Court Opinion

ID: 9533929
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:35:35.339177+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:13.261107
License: Public Domain

MATTINGLY, Judge,
dissenting with opinion
The standard of review which the majority has accurately articulated in its decision requires us to affirm the judgment in Harville’s favor if we may do so on any legal theory supported by the evidence most favorable to the judgment. There is ample evidence in the record that the Har-ville property was used for recycling and was not used as a “junkyard,” and that the facility thus was a use permitted under the Avon ordinance. As a result, the trial court’s judgment cannot be characterized as clearly erroneous and should be affirmed.
The record supports a judgment for Harville on the basis that Harville’s use of his property does not violate the Avon ordinance. One of the uses expressly permitted in the light industrial district where Harville’s facility is located is “recycling.” The ordinance also explicitly permits “[o]ther uses ... which are similar in character to the [listed permitted uses].” (R. at 315.) The ordinance does not define “recycling.”6
When a word is undefined, we endeavor to give it its common and ordinary mean*1201ing. In re Commitment of Pepper, 700 N.E.2d 253, 256 (Ind.Ct.App.1998). We construe a zoning ordinance to favor the free use of land and will not extend restrictions by implication. Securer v. Board of Zoning Appeals, 629 N.E.2d 893, 898 (Ind.Ct.App.1994). Recycling is defined as “a process whereby items that have no other economic use in their present form are transformed into valuable, usable products.” Griffin Indus. v. United States, 27 Fed. Cl. 183, 190 (1992). It is “any process by which waste, or materials which would otherwise become waste, are collected, separated, or processed and revised or returned to use in the form of raw materials or products.” Bennett v. Department of Natural Resources, 573 N.W.2d 25, 27 (Iowa 1997), quoting Iowa Code § 455D.1(6).
Harville’s business is characterized by the State on Harville’s business license as “salvage recycler.” (R. at 125.) An “automobile salvage recycler” is a business which acquires damaged, inoperative, discarded, abandoned, or salvage motor vehicles or their remains, dismantles or processes the vehicles in order to reclaim and sell reusable parts, and disposes of the recyclable materials to a scrap metal processor or other appropriate facility. Ind. Code § 9-13-2-10. The record reflects that Harville acquires inoperable, wrecked, or abandoned vehicles, strips the usable parts from the vehicles and sells the parts, then has the hulks of the vehicles transported off-site where the steel, aluminum, glass, rubber, and other materials are separated. The separated materials are forwarded to facilities where they are processed and prepared for reuse.
The trial court’s judgment can be upheld on the theory that Harville’s use of the property was permitted as “recycling” or as a use “similar in character” to recycling. I would affirm.

.The ordinance does define "recyclable material'' as "[a]ny material which can be converted into a raw material for use in a manufacturing process.” (R. at 240.)