Court Opinion

ID: 9592954
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:18:12.81564+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:13:35.249733
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE LACY, with whom CHIEF JUSTICE CARRICO joins,
dissenting.
The majority sustains the portion of the fencing laws involved here on the rationale that, at the time of enactment, the Commonwealth was faced with a “collision of interests between rural and urban Virginia, [and that] the mutual benefit, convenience, and welfare of all the Commonwealth’s citizens demanded that conditions such as the probability of livestock roaming through residential neighborhoods, commercial shopping centers, industrial parks, and associated streets, be avoided.” For these reasons, the legislature decided “the cost of erecting a division fence between agricultural land and commercial, industrial, and subdivided land should be shared equally, and not be borne solely by the agricultural owner.”
Serving these mutual interests is laudable and supports a provision requiring co-financing of fences built between adjacent properties. The 1970 amendment, however, does not serve all interests equally. Rather, the provision requires cost sharing only *434when the agricultural owner, in pursuit of his own interests, wishes to erect a fence, but leaves neighboring commercial, industrial, or subdivision landowners to rely on their own financial resources if they determine that a division fence is necessary to protect their interests.
The majority identifies a need for “continuity of fencing adjoining farm land” as justification for this unequal treatment favoring agricultural landowners. This rationale assumes that the agricultural tract will always be the larger tract, that all abutting landowners will be in the restricted categories, and that the agricultural landowner will always be the party seeking to install the fence. In fact, under the present law, the agricultural owner can either build the fence and pay half of the cost, or escape building expenses entirely by choosing to let his land “lie open” when adjacent landowners determine a fence between the properties is needed. “Continuity of fencing” is an insufficient rationale to sustain such disparate rights.
Requiring the owners of agricultural land, as well as owners of commercial, industrial, or subdivided land to contribute to the erection of a fence, regardless of who requests the fence, would serve the “collision of interests” and “continuity of fencing” goals. However, the one-sided approach contained in the 1970 amendments to the fencing laws does more than simply “favor” agricultural landowners; it constitutes economic favoritism which bears no reasonable or substantial relationship to the objective sought. Benderson Development Co. v. Sciortino, 236 Va. 136, 146, 372 S.E.2d 751, 756-57 (1988). As such, it is unjustified special legislation. I would affirm the trial court judgment.