re: LA. Supreme Court Rules in Favor of St. George Incorporators

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No voter or elector residing or owning land in the proposed area of incorporation objected to the petition. Thus, one can reasonably conclude they found the plan adequate. Only those persons have a real and actual interest in that claim. Only they can claim insufficient information in the petition to make an informed vote.

Cole neither resides in nor owns property in St. George. He did not, and could not, vote in the election. Consequently, he has no real or actual interest in challenging the sufficiency of the petition. Because no one from within the incorporated area objected to it, the court of appeal erred in considering the sufficiency of the petition. Thus, we reverse.8

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8 Even if Cole had standing to challenge the sufficiency of the petition, we find no error in the trial court’s conclusion that the plan for the provision of services was statutorily compliant. The trial court’s finding that the plan was “minimally” compliant is true inasmuch as the statute itself requires minimal compliance in its silence as to the requirements of the plan. Thus, regardless of the standing holding, we would reverse the court of appeal on the merit.

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