Supreme Court of Missouri
City of Chesterfield v. State of Missouri
December 24, 2019
Summary
The court affirmed summary judgment for the state and intervening municipalities, holding that the challenged statutory classifications were supported by rational bases and therefore were not constitutionally invalid special laws. The court rejected the argument that the statutes were invalid because their classifications effectively applied only to one county or were based on historical and immutable facts. It applied rational-basis review and concluded that the distinctive characteristics of the county, the need for predictable municipal revenue, and the prevention of opportunistic annexations justified the classifications.