Court Opinion

ID: 9667705
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:52:52.280336+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:40.043181
License: Public Domain

Ed. F. McFaddin, Justice (concurring). In this Court, appellees have filed a motion to dismiss the appeal; and by proper methods have shown certain facts transpiring since the Circuit Court judgment. Because of such facts I think the appeal of Little Rock should be dismissed: Little Rock has acted under and pursuant to the Circuit Court order denying annexation, and therefore cannot prosecute this appeal. The Circuit Court order denying annexation was on November 17, 1953. Thereafter certain property owners in a portion of the area affected petitioned the County Court to annex their lands to the City of Little Rock. The County Court made the order of annexation; and the City Council of Little Rock, by Ordinance No. 9478 (passed and approved February 15, 1954), duly accepted the property. All this was in accordance with §§ 19-301 et seq., Ark. Stats. This territory described in the Ordinance No. 9478 and actually annexed by the City on February 15, 1954, embraces a substantial portion1 of the territory that was contained in the original annexation case now involved in this appeal. In short, when the Circuit Court made its order of November 17, 1953, denying annexation, the City of Little Rock and some of the property owners in the area affected undertook to accomplish annexation by a method other than the original procedure; and they have now accomplished such annexation of a substantial portion of the territory. I think this is entirely inconsistent with the prosecution of the appeal. If the Circuit Court order denying annexation should be erroneous, then the territory involved should be annexed in toto. If the Circuit Court order denying annexation should be correct, then none of the territory involved should be annexed. Yet the City of Little Rock has actually, since the denial of the annexation by the Circuit Court, annexed a substantial portion of the territory involved. The City, by deciding to “take half the apple,” has thereby lost its right to claim that it was entitled to the “whole apple.” So I think the appeal should he dismissed, without ever reaching the merits of the case.   By the Ordinance of February 15, 1954, Little Rock has annexed: the eighty acres upon which the Little Rock junior College is situated; the approximately eighty acres consisting of the Methodist Children’s Home lying immediately north of the Junior College campus; and the Broadmoor Addition lying west of Hayes Street and immediately west of the Little Rock Junior College campus. All of this property is within the area originally sought to be annexed.