Court Opinion

ID: 9662124
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:59:58.313384+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:37.064219
License: Public Domain

LOWENSTEIN, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. I believe the court’s decision on the standing issue creates a situation where no plaintiff, other than the attorney general, could bring any type of suit to question the actions of the municipality or the charitable trust. There are two causes here: the plaintiffs versus the city, and the plaintiffs versus the trustees. Wal-Mart is only in this suit for declaratory judgment because the cause of action involves real property it now owns. Rule 87.04.
The ample case law cited in the majority establishes that the attorney general must be a party in a suit involving a charitable trust. The Bode Trust is a charitable trust. The failure to have the attorney general in this case affects only relief sought by the petition against the trust, and in no way has an effect on the plaintiffs cause against the city. It is the plaintiffs versus the city that is the heart of the case.
Before addressing the relief sought against the city, and the plaintiffs’ standing to bring the suit, it must be noted that at no time during the transfer of the property from the city to the trust, and then to Wal-Mart, was the attorney general made privy to any change in use of the thirty acre trust property. The property given by the charitable trust to the city in 1970 could still have been used as a park. There was no impossibility of carrying out the trustor’s intent or invocation of the cy pres doctrine — the only change was that the land had grown in value and a decision was made to sell and use the proceeds for another piece of property. If, as the majority states, the attorney general should have been made a party in this suit against the trustees, then the same should have been said for the 1992 decisions and actions which gave rise to the ease at bar. See: Pilgrim Evangelical Lutheran Church v. Lutheran Church-Missouri, 661 S.W.2d 833, 838 (Mo.App.1983).
At the heart of this case is whether these plaintiffs, or anyone, could come into court and request relief against the city. The majority answers that question in the negative. The plaintiffs cannot sue as taxpayers since the city action did not waste or cost money, and they cannot sue as citizens who lived and built within eye-shot of the trust property which stood unimproved for over two decades.
The trial court dismissed plaintiffs’ petition which alleged: 1) The individuals lived within one-fourth of a mile of the land in question; 2) The Bode Will and Trust required all land go to the city for parks and playgrounds, for the benefit of the citizens of St. Joseph, and directed that the city, “shall make improvements necessary to carry out the purpose ... ”; 3) The Trust deeded to the city, and Saint Joseph accepted the tract located at Cook Road and Belt Highway in December, 1970. The deed to the city, and the city’s ordinance of acceptance, acknowledged the property would cause the land to be used for the purposes (parks, etc.) enunciated in the trust instrument; 4) The city, on May 16, 1990, enacted an emergency ordinance to convey the tract back to the Trust; however, on June 17th of the same year repealed the May ordinance and again authorized the conveyance back to the Trust. The tract was deeded on July 8, 1992; 5) On August 27, 1992, “The St. Joseph City Planning Commission recommended plans to rezone the 30 acre tract from residential to commercial ... despite the objections of neighboring residents, including some of the plaintiffs ...”; 6) On October 7,1992 the Trust conveyed the property to Wal-Mart.
In their two-count petition, plaintiffs alleged: A) diverter and misuse by the city in accepting the tract to be used for parks and recreation by the general public, and then conveying to Wal-Mart for retail use; and, B) asked for a declaration of law under Rule 87.02, (which allows “any person interested under a deed,” or “whose rights are affected by a municipal ordinance, may obtain a declaration of rights”) regarding the actions of the city in transferring the tract, and further asked for injunctive relief.
The prayer asked for the following declaratory relief: a declaration of the original ordinance of acceptance was irrevocable and *863did not allow a use other than for a park; the tract was subject to a public trust for park use; the ordinance authorizing the deed back to the trust was invalid; the city deed back to the trust was a diversion and misuse; and, the Bode Trustees’ deed to Wal-Mart was void. The prayer was for injunctive relief to get the property back to the city under the terms of the original conveyance from the trust to the city in 1970.
The opinion of the court holds these plaintiffs lack standing. If such be the law, then nobody has, or indeed ever had, standing to judicially question what was done here. Under the decision reached today, who would have had the standing to prod the city during the 22 years to build a park or improve the tract? Who, under today’s decision, after the municipal decision was made to use the proceeds from the property for a park in another place, has ever had standing to contest? The answer is no one, and I believe this decision unnecessarily restricts access to the courts to redress grievances by unduly limiting the law of standing. If people owning houses within sight of the tract have no standing, then no one in St. Joseph could have brought this suit. Under this decision, a person living in the far-reaches of the city would be under the same infirmities as these dismissed plaintiffs — they had no right to declaratory relief because the city didn’t lose money, so no taxpayers’ suit would he against the city. Likewise, under settled law, they could not have brought an action as a beneficiary, against a charitable trust, as only the attorney general has that authority. The majority overlooks reference in Am.Jur. to the effect of a recent trend to liberalize the rules of standing to allow private citizens to bring an action in the public interest. This case stands for the proposition that if the city makes money on land it has received from a charitable trust, and the trustees agree to selling the stockpiled lands, then there is no one to complain.
