Title: Elizabeth Thomas v. Blackford County Area Board of Zoning Appeals and Oolman Dairy, LLC
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 05S04-0902-CV-90
State: Indiana
Issuer: Indiana Supreme Court
Date: June 16, 2009

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT 
 
 
 
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLEE  
Robert G. Forbes  
 
 
 
 
BLACKFORD COUNTY AREA  
Hartford City, Indiana 
 
 
 
 
BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
William V. Hughes 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Muncie, Indiana 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
OOLMAN DAIRY, LLC 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Jason M. Kuchmay 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
James A. Federoff 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Fort Wayne, Indiana 
________________________________________________________________________ 
 
In the 
Indiana Supreme Court  
_________________________________ 
 
No. 05S04-0902-CV-90 
 
ELIZABETH THOMAS,  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Appellant (Petitioner below), 
 
v. 
 
BLACKFORD COUNTY AREA 
BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Appellee (Respondent below), 
 
and 
 
OOLMAN DAIRY, LLC  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Appellee (Intervenor below). 
_________________________________ 
 
Appeal from the Blackford Circuit Court, No. 05C01-0609-PL-178  
The Honorable Joel D. Roberts, Special Judge 
_________________________________ 
 
On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 05A04-0711-CV-731 
_________________________________ 
 
June 16, 2009 
 
FILED
CLERK
of the supreme court,
court of appeals and
tax court
Jun 16 2009, 12:04 pm
2 
 
Boehm, Justice. 
We affirm the trial court’s conclusion that a property owner lacked standing to challenge 
a Board of Zoning Appeals ruling, and we address the procedural steps available to raise 
standing issues. 
Facts and Procedural History 
 
Oolman Dairy sought a special exception to build and operate a confined animal feeding 
operation (“CAFO”) in an agricultural district in Blackford County.  The proposed CAFO would 
keep 2,000 cows on an approximately 27-acre site.  Following a public hearing, the Blackford 
County Area Board of Zoning Appeals (“BZA”) ruled that Oolman had met the criteria for a 
special exception.   
 
Elizabeth Thomas owns her residence whose property line is approximately a third of a 
mile from the nearest point of the proposed CAFO.  Thomas sought a writ of certiorari from the 
Blackford Circuit Court challenging the special exception.  Oolman intervened and moved to 
dismiss Thomas’s petition under Indiana Trial Rule 12(B)(6), arguing that Thomas was not an 
“aggrieved party” within the applicable statute and therefore lacked standing to challenge the 
BZA’s  ruling.  The trial court denied that motion, noting that Thomas’s petition alleged that she 
was an “aggrieved party,” and ordered an evidentiary hearing on the standing issue.  After 
hearing testimony and receiving evidence, the trial court found that Thomas had failed to 
establish standing and dismissed her petition.   
 
The Court of Appeals reversed.  Thomas v. Blackford County Area Bd. of Zoning 
Appeals, No. 05A04-0711-CV-731, slip op. at 2 (Ind. Ct. App. July 25, 2008), reh’g denied.  The 
Court of Appeals noted that the trial court heard evidence outside of the pleadings and treated 
Oolman’s motion to dismiss as a motion for summary judgment.  Id. at 5.  Because the evidence 
introduced at the hearing conflicted, the Court of Appeals held that summary judgment was 
inappropriate.  Id.  The Court of Appeals remanded “to afford the parties an opportunity to 
complete their presentation of evidence, if they have not done so already, and to render a 
decision on the merits.”  Id. at 6.  We granted transfer. 
 
3 
 
Procedural Posture and Standard of Review 
 Motions to dismiss for lack of standing may be brought under Trial Rule 12(B)(6) for 
failure to state a claim on which relief can be granted.  Huffman v. Ind. Office of Envtl. 
Adjudication, 811 N.E.2d 806, 813 (Ind. 2004).  If the motion is presented under Rule 12(B)(6), 
the allegations of the complaint are required to be taken as true.  Id. at 814.  A successful 
12(B)(6) motion alleging lack of standing requires that the lack of standing be apparent on the 
face of the complaint.  Id. at 814.  If affidavits or other materials are attached to the 12(B)(6) 
motion, it is treated as one for summary judgment under Rule 56.  Ind. Trial Rule 12(B).  Neither 
of these principles applied here.  The trial court therefore correctly denied Oolman’s 12(B)(6) 
motion because Thomas’s complaint alleged that she was “aggrieved,” and no factual backup 
was supplied to convert the motion to one under Rule 56.   
 
