Blount County Board Of Education Et Al. v. City Of Maryville, Tennessee Et Al.

This is one of four separate actions currently before this Court with the common issue of whether the version of Tennessee Code Annotated § 57-4-306(a)(2)(A) in effect prior to the July 2014 amendment of that statute required a municipality governed by its own liquor-by-the-drink referendum and operating its own school system to share one-half of its liquor-by-the-drink tax revenue with the county in which the municipality was located when the county had not enacted a liquor-by-the-drink referendum. The county commenced the instant action by filing a complaint requesting declaratory judgment of its asserted right to a portion of liquor-by-the-drink tax revenue collected within the two municipalities involved in this appeal. Following the trial court’s denial of a motion to dismiss filed by the municipalities, the municipalities filed a motion for summary judgment. The county subsequently amended its complaint to, in the alternative, request reimbursement of the portion of liquor-by-the-drink tax revenue it had previously distributed to the municipalities’ respective school systems from liquor-by-the-drink gross receipts collected at private clubs located within the county but outside the incorporated limits of the municipalities. The county then filed a motion for partial summary judgment on the original issue of the cities’ purported liability to share a portion of their liquor-by-the-drink tax revenue with the county. Following a hearing, the trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the municipalities, finding that the municipalities were entitled, respectively, to keep all liquor-by-the-drink tax monies distributed to them by the Tennessee Commissioner of Revenue (“the Commissioner”). The county filed a motion to alter or amend, which the trial court granted insofar as it found that the county’s claims for alternative relief had not been properly before the court when the judgment was entered. Upon subsequent competing motions for summary judgment, the trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the municipalities on the alternative claims as well. The county has appealed. Determining that the municipalities were not required under the applicable version of the statute to share their liquor-by-the-drink tax revenues with the county but that the county was required to share tax revenue from liquor-by-the-drink sales within unincorporated areas of the county with all school systems in the county, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.