Opinion ID: 1797600
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: distinction and refutation of other opinions and arguments

Text: The Court of Appeal in the present case decided that the CNO has no authority to require the OLD to comply with its zoning and building ordinances. That court concluded that Article VI, § 9(B) of the 1974 state constitution reserves to the legislature the authority to enact laws on any matter of legitimate state concern and, in effect, limits the CNO's home rule powers of initiation and immunity to affairs of local concern or purely local affair[s]. City of New Orleans v. Board of Com'rs, 612 So.2d 318, 321 (La. App. 4th Cir.1993). The Court of Appeal erred in interpreting Section 9(B) and in essence applied the outmoded state-local test that was rejected by the drafters and ratifiers. As has been observed, Section 9(B) was adopted as a principle of harmonizing local home rule power and state police power by reserving to the legislature a residuum of authority to supersede otherwise constitutionally valid home rule laws only when necessary to protect or promote the health, safety, and welfare of the people as a whole. The drafting history clearly indicates that state-local, statewide concerns, and other such tests were rejected because they had led to undue judicial deference to legislative intervention in other states. The Court of Appeal's construction would defeat this purpose and relegate home rule abilities and immunities to matters which courts find to be local or purely local. We think it clear the drafters wished to avoid the situation that had occurred in other states where courts interpreted the state-local test with too much deference to the legislature. The clear intention of the convention and the public was to strengthen the home rule powers to the fullest extent possible while reserving to the state the power necessary to protect the vital interests of the whole people. The Court of Appeal was influenced by City of New Orleans v. State, 364 So.2d 1020 (La.1978) in which this court set forth an early, unnecessary, and erroneous analysis of the relationship between local home rule authority and state police power. In that case this court dismissed the CNO's suit to have the state enjoined from using Jackson Barracks as a correctional facility in violation of zoning ordinances. Although the same result could have been reached on prescription and mootness grounds, the majority justified its decision with an ill advised constitutional interpretation that the municipal police power is subordinate to that retained by the State as sovereign. Id. at 1023. The majority's opinion, in effect, interprets Article VI, § 9(B) as stripping home rule municipalities and parishes of all their powers of immunity, relegating them to a rank of creaturehood more lowly than the status they enjoyed under the 1921 constitution, and reserving to the legislature the power to substitute its judgment for that of the home rule governments on any subject properly encompassed within the definition of police power. The interpretation is simply wrong and has been subject to cogent judicial and scholarly criticism. City of New Orleans, 364 So.2d at 1023-24 (Marcus, J. dissenting); Murchison, Work of Appellate Courts  1978-1979: Local Government Law, 40 La.L.Rev. 681, 706-10 (1980). As has been observed, the text of the constitutional provisions and their drafting history clearly indicate that the drafters and ratifiers intended to emancipate home rule governments as fully as possible, not to return them to subjugation under the Dillon rule. Subsequent to City of New Orleans v. State, 364 So.2d 1020 (La.1978) our cases have recognized clearly that Article VI of the 1974 Louisiana Constitution promotes rather than weakens the autonomy of home rule entities. Francis v. Morial, 455 So.2d 1168 (La.1984); City of Shreveport v. Kaufman, 353 So.2d 995 (La.1978); City of New Orleans v. State, 426 So.2d 1318 (La.1983) (concurring opinion). Accordingly, the majority opinion in City of New Orleans v. State, 364 So.2d 1020 (La.1978), which was already undermined, is disapproved to the extent that it is inconsistent with the present opinion and other decisions of this court. Relying primarily on City of New Orleans v. State, 364 So.2d 1020 (La.1978), the OLD urges us to apply one or a combination of three tests to resolve the present controversy: the eminent domain test, the superior sovereignty test, and the governmental-proprietary test. These tests provide that an intruding government that has the power of eminent domain, or is higher in the governmental hierarchy, or is exercising a governmental function, is granted judicial immunity from zoning ordinances unless there is an express legislative directive to the contrary. 