The annexation trials: Minne and Conner, 1961–1968

28 December 1961 — 17 September 1968

Two ordinances, two remonstrances: At the inception of the controversy, in the Supreme Court's own summary, the Common Council adopted two annexation ordinances; their notices were last published on 28 December 1961. The territory answered in the statute's own way. A group headed by Paul and Louise Minne — for themselves and, in the appellate caption's words, "some sixty, more or less, other property owners" — filed a remonstrance and complaint against one ordinance. A group headed by Roy and Celia Connor, for themselves and some forty more owners, remonstrated against the second. The papers were presented to the clerk and marked filed on 25 January 1962, within the statute's thirty days, and on 2 April 1962 the court found what the remonstrators needed: a majority of the owners of land within each territory had joined.

The decree that decided everything except the question: The two causes were consolidated in St. Joseph Superior Court No. 2, and on 18 December 1963 the court entered its decrees. The statute, Burns' § 48-702, told the court to judge an annexation's propriety by six determinants: (a) the best interests of city and territory; (b) the area's urban character as an economic and social part of the city; (c) the fairness of the ordinance's terms; (d) the city's financial ability to serve the area; (e) the area's need, if undeveloped, for the city's development; and (f) lines drawn to form a compact area abutting the city. The court held (b) and (f) satisfied. The other four, it held, a judge could not constitutionally decide at all: they were questions of legislative prerogative, and Article 3, § 1 of the Constitution of Indiana put them beyond a judicial officer's power. Then the decree stopped. It stated no conclusion as to the effect of its holdings on the validity or invalidity of the ordinances — and no appeal was taken from it. The city had its annexations neither affirmed nor annulled; the remonstrators had a ruling that four-sixths of their statute was beyond a court's reach and no judgment on their land.

The city's jurisdictional attack, 1965: In the remonstrance cases the city — the caption names Mayor Joseph M. Canfield, his seven councilmen and Clerk Oscar Van de Putte — appealed on a narrower point: that the trial court had never had jurisdiction, because it had not determined the remonstrances' sufficiency within thirty days of publication. The Court of Appeals, Judge Wickens writing for the court in banc, affirmed on 16 December 1965. Filing, the court held, was complete when the papers were delivered to the clerk and stamped; the determination of sufficiency was the court's first judicial act, not a filing prerequisite, and the legislature could not in any event dictate when a court must act. Daubenspeck v. City of Ligonier was overruled to the extent it conflicted. On rehearing — denied 20 January 1966 — the court agreed to say plainly what it had not decided: the ordinances stood held neither valid nor invalid by anything in its judgment.

The question the city asked, and the answer it kept: With the appeal window on the 1963 decree closed, the city itself sued for a declaratory judgment: what did the decree mean? The trial court, on stipulated facts, declared that § 48-702 was not void in its entirety, and that its own findings on determinants (b) and (f) required the declaration the remonstrators had sued to prevent — the lands described in each ordinance were thereafter part of the civil city of Mishawaka. The Minnes and Connors appealed to the Supreme Court. On 17 September 1968 the court affirmed the ruling that had let the declaratory action proceed — an unclear judgment, it held, is a proper subject for declaratory relief — and dismissed the constitutional assignment outright, because the stipulation of facts had not been brought into the record by a bill of exceptions. "We express no opinion whatsoever," the court wrote, "as to the correctness of the trial court's holding regarding the constitutionality of Ind. Anno. Stat. § 48-702." The seven-year war thus ended on a rule of appellate procedure: the annexations stood, the constitutional question survived unjudged, and the two territories came into the city whose growth they had resisted — by rulings that, at every level, decided something else.

The open part:

Sources:

1. In re Annexation to the City of Mishawaka v. Minne, 138 Ind. App. 207, 212 N.E.2d 393 (Ind. Ct. App. 1965), rehearing denied, 213 N.E.2d 349 (1966) — the filing of 25 January 1962, the sufficiency finding of 2 April 1962, the jurisdictional argument and its rejection, and the rehearing clarification.
2. Minne et al. v. City of Mishawaka, 240 N.E.2d 56 (Ind. 1968) — the two ordinances and remonstrances, the six determinants, the decree of 18 December 1963, the declaratory judgment, and the Supreme Court's affirmance in part and dismissal in part, with its express reservation of the constitutional question.
3. The government record, Government — the Canfield council's place in the mayoral succession.