Sunflower Saga: Jury to Decide Important Property Rights Fight

This month, when Chris Bank would usually be tending a crop of well-maintained sunflowers in the yard of his St. Peters, Mo., home, he instead cultivated a victory from the Missouri Court of Appeals. Rejecting a lower court ruling, the appeals court found that Bank is entitled to a jury trial in an important property rights case.

The case involves the City of St. Peters, which has placed itself on the front lines of a constitutional battle about whether homeowners are free to use their yards to grow harmless plants of their choosing.

Although courts have long held that cities may disallow property uses that are detrimental to the public health and safety, St. Peters has gone much further, asserting nearly unlimited power to micromanage the design and composition of its’ residents’ private yards, regardless of the expense or difficulty this might cause the property owners.

For each of the past several years the city has cited Bank for violating an ordinance that requires homeowners to devote at least 50% of their yard space — and 70% of their front yard—to growing turf grass. The ordinance explicitly excludes Bank’s sunflowers (and other beautiful, harmless plants) from counting toward that requirement.

In previous years, Bank fought the citations by demanding a jury trial. The city routinely dropped its case rather than let Bank’s peers consider the charges against him. This year, however, the trial court held that Bank was not entitled to a jury trial.

Bevis Schock, an attorney with the Goldwater Institute’s American Freedom Network, asked the Court of Appeals to step in. And it did, agreeing this month that Bank indeed had the right to a jury trial.

“We always want people accused of misconduct to have their case heard by a jury,” Schock said. “The Missouri Constitution says that the people are the source of all political power and also guarantees the right to a jury trial. A jury of one’s peers deciding a case provides a check against unjust prosecutions.”

Now that the city knows a jury will decide this case, it will have to choose whether to continue pursuing charges against Bank or to leave him—and his flowers—alone.

One of the reasons we have property rights is to ensure that no one, including the government, can prevent a property owner from using that property in harmless ways of their choosing.  If a local government has the power to prevent the cultivation of harmless flowers, then no use of property is so trivial or harmless that the government cannot prohibit it.

Americans—and courts—must make clear that the right to use one’s property in ways that do no harm to anyone else is a fundamental right protected by the U.S. Constitution.

Dave Roland is the Director of Allied Litigation at the Goldwater Institute.