6 Rohan, supra, §§ 35.05, 40.03[1][b]; 2 Anderson, supra, § 12.06-.07; Note, Governmental Immunity from Zoning, 22 Boston Coll.L.Rev. 783, 784 (1981); Note, Governmental Immunity from Local Zoning Ordinances, 84 Harv.L.Rev. 869, 870 (1971). However, the OLD can not point to any constitutional provision in support of its contention that these tests should be applied to resolve the present controversy. On the contrary, under the Local Government Article of the 1974 Louisiana Constitution these tests may not be applied to resolve a controversy which arises when a state agency or governmental subdivision attempts to use or develop land within the boundaries of a home rule local government entity without complying with the municipal zoning ordinances and administrative requirements. The tests the OLD relies upon are judge-made rules created primarily by courts using their common-law powers to deal with such conflicts in jurisdictions having no explicitly controlling statutes or constitutional provisions. See Anderson, supra; Note, Governmental Immunity from Zoning, supra, at 784-85. In contrast, in Louisiana the 1974 Constitution grants the CNO and the other preexisting home rule governments authority to enact and enforce zoning ordinances as part of the police powers and home rule powers delegated to them. Additionally, Louisiana is one of the few states which specifically gives local governmental bodies the authority to zone by constitutional provision. La. Const.1974, Art. VI, § 17; 6 Rohan, supra, § 35.03[2]. Neither Article VI nor the convention debates evince any intent to exempt the state's use of its property from the harmonizing principle contained in Section 9(B) or to recognize any exception thereto based on the common-law rooted tests. Consequently, the courts of this state are required to analyze and apply the relevant state constitutional provisions in deciding conflicts between state use of its land within home rule municipalities and constitutionally authorized local zoning ordinances. La. Const.1974, art X, § 30; Cf. State v. Perry, 610 So.2d 746, 750-751 (La.1992). They are not at liberty to borrow and apply judge made rules in disregard of our fundamental law or to reweigh balances of interests and policy considerations already struck by the framers of the constitution and the people who ratified it. Additionally, these traditional common-law tests have been extensively criticized and rejected by many courts in other jurisdictions as being an overly simplistic solution to multifaceted conflicts through the application of artificial labels rather than reasoned adjudication. City of Fargo v. Harwood Twp., 256 N.W.2d 694 (N.D.1977); City of Temple Terrace v. Hillsborough Ass'n for Retarded Citizens, 322 So.2d 571 (Fla.App. 2nd Dist.1975), affirmed, 332 So.2d 610 (Fla.1976); Rutgers, State Univ. v. Piluso, 60 N.J. 142, 286 A.2d 697 (1972); St. Louis County v. City of Manchester, 360 S.W.2d 638 (Mo.1962); Rohan, supra, § 40.03[1][b]; Note, Governmental Immunity from Zoning, supra; Note, Governmental Immunity from Local Zoning Ordinances, supra. The holdings of all other prior decisions of this court are consistent with our rationale and conclusions in the present case. The dicta and minority opinions in some of our prior cases contain statements that are to varying degrees inconsistent with the present opinion or that fail to recognize fully the principles articulated herein. In Francis v. Morial, 455 So.2d 1168, 1171-74 (La.1984) the rationale, although consistent with the present opinion, fails to recognize clearly Article VI, § 9(B)'s principle of harmonizing local autonomy with state police power. Also, in Francis v. Morial, supra, at 1169, Shreveport v. Kaufman, 353 So.2d 995, 997 (La.1978), and Polk v. Edwards, 626 So.2d 1128, 1142-43 (La.1993) we failed to notice that the legislature cannot by a general law deny the exercise of a home rule power retained by Article VI, § 4 as it can the exercise of a home rule power assumed under Sections 5 and 7 of that article. But that deficiency in each case was not essential to the holding and therefore may be disregarded as dicta. By the same token, the aspects of City of New Orleans v. State, 426 So.2d 1318 (La.1983) discussed earlier in this opinion should not have precedential effect with respect to the crucial issues in the present case.