LOCAL GOV'T Flashcards
A city council, exercising its police power, adopted a zoning ordinance that imposed a lesser maximum height requirement on existing residential lots that did not meet a minimum square-foot requirement. Prior to the adoption of the zoning ordinance, these smaller lots were subject to the same maximum height requirement as standard-sized residential lots. A property owner owned a residential lot that did not meet the minimum square foot requirement. Troubled by the new maximum height requirement for structures on her lot, she challenged this zoning change in circuit court as a violation of a state statute. The applicable state statute provides that “zoning regulations shall be uniform for each class or kind of buildings and uses throughout each district, but the regulations in one district may differ from those in other districts.”
Should the court uphold the new zoning ordinance?
Yes, because the ordinance can be harmonized with the statute.
Around 10 PM, shortly after she disembarked from a public bus, a passenger slipped and fell while crossing a public street. She was seriously injured by the fall. The cause of the passenger’s fall was a puddle of cooking oil that had been spilled early that day by a city sanitation worker removing cooking waste from a nearby commercial property. The worker had neither attempted to clean up the spill nor reported it to his supervisor. The passenger has sued the city, among others, in negligence for damages resulting from her injuries. Is the city protected from this action by sovereign immunity?
Yes, because garbage collection is a governmental function.
