Title: WW Enterprises, Inc. v. City of Cheyenne

State: wyoming

Issuer: Wyoming Supreme Court

Document:

WW Enterprises, Inc. v. City of Cheyenne1998 WY 46956 P.2d 353Case Number: 97-111Decided: 04/01/1998Supreme Court of Wyoming

WW 
ENTERPRISES, INC., d/b/a Les and Carol's Lamp Lounge, Appellant 
(Petitioner),

v.

The CITY OF CHEYENNE, The County of Laramie, and The 
State of Wyoming, Appellees (Respondents).

 

Appeal from the District Court, 
Laramie County, Edward L. Grant, J.

 

Carol Watson, Cheyenne, for appellant 
(petitioner).

Mary B. Guthrie, City 
Attorney, Cheyenne, for City of Cheyenne.

Thomas D. Roberts, Laramie 
County Attorney, Cheyenne, for County of Laramie.

William U. Hill, Attorney 
General; Michael L. Hubbard, Deputy Attorney General; and Michael D. Basom, 
Assistant Attorney General, Cheyenne, for State.

 

Before TAYLOR, 
C.J., and MACY, GOLDEN and LEHMAN, JJ., and KAUTZ, District 
Judge.

 

KAUTZ, 
District Judge.

 

[¶1] This appeal questions 
whether counties and municipalities may establish different hours when liquor 
licensees may be open for business. The City of Cheyenne set more restrictive 
hours for Sunday liquor sales than surrounding Laramie County did. Appellant, a 
city licensee, challenged the City of Cheyenne's hours, arguing that appellant 
was denied equal protection. The district court dismissed appellant's challenge 
to the City of Cheyenne's ordinance setting hours when its liquor licensees may 
be open for business on Sundays. We affirm the district court's 
action.

 

                                             I. 
ISSUES

 

[¶2] Appellant, WW 
Enterprises, Inc., d/b/a Les and Carol's Lamp Lounge (Lamp Lounge), states the 
issues as follows:

 

          
I. Wyo. Stat. § 12-5-101, as amended in 1996, is unconstitutional as 
applied and/or unconstitutional, and violates the equal protection and 
substantive due process guarantees of the Wyoming and United States 
Constitutions.

 

          
II. The Lamp's Motion for Declaratory Judgment is not fatally defective 
and states a claim upon which relief can be granted.

 

[¶3] Appellee, the City of 
Cheyenne, states the issue as:1

 

          
Whether the trial court properly granted the City of Cheyenne's motion to 
dismiss the Lamp Lounge's complaint under Rule 12(b)(6), 
W.R.C.P.

 

[¶4] Appellee, State of 
Wyoming, Department of Revenue, defines the issues as 
follows:

 

          
1. Whether Wyo. Stat. § 12-5-101(a) is constitutional and whether the 
same violates the equal protection guarantees of the Wyoming and United States 
Constitutions?

 

         
 2. Whether the trial court 
properly granted the City of Cheyenne's motion to dismiss the Lamp Lounge's 
complaint under Rule 12(b)(6), W.R.C.P.?

 

[¶5] We consider the Lamp 
Lounge's issues in two parts: Substantive Due Process and Equal Protection. 
Separate consideration of the Lamp Lounge's second issue is unnecessary because 
the questions it presents are necessarily determined in our analysis of the Lamp 
Lounge's first issue.

 

                                             
II. FACTS

 

[¶6] In 1996, the 
legislature amended the law relating to hours of operation for liquor licensees 
to read:

 

(a) All licensees may, with the approval of the local 
licensing authority, open the dispensing room at 6:00 a.m. and shall close the 
dispensing room and cease the sale of both alcoholic and malt beverages promptly 
at the hour of 2:00 a.m. the following day. In addition, licensees shall clear 
the dispensing room of all persons other than employees by 2:30 
a.m.

 

Wyo. Stat. § 12-5-101(a) 
(1997).

