we are required by the express language of § 106 to pronounce Act No. 113 void. It follows then that Adamsville's ordinance was void because it was passed under the authority of Act No. 113.
Finally, Adamsville contends that the circuit court erred by enjoining the Adamsville election because injunctions against elections are prohibited by § 17-15-6 and because Birmingham did not demonstrate irreparable injury.
Section 17-15-6 provides in pertinent part:
This Court has held that these provisions, which formerly appeared in the 1940 Code as Tit. 17, § 235, do not prevent the enjoining of an election. Dennis v. Prather, 212 Ala. 449, 103 So. 59 (1925). See also Birmingham Gas Co. v. City of Bessemer, 250 Ala. 137, 33 So. 2d 475 (1947).
Furthermore,
Birmingham Gas Co., supra, 250 Ala. at 140, 33 So. 2d  at 477.
Adamsville argues that the facts of the instant case are distinguishable from those in Dennis v. Prather, because, it says, in this case, the only party who would be put to any expense, loss of time, and inconvenience of holding an election is Adamsville and therefore Birmingham was not able to show any irreparable injury that would occur if the Adamsville election was held as scheduled.
We disagree with Adamsville's contention that Birmingham failed to demonstrate some irreparable harm. Clearly, if the election was held as scheduled, Birmingham would have suffered confusion *646 and uncertainty, which the Court in Dennis v. Prather sought to proscribe.
For the above stated reasons, we hereby affirm the trial court's judgment enjoining Adamsville from conducting the annexation election.
AFFIRMED.
TORBERT, C.J., and MADDOX, ALMON and HOUSTON, JJ., concur.