This appeal is from the trial court’s order that included findings and conclusions and 
dismissed Thomas’s petition after an evidentiary hearing on the standing issue.  A hearing on 
standing at which evidence is heard is not a hearing on a motion to dismiss for failure to state a 
claim.  Rather, like a hearing on a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, it is a 
hearing at which factual issues may be resolved and factual determinations are reversed on 
appeal only if clearly erroneous.  Bagnall v. Town of Beverly Shores, 726 N.E.2d 782, 786 (Ind. 
2000) (reviewing the trial court’s factual findings regarding standing for clear error); cf. 
LinkAmerica Corp. v. Albert, 857 N.E.2d 961, 965 (Ind. 2006) (“[P]ersonal jurisdiction turns on 
facts, . . . and findings of fact by the trial court are reviewed for clear error.”). 
Standing 
 
This case is governed by the framework set out in Bagnall.  Indiana Code section 36-7-4-
1003(a) requires that a person be “aggrieved” to seek judicial review of a board of zoning 
appeals’s decision.  In Bagnall, we explained that 
To be aggrieved, the petitioner must experience a substantial grievance, a denial 
of some personal or property right or the imposition of a burden or obligation.  
The board of zoning appeals’s decision must infringe upon a legal right of the 
petitioner that will be enlarged or diminished by the result of the appeal and the 
petitioner’s resulting injury must be pecuniary in nature.  A party seeking to 
petition for certiorari on behalf of a community must show some special injury 
other than that sustained by the community as a whole. 
4 
 
Id. at 786 (quotations and citations omitted).  The petitioner has the burden of proving that it is 
“aggrieved.”  Bagnall, 726 N.E.2d at 786 (requiring the petitioner to show that it was aggrieved); 
see also Robertson v. Bd. of Zoning Appeals, 699 N.E.2d 310, 315 (Ind. Ct. App. 1998) (holding 
that a petitioner must demonstrate that it is aggrieved); Union Twp. Residents Ass’n v. Whitley 
County Redev. Comm’n, 536 N.E.2d 1044, 1045 (Ind. Ct. App. 1989) (holding that a petitioner 
lacked standing when it “failed to demonstrate” that it was aggrieved). 
 
Thomas’s contention that she was aggrieved hinged on her claim that the proposed 
CAFO would significantly impair the value of her home.  Thomas testified that she drove by 
other CAFOs at various distances and on some found odors and on some did not.  Both Thomas 
and Oolman presented evidence on the effect of CAFOs on residential property values.  Thomas 
testified to her visits to CAFOs in five other counties.  She also presented an expert who 
testified, based on studies of other CAFOs, that Thomas’s property would lose seventy percent of 
its value.  The expert also presented articles concluding that residential properties near CAFOs 
suffered substantial losses in value.  On cross-examination, Oolman demonstrated that the 
expert’s articles were from 1999 and 2001 and relied on data from other states relating to much 
denser operations involving swine.  Oolman also presented evidence that the expert’s opinions 
and the publications did not account for increases in property values resulting from economic 
activity attributable to CAFOs.  Finally, Oolman presented expert testimony that real estate 
within two miles of the four dairy CAFOs in nearby Huntington County sold faster and at a 
higher price per square foot than other properties in that county.     
The trial court evaluated this conflicting evidence and concluded that Thomas had not 
established that she was an “aggrieved party.”  We cannot say this conclusion was clearly 
erroneous and therefore affirm the trial court. 
 
Because we affirm the trial court’s finding that Thomas lacked standing, the remaining 
issues on appeal are moot and we do not address them. 
Conclusion 
 
The judgment of the trial court is affirmed. 
 
Shepard, C.J., and Dickson, Sullivan, and Rucker, JJ., concur.