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Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Ind. Decisions - Important Indiana Supreme Court decision today

Today the Ind. Supreme Court has posted its decision in SMDfund, Inc., et al v. Fort Wayne-Allen Co. Airport Authority, et al., available here. This is the trial court decision for which the Supreme Court granted emergency transfer (bypassing the Court of Appeals) on Sept. 13, 2004. This case touched on several issues, and I recommend to those interested this 9/21/04 ILB entry. See also the 9/22/04, 12/20/04 and 1/2/05 ILB entries.

Today's 9-page ruling, by Justice Boehm, with the other four justices concurring, begins with the somewhat disappointing:

The plaintiffs challenge the constitutionality of the statute creating the Fort Wayne-Allen County Airport Authority. The Authority was created in 1985 pursuant to a statute the plaintiffs now contend violates the prohibition in the Indiana Constitution against special legislation. We hold that laches bars this claim.
At page 8 Boehm writes:
In short, laches bars the plaintiffs’ claim. Because we hold that the plaintiffs’ claim is barred by laches, we need not address the statute of limitations issue which was the basis of the trial court’s ruling reaching the same result. We affirm the trial court’s entry of summary judg-ment for the defendants.
[More] The AP reports late this afternoon, in a story headlined "Court avoids decision on special laws", that:
A group’s claim that the Fort Wayne-Allen County Airport Authority is illegal because it was created by unconstitutional special legislation is invalid because the plaintiffs waited too long to sue, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled today.

The case could have potentially struck down hundreds of state laws for violating a state constitutional provision designed to bar legislation that benefits only specific counties or communities.

But the justices ruled on more narrow grounds, saying it was unfair for the plaintiffs to wait 17 years before challenging the 1985 law that created the airport authority. The unanimous ruling upheld a lower court decision dismissing the lawsuit on procedural grounds. * * *

The Indiana Constitution has a provision prohibiting special legislation, saying laws should be uniform throughout the state. But lawmakers have gotten around that by using population limits instead of naming specific locations.

The 1985 law in question, for example, allowed a joint city-county airport authority in any county having a population of more than 300,000 but less than 400,000. Allen County was — and still is — the only one of the state’s 92 counties that falls within that range.

The state Supreme Court went along with that approach for years, saying other cities or counties could grow to meet certain population levels. But in 2003, justices struck down an annexation law in St. Joseph County because it was contrary to one applying to the rest of the state.

That raised concerns among lawmakers that hundreds of old laws might be in jeopardy, and because of that, the Fort Wayne case was being closely watched.

But the justices ruled primarily on procedural grounds today, saying 17 years was an unreasonable delay in challenging the law and would harm the airport authority if the lawsuit were allowed to proceed.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 2, 2005 02:41 PM
Posted to Ind. Sup.Ct. Decisions