The majority holds the neighbors have no special rights to contest the city action (other than to mount the zoning change, which, had they done so under the facts here, the success of their effort would have been slim and none), and no other citizen of the city, no matter where they lived, could even enter the courtroom to seek redress. The majority speaks of the public interest here, and names the city and the trustees as the sole entities who can cross the courthouse threshold in order to determine what is in the public interest. And, as in this case, if those two entities agree on what is in the public interest, no other citizen of the city may have standing to challenge the same.
A party contesting, as here, a municipal ordinance, has standing “... if he can demonstrate that he is directly and adversely affected by the ordinance.” St. Louis County v. Village of Peerless Park, 726 S.W.2d 405, 409 (Mo.App.1987). Standing relates to a party’s personal stake in the outcome of a proceeding. City of St. Louis v. Litz, 653 S.W.2d 703, 706 (Mo.App.1983). The plaintiffs in the case at bar can certainly show an “economic detriment” if the ordinance allowing the conveyance of nearby land to the trust and then to Wal-Mart goes through. Miller v. City of Manchester, 834 S.W.2d 904, 906 (Mo.App.1992). The decision of the city acts directly on the interests of these homeowners giving them the necessary stake in the outcome to bring suit. Metro Auto Auction v. Director of Revenue, 707 S.W.2d 397, 400 (Mo. banc 1986); Palmer v. St. Louis City, 591 S.W.2d 39, 41 (Mo.App.1979).
It is inconceivable that property owners, within one-quarter mile of vacant ground (which was given to the city twenty-two years ago for use as a park, and now through a series of agreements, instead a wholesale club will be constructed in its place), are declared to have suffered no detriment and, thus, have no standing to challenge this action. I wholeheartedly disagree with the majority’s declaration. According to the majority, the plaintiffs have no interest in compelling this vacant land to be put to the use for which it was expressly donated — a park. Furthermore, the majority holds not only can these nearby citizens not seek court action to enforce the land be used as a park, but also that no one else in the city can do so either.
Contrary to the majority assertion, the record does show these plaintiffs did present to the city council their opposition and grievances to the action.
*864The resolution of the case on the issue of standing, forecloses examination of whether there was a formal acceptance and user amounting to formal dedication, or a common-law dedication. Village of Climax Springs v. Camp, 681 S.W.2d 529, 533 (Mo.App.1984). See also; State v. Young, 27 Mo. 260 (1858); Missouri Institute for Education of the Blind v. How, 27 Mo. 211 (1858). Whether plaintiffs may ultimately show special injury is a matter to be decided by proof, and not by a preliminary determination of standing, cf. Collins v. Vernon, 512 S.W.2d 470, 473-74 (Mo.App. banc 1974).
The case of Vestavia Hills Board of Education v. Utz, 530 So.2d 1378 (Ala.1988), cited by the majority on the sufficiency of user relating to the ultimate issue of dedication, does at page 1382, conclude the property owners who brought the suit “... do have standing to ask for a declaratory judgment on the question of whether the subject property may now be used only for park and recreational purposes.” Such should be the holding here on standing.
Owens v. Elliott, 257 N.C. 250, 125 S.E.2d 589 (1962) is not on point on the issue of standing. Owens concerns a public dedication claim for a street located in a subdivision plat, plus the court’s ruling there was what this dissent proposes — to send the matter back for a finding based on the necessary facts. Likewise, Armstrong v. Portsmouth Bldg. Co., 57 Kan. 62, 45 P. 67, 69 (1896) was a suit brought to compel use of property by a church, as opposed to another use. The court expressly held a private person may maintain an action to redress a common grievance if the action, “provides some peculiar damage to his individual interest or affects his rights in a different manner from the other members of the community....” Id. 45 P. at 69.
This dissent does not advocate frivolous suits by a few dissidents which have the effect of spoiling a needed and beneficial city action. Most suits of this nature will not succeed, but legitimate questions as to declaring a city’s actions, should not be repelled by usage of too narrow a definition of taxpayer or citizen standing. The determination as to dedication or abandonment is best described by a trial, not under a motion to dismiss -with its standard of review.
The trial court’s decision on standing, under the scope of appellate review, should stand.
I would reverse the judgment and remand the case back for a trial on the merits.