Case Name: KNOX COUNTY, ex rel. Dwight KESSEL, County Executive, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. LENOIR CITY, TENNESSEE; Lenoir City Utilities Board, Robert S. McCurry, Alice Clayton, Timothy Denton, William Cheatham, Thomas McNabb, Idus Conner and Gerald Hamby, Defendants-Appellees
Court: Tennessee Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Tennessee
Decision Date: 1992-07-27
Citations: 837 S.W.2d 382
Docket Number: 
Parties: KNOX COUNTY, ex rel. Dwight KESSEL, County Executive, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. LENOIR CITY, TENNESSEE; Lenoir City Utilities Board, Robert S. McCurry, Alice Clayton, Timothy Denton, William Cheatham, Thomas McNabb, Idus Conner and Gerald Hamby, Defendants-Appellees.
Judges: REID, C.J., and DROWOTA and ANDERSON, JJ., concur.
Reporter: South Western Reporter Second Series
Volume: 837
Pages: 382–391

Head Matter:
KNOX COUNTY, ex rel. Dwight KESSEL, County Executive, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. LENOIR CITY, TENNESSEE; Lenoir City Utilities Board, Robert S. McCurry, Alice Clayton, Timothy Denton, William Cheatham, Thomas McNabb, Idus Conner and Gerald Hamby, Defendants-Appellees.
Supreme Court of Tennessee, at Knoxville.
July 27, 1992.
Michael S. Ruble, Deputy Law Director, Knoxville, for plaintiff-appellant.
Robert B. Littleton, Nashville, Terry Vann, Alfred L. Hathcock, Jr., Robert G. Hinton, Lenoir City, for defendants-appel-lees.

Opinion:
OPINION
DAUGHTREY, Justice.
In this appeal, we are asked to declare unconstitutional a private act passed in 1970 that governs distribution of tax-equivalent payments on property owned by the Lenoir City Utilities Board. The utility provides electric service both in Loudon County (where Lenoir City is located) and in portions of adjacent Knox County. Under the terms of Chapter 205 of the Private Acts of 1970, the entire amount of the tax-equivalent payments assessed to the utility is paid to the municipality of Lenoir City, even though some of the property giving rise to the payments is located in Knox County.
Seeking to share in the distribution of these payments, Knox County brought suit for a declaratory judgment, claiming that Chapter 205 of the Private Acts of 1970 violates Article XI, Section 8 of the Tennessee Constitution. That provision of the state constitution reads as follows:
The Legislature shall have no power to suspend any general law for the benefit of any particular individual, nor to pass any law for the benefit of individuals inconsistent with the general law of the land; nor to pass any law granting to any individual or individuals, rights, privileges, immunities, or exemptions other than such as may be, by the same law extended to any member of the community, who may be able to bring himself within the provisions of such law....
The chancellor held that Chapter 205 is constitutional, and the plaintiff appealed. We agree with the chancellor's decision and affirm.
We begin our analysis with the firmly established rule that in order for the provisions of Article XI, Section 8 to come into play, the local act under attack must contravene some general law that has mandatory, statewide application. Leech v. Wayne County, 588 S.W.2d 270, 273 (Tenn.1979). Hence, the specific question before us is whether Chapter 205 conflicts with a provision of the current tax equivalents statute that has mandatory, statewide application.
The 1969 Municipal Electric System Tax Equivalent Law, in effect at the time Chapter 205 was adopted, specifically authorized the distribution of tax equivalents pursuant to private acts. A section of that 1969 statute, now superseded, provided as follows:
Nothing in this [statute] shall be construed to change or amend in any way any private act as now or hereafter enacted which provides for payments in lieu of local taxes on the electric system or electric operations of any municipality to which such act relates, and such private acts as from time to time amended shall remain in full force and effect notwithstanding the provisions hereof.
T.C.A. § 7-52-306 (1969). Hence, insofar as Chapter 205 may have conflicted with the 1969 tax equivalents law, it was not subject to constitutional challenge under Article XI, Section 8 because, by its own terms, the 1969 statute was not intended to have mandatory, statewide application.
By 1987, however, the Tennessee General Assembly had apparently decided that there should be some degree of uniformity created with regard to tax-equivalent payments. As a result, it passed the "Municipal Electric System Tax Equivalent Law of 1987," Acts 1987, Ch. 84, codified as T.C.A. § 7-52-301 — 310. Knox County now argues that this statute is a "general law" for state constitutional purposes and that Chapter 205, affecting only the distri- button of payments to Lenoir City, is therefore unconstitutional under Article XI, Section 8, because these payments are not distributed in compliance with the general law.