 

[¶7] The prior law permitted 
liquor licensees to be open on Sundays only from noon until 10:00 p.m. Under the 
prior statute, Laramie County and the City of Cheyenne each allowed their 
licensees to operate on Sundays for the maximum time. After the 1996 amendment, 
however, the Laramie County Commissioners adopted the new maximum time for 
liquor licensees to be open on Sundays, while the City of Cheyenne limited its 
licensees to Sunday operating hours of 10:00 a.m. until 10:00 
p.m.

 

[¶8] The Lamp Lounge felt 
that it should not be required to close for business when Laramie County 
licensees outside the City of Cheyenne were permitted to operate. The Lamp 
Lounge filed a motion for declaratory judgment asking the district court to find 
Wyo. Stat. § 12-5-101(a) and the City of Cheyenne's ordinance establishing 
Sunday operating hours unconstitutional. That motion asked the district court to 
establish identical Sunday hours of operation for all liquor licensees without 
regard to their location in one local licensing authority or another. The City 
of Cheyenne filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which 
relief could be granted under W.R.C.P. 
12(b)(6). The district court granted the motion to dismiss, and the Lamp Lounge 
appealed.

 

                                      
III. STANDARD OF REVIEW

 

[¶9] The standard of review 
for a W.R.C.P. 12(b)(6) dismissal is:

 

"When reviewing a W.R.C.P. 12(b)(6) dismissal, this 
Court accepts all facts stated in the complaint as being true and views them in 
the light most favorable to the plaintiff. We will sustain a W.R.C.P. 12(b)(6) 
dismissal only when it is certain from the face of the complaint that the 
plaintiff cannot assert any facts which would entitle him to 
relief."

 

Herrig v. Herrig, 844 P.2d 487, 490 (Wyo. 1992) 
(citation omitted), quoted in Davis v. State, 910 P.2d 555, 560 (Wyo. 
1996).  Although dismissal is a 
drastic remedy which should be granted sparingly, a motion to dismiss " 'is 
the proper method for testing the legal sufficiency of the allegations and will 
be sustained when the complaint shows on its face that the plaintiff is not 
entitled to relief.' " Feltner v. Casey Family Program, 902 P.2d 206, 208 
(Wyo. 1995) (quoting Mummery v. Polk, 770 P.2d 241, 243 (Wyo. 
1989)).

 

Rissler & McMurry Co. v. 
State, 917 P.2d 1157, 1160 (Wyo. 1996), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 117 S. Ct. 765, 136 L. Ed. 2d 712 (1997) (emphasis added).

 

                                          
IV. DISCUSSION

 

A. SUBSTANTIVE DUE PROCESS

 

[¶10] Wyo. Stat. § 
12-5-101(a) specifies hours when a liquor licensee may be open for business, 
subject to "the approval of the local licensing authority * * *." The phrase 
"with the approval of the local licensing authority" delegates authority to set 
hours to the local entity which issues liquor licenses. The Lamp Lounge concedes 
that Wyo. Stat. § 12-5-101(a) delegates such authority to the City of Cheyenne 
and other municipalities and counties.

 

[¶11] The Lamp Lounge argues 
that the legislature unconstitutionally delegated this authority to 
municipalities by permitting them to establish different Sunday hours. It claims 
that this recognition of municipalities and counties as potentially unique is 
not a compelling governmental interest and bears no rational relationship to any 
legitimate public objective. In essence, the Lamp Lounge asserts that it is 
unconstitutionally unfair to permit counties and municipalities to establish 
different operating hours for liquor licensees.

 

[¶12] The Lamp Lounge did 
not raise this substantive due process argument before the district court. It 
argued that the City of Cheyenne's ordinance, as an application of Wyo. Stat. § 
12-5-101(a), is an unconstitutional violation of the equal protection clause of 
the United States Constitution. The Lamp Lounge did not claim that Wyo. Stat. § 
12-5-101(a) itself violates constitutional substantive due process standards. 
Further, it did not present any authority which holds that counties and 
municipalities may not be recognized as potentially 
different.

 

[¶13] We do not review any 
issue raised for the first time on appeal, with the exception of jurisdictional 
issues and issues of such a fundamental nature that they must be considered. 
See, e.g., Edgcomb v. Lower Valley Power and Light, Inc., 922 P.2d 850, 858 
(Wyo. 1996) and Ford v. Starr Fireworks, Inc., 874 P.2d 230, 235 (Wyo. 
1994).

