⚖️ Case: Frankhouse v. City of Russellville, Arkansas, 2023 Ark. App. 435.
🔑 Key Quote: “[The Appellant’s] perception of failings in the [administrative] process cannot be addressed by avoiding the administrative procedure altogether.”
📝 Factual Background: This case started as a zoning dispute, but the relevant issue for this post relates to administrative procedure. Frankhouse had operated an apartment building on a piece of property for 20 years, but as it turns out, that property was zoned commercial. In 2020, he was told he’d have to ask the City Council to rezone the property as medium/high density residential, but when he did, the City Council denied the request. About a month later, the City served all of Frankhouse’s tenants with notices to vacate.
📜 Procedural Background: Rather than appeal to the board of zoning adjustment (BOA), Frankhouse went straight to circuit court. He sued for declaratory relief (seeking a declaration that because he had used the property as an apartment for so long that the City did not have the authority to require his tenants to vacate) and for injunctive relief (to prevent the city from trying to evict his tenants and to require the City to issue him the “necessary permits”). The City filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the declaratory and injunctive relief claims were inextricably tied to Frankhouse’s appeal from the denial of his rezoning request. In response, Frankhouse stated that he was dismissing that appeal (leaving only the declaratory judgment and injunctive relief claims). The circuit court dismissed the lawsuit without prejudice, holding that Frankhouse’s failure to appeal to the BOA deprived the circuit court of subject matter jurisdiction.
🪶 Opinion: In response to the City’s argument that he had not exhausted his administrative remedies, Frankhouse argued on appeal that there are exceptions to the exhaustion-of-remedies doctrine that applied to his case. The Court of Appeals acknowledged that there are exceptions to that doctrine (no genuine opportunity for adequate relief, irreparable injury if required to pursue administrative remedies, futility of pursing administrative remedies, etc.), but held that Frankhouse had not adequately made or developed those arguments to the circuit court. In fact, Frankhouse had stated that he went directly to circuit court not for those reasons, but because of “the gravity of the action that the City was proposing to take” and “the uncertainty about what they could do.” With the appeal being rejected by the Court of Appeals because of the failure to exhaust administrative remedies, that left the requests for declaratory and injunctive relief. But the circuit court had not made specific rulings on either of those requests for relief, so neither issue was preserved for appeal.
❌ Outcome: Because Frankhouse did not exhaust his administrative remedies, the circuit court did not have subject matter jurisdiction. And because the circuit court did not have subject matter jurisdiction, the Court of Appeals did not have subject matter jurisdiction. Therefore, the Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal.
ArkansasAppeals.com 