Court Opinion

ID: 9772338
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:15:03.067627+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:43.614529
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing or to Transfer to the Court En Banc.
PER CURIAM.
Defendants contend that our decision in State ex rel. St. Louis Union Trust Co. v. Ferriss, Mo.Sup., 304 S.W.2d 896, 900, “did not depend upon a construction of the zoning enabling act (Chapter 89, Missouri Revised Statutes 1949 [V.A.M.S.]) and what was said in that case with respect to that Chapter, and particularly Section 89.020 of our statutes, was pure obiter dictum” and only “to the effect that the language of the enabling act negates implied authority to control the location of public schools or other public buildings.” They say its true basis “was merely that the Missouri Constitution and statutes vested exclusively in the school districts of this state the power to select, locate and procure by condemnation, if necessary, sites for public schools.”
However, we consider the Ferriss case to be a ruling that this .enabling act, on which the relators therein relied, containing “no express grant of power to cities to regulate or restrict the location of schools or other public buildings” could not by construction of the clause, “location and use of buildings, structures and land for trade, industry, residence or other purposes” (in Sec. 89.020), be broadened “to include a public use of property by the state.” Defendants have overlooked the statement we made therein, in citing the Ohio case concerning airports (304 S.W.2d loe. cit. 900), that it “reveals the wisdom of applying the rule of ejusdem generis in the instant case.” Our conclusion was that neither this clause, nor the clause also relied on in Sec. 89.040, could reasonably be construed to vest the city with power *457to regulate, restrict or prohibit schools. It is true we said, as one of the reasons for applying the rule of ejusdem generis, that the broad construction sought would conflict with other statutes authorizing school boards to select and procure school sites; and we also noted that this could interfere with the state’s constitutional mandate to establish and maintain free public schools. Likewise, we think that such a construction of this language to include the authority to restrict or prohibit the use of land for religious or church purposes would make it possible to interfere with the free exercise of religion protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments; and that this is a most persuasive reason for holding this clause must not be broadened by implication to include these uses not specifically stated therein. This tendency is certainly indicated by the ordinance, in this case, prohibiting churches from being built in any residence districts in the city without a special permit, for the granting of which no standards were provided, and also restricted by the desires of residents of the district.
This ruling does not mean, as defendants suggest, that it permits in all residential districts, cemeteries, hospitals, museums, lodge halls, club houses, libraries, private schools and many other types of institutional structures. Since a charge or other consideration is required for the services or facilities of such institutions, we do not think it would be unreasonable to say that they are similar purposes to “trade, industry, residence” and that this clause of the statute may be reasonably construed to include them, as we have done in City of Richmond Heights v. Richmond Heights Memorial Post Benevolent Ass’n, 358 Mo. 70, 213 S.W.2d 479, cited by defendants. Furthermore, the purposes of such institutions are not the exercise of the fundamental freedom of religious worship, protected by the strongest kind of constitutional guaranties, which is the principal basis for our ruling that the language of Sec. 89.020 should not be broadened by construction to include churches. Of course, some of these described institutional buildings might be public buildings erected by governmental authority (state or local) and thus be within the ruling of the Ferriss case. However, these questions are reserved for decision when and if presented in future cases. Defendants also cite Milwaukie Co. of Jehovah’s Witnesses v. Mullen, Or., 330 P.2d 5, but the question herein ruled was not presented in that case.
However, as defendants point • out, the trial court’s decree ordered defendants “to forthwith issue or cause to be issued to the plaintiff a special use permit in accordance with the application heretofore filed by it.” Since we have held the ordinance void, which required a special permit for plaintiff’s use of its property for a building for religious purposes, no such permit as that ordinance required is necessary and therefore the decree of the trial court is modified by striking out the words herein-above quoted.
The motion for rehearing or to transfer is overruled.