City of Cleveland v. City of Shaker Heights
30 Ohio B. 156, 507 N.E.2d 323, 30 Ohio St. 3d 49 (1987)
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Rule of Law:
A municipality's legislative decision to regulate traffic and partially close streets within its borders under its home rule powers is presumed valid and is not subject to an injunction from a neighboring municipality unless the challenging party proves the decision is clearly unreasonable, arbitrary, capricious, or made in bad faith. Adverse extraterritorial effects alone are insufficient to invalidate the decision.
Facts:
- The City of Shaker Heights shares borders with the cities of Cleveland and Warrensville Heights.
- Streets such as Avalon, Ingleside, and Scottsdale have connected the municipalities since at least 1949, with public use established for decades.
- Shaker Heights developed and implemented a traffic plan that involved erecting barricades on these connecting streets.
- This plan was implemented without Shaker Heights collecting traffic data in, or jointly with, Cleveland or Warrensville Heights, and without studying the extraterritorial effects.
- The barricades diverted between 7,000 and 14,000 vehicles per day, forcing them to reroute through Cleveland and Warrensville.
- This traffic diversion caused the neighboring municipalities to incur direct economic expenditures for engineering, signage, maintenance, and snow plowing.
Procedural Posture:
- The cities of Cleveland and Warrensville Heights filed a lawsuit against the City of Shaker Heights in the Court of Common Pleas (the trial court), seeking an injunction to remove street barricades.
- The trial court found in favor of Cleveland and Warrensville Heights and granted the permanent injunction.
- The City of Shaker Heights, as appellant, appealed the trial court's decision to the court of appeals.
- The court of appeals affirmed the judgment of the trial court.
- The City of Shaker Heights, as appellant, appealed to the Supreme Court of Ohio.
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Issue:
Does a municipality's traffic plan, which partially closes streets at its border and has adverse extraterritorial effects on neighboring municipalities, violate the law when it is not shown to be clearly unreasonable, arbitrary, capricious, or pursued in bad faith?
Opinions:
Majority - Wright, J.
No. A municipality's traffic plan is not unlawful simply because it has adverse effects on its neighbors; it must be proven to be clearly unreasonable, arbitrary, capricious, or pursued in bad faith. The Home Rule Amendment grants municipalities broad power over their streets, and courts must not usurp the legislative function by substituting their judgment for that of the city council. The statutory requirement for streets to be 'open' does not preclude reasonable traffic regulations. While a total blockade would be unreasonable, the minor inconvenience and circuity of travel here do not rise to that level. Since Cleveland and Warrensville failed to prove Shaker's plan was arbitrary, capricious, or pursued in bad faith, the legislative enactment is presumed valid and the injunction was improper.
Dissenting - Sweeney, J.
Yes. The traffic plan is an unlawful action that undermines inter-city cooperation and should be enjoined. The majority improperly relies on inapposite cases concerning zoning and street vacation. The court also creates a 'straw man' argument to dismiss the legitimate claim that permanently barricading streets violates the statutory requirement to keep them 'open.' A more appropriate standard would weigh public policy considerations, and under either the majority's test or a public policy test, Shaker's extreme action was unreasonable and the lower court's decision to enjoin it should have been affirmed.
Concurring-in-part-and-dissenting-in-part - Herbert R. Brown, J.
No, the plan is not automatically unlawful due to its extraterritorial effects, but the case should be remanded. I agree with the majority's legal standard that the plan must be 'clearly unreasonable, an abuse of discretion or taken in bad faith.' However, the majority fails to properly consider the trial court's sixty detailed findings of fact, which could support a conclusion that Shaker's action was clearly unreasonable (e.g., no traffic engineering criteria were used). Because the trial court applied an incorrect, lower legal standard in its final judgment, the case should be remanded for the trial court to apply the correct, higher legal standard to its existing factual findings.
Analysis:
This decision significantly strengthens the power of municipalities under the Home Rule Amendment to control their internal street systems, even when their actions negatively impact neighboring communities. It establishes a high bar for challenging such actions, requiring challengers to prove clear unreasonableness or bad faith, rather than just demonstrating adverse extraterritorial effects. The ruling protects municipal legislative discretion from judicial second-guessing, potentially emboldening cities to prioritize their own residents' traffic concerns over regional cooperation unless the action amounts to a total blockade or is patently arbitrary.
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