Smith v. City of Owatonna

I respectfully dissent. I believe the city had no rational basis for requiring some, but not all, property owners to install their own gas service lines; therefore, the city’s actions denied respondents equal protection.

The sole evidence presented by the city to justify its actions was the testimony of the OPUC general manager, Dave Martin. As a city employee, and a person intimately involved in all the projects in question in this case, Martin was certainly an interested party and his testimony was suspect. See Rohling v. American Family Mutual Insurance Co., 309 Minn. 258, 260, 243 N.W.2d…