Superficially, at least, this argument appears to have merit. In the purpose and construction section of the 1987 Act, the stated purpose of the new legislation is "to provide the complete law of this state with respect to payments in lieu of taxes on the property and operations of all [municipal] electric systems_" T.C.A. § 7-52-302(a). This same section also reflects a legislative intention to "repeal the specific provisions of any private act or home rule charter or metropolitan government charter . relating to payments in lieu of taxes." Id. But a close reading of the full provision reveals that the term "complete law" does not preclude the validity of all private acts affecting distribution of payments. Rather, the intent to repeal such private acts is qualified by § 7-52-302(a), as follows:
(a) The purpose of this part is to provide the complete law of this State with respect to payments in lieu of taxes on the property and operations of all electric systems owned and operated by incorporated cities or towns, by counties, and by metropolitan governments, and to repeal the specific provisions of any private act or home rule charter or metropolitan government charter, or any part thereof, relating to payments in lieu of taxes including certain provisions relating to the distribution of any such payments, but not to repeal any other provisions of such private acts or charters or parts thereof.
T.C.A. § 7-52-302(a) (emphasis added).
The statutory provisions that follow address two questions: how much is to be paid in lieu of taxes (calculation of payments) and to whom the payments must be distributed when more than one taxing jurisdiction is involved (allocation of payments). The formulas for calculation of payments in the 1987 Act differ somewhat from those in the superseded statute; they now appear in T.C.A. § 7-52-304. Except for a new provision in § 7-52-305, regarding the effect of amendatory contracts tendered to a municipality by the Tennessee Valley Authority, the remaining substantive provisions of the 1987 Act govern distribution. It is these sections, therefore, that control the question of allocation of the tax equivalents in this case between Knox County and Lenoir City.
Most of the distribution provisions in the 1987 Act reflect a legislative intent to control the terms of calculation but to allow flexibility with regard to allocation. T.C.A. § 7-52-306, for example, permits competing taxing jurisdictions to "make and perform contracts for distribution among them of the aforementioned tax equivalent amounts." The parties to such contracts "may provide for . distribution on any basis which is satisfactory to the contracting parties," but the contract must be "consistent in all respects with the [calculation] provisions of . § 7-52-304." This section also validates all contracts and "established arrangements" for distribution that were in existence on the effective date of the 1987 Act.
The next section, entitled "payments to taxing jurisdictions," sets out the prescribed statutory method for allocating payments between or among taxing jurisdictions in which electric service is provided by a utility. However, it applies only to the extent that there is no pre-existing "contract, established arrangement authorized or validated under § 7-52-306 ., or distribution provisions of any private act or home rule or metropolitan government charter ." T.C.A. § 7-52-307 (emphasis added).
Finally, after providing for "operations in adjacent states" in § 7-52-308, the 1987 Act addresses specifically the question of "distribution by private act or home rule or metropolitan government charter" in § 7- 52-309. This section does have the effect of repealing the allocation provisions in private acts and charter provisions, but only those which "direct that the tax equivalent amount to be distributed to each taxing district is to be an amount arrived at by applying the current ad valorem tax rate in that district to the depreciated original cost of the electric system's tangible property-" We conclude that it was this qualified repealer provision to which the legislature had reference in § 7-52-302, when it stated an intent to repeal "certain provisions" of private acts affecting distribution, "but not to repeal any other provisions of such private acts." Because Chapter 205 does not utilize the formula proscribed in § 7-52-309, its validity is not affected by the repealer provision in this section.
Moreover, because none of the provisions in Chapter 205 conflicts with provisions of the 1987 Act, Chapter 205 is unaffected by the final section of the statute, T.C.A. § 7-52-310, which repeals those "parts of any private act . in conflict herewith . to the extent of such conflict_" This provision, like the others discussed above, demonstrates clearly that although the legislature intended to bring some uniformity to the tax-equivalent payment schemes, especially in the calculation of amounts to be paid, there was no intent to create a "general law" that imposes a mandatory, statewide method of distribution of payments. Indeed, in validating (and, to some extent, even encouraging) the existence of private acts, contracts, and "established arrangements" for the distribution of payments to competing jurisdictions, the General Assembly negated any intent to create a general law, for purposes of Article XI, Section 8. This conclusion is inescapable, not only from the wording of the 1987 Act but also from a review of the legislative history of its enactment. As the defendants point out in their brief on appeal, a question during debate in committee from a member of the House of Representatives concerning the effect of the new legislation on existing distribution practices drew this response from the House sponsor, Representative John Bragg: "It grandfathers in anything they're doing, and it also does not affect any distribution." Floor debate of House Bill 689 by the Tennessee House of Representatives (March 23, 1987).
We conclude that, regardless of its stated intent to provide the "complete law" of municipal utility tax equivalents, the 1987 Act specifically permits the allocation of payments among taxing jurisdictions to be established by means of a private act such as Chapter 205. We offer no opinion as to the fairness of the current, obviously one-sided arrangement contained in Chapter 205. We conclude only that if Knox County wishes to alter that arrangement, it will have to address its case to the legislature, rather than the courts.
The judgment of the trial court is affirmed. Costs are taxed to the appellant.
REID, C.J., and DROWOTA and ANDERSON, JJ., concur.
O'BRIEN, J., dissents. See separate opinion.
. An "established arrangement" is defined by § 7-52-306 as "one under which the municipality has made a distribution payment to another taxing jurisdiction by general understanding and the payment has been accepted by the taxing jurisdiction for the fiscal year or calendar year immediately preceding the fiscal year beginning July 1, 1987."