 

This court has taken a dim view of a litigant trying 
a case on one theory and appealing it on another. Further, we will not consider 
for the first time on appeal an issue neither raised nor argued to the trial 
court. Thatcher & Sons v. Norwest Bank Casper, 750 P.2d 1324, 1328 (Wyo. 
1988). Parties are bound by the theories which they advanced 
below.

 

Epple v. Clark, 804 P.2d 678, 681 (Wyo. 1991). Because the substantive due process issue was not raised 
in the Lamp Lounge's complaint, it will not be considered 
here.

 

 B. EQUAL 
PROTECTION

 

[¶14] The Lamp Lounge claims 
that Wyo. Stat. § 12-5-101(a) as applied through the City of Cheyenne's 
ordinance violates equal protection requirements of the United States and 
Wyoming Constitutions. The district court's dismissal constitutes a finding that 
the facts in the Lamp Lounge's complaint cannot support such a claim. The facts 
alleged in the Lamp Lounge's complaint simply state that liquor licensees in 
Laramie County have different Sunday operating hours from those imposed by the 
City of Cheyenne on licensees within its boundaries.

 

[¶15] The Fourteenth 
Amendment to the United States Constitution and Wyo. Const. Art. 1, § 34 
guarantee "equal protection." These standards prohibit regulation of individuals 
in a discriminatory manner - a manner not imposed on others in the same 
class.  Allegheny Pittsburgh 
Coal Co. v. County Com'n of Webster County, W. Va., 488 U.S. 336, 345-46, 109 S. Ct. 633, 638-39, 102 L. Ed. 2d 688 (1989) (quoting Hillsborough Tp., Somerset 
County, N.J. v. Cromwell, 326 U.S. 620, 623, 66 S. Ct. 445, 448, 90 L. Ed. 358 
(1946)). Equal protection in Wyoming requires a law to operate alike upon all 
persons or property under the same circumstances and conditions. Ludwig 
v. Harston, 65 Wyo. 134, 197 P.2d 252, 257 (1948) (quoting State v. Sherman, 18 
Wyo. 169, 176, 177, 105 P. 299, 300 (1909)).

 

Equal protection "mandates that all 
persons similarly situated shall be treated alike, both in the privileges 
conferred and in the liabilities imposed." Small v. State, 689 P.2d 420, 425 
(Wyo. 1984) (quoting State v. Freitas, 61 Haw. 262, 602 P.2d 914, 922 
(1979)).
 

Allhusen v. State By and 
Through Wyoming Mental Health Professions Licensing Bd., 898 P.2d 878, 884 (Wyo. 
1995).

 

[¶16] The Lamp Lounge's 
complaint did not allege that liquor licensees who are similarly situated or 
in the same class are treated differently. Licensees of Laramie County are 
not in the same class nor under the same circumstances and conditions as 
licensees of the City of Cheyenne. The complaint did not allege that licensees 
within the City of Cheyenne are treated disparately. Wyo. Stat. § 12-5-101(a) 
does not provide for unequal treatment of licensees by their licensing 
authority.

 

[¶17] The Lamp Lounge did 
not allege that Wyo. Stat. § 12-5-101(a) or the City of Cheyenne's ordinance 
treated it differently from other City of Cheyenne licensees. The facts alleged, 
even if entirely true, do not support an equal protection claim. The district 
court properly granted the motion to dismiss under W.R.C.P. 12(b)(6). 

 

                                          
V. CONCLUSION

 

[¶18] Wyo. Stat. § 
12-5-101(a) delegates authority to set liquor dispensing hours to local 
licensing entities. The Lamp Lounge's complaint alleged that it was denied equal 
protection when Sunday dispensing hours were applied to it. However, the Lamp 
Lounge, licensed by the City of Cheyenne, did not plead that it was given 
different operating hours from other City of Cheyenne licensees. The Lamp 
Lounge's complaint failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. 
We affirm the district court.

 

          

FOOTNOTES

11 
Appellee, the County of Laramie, adopted the brief of the City of Cheyenne 
without reservation.