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Thompson v. Board of County Commissioners of the County of Sublette11/8/2001
he public interest. Wells v. Bd. of Trustees of Laramie County Sch. Dist. No. 1, 3 P.3d 861, 867 (Wyo. 2000); State Highway Com'n v. Sheridan-Johnson Rural Electrification Ass'n, 784 P.2d 588, 592 (Wyo. 1989). The state, and likewise the county, may not be estopped for the unauthorized acts or errors of its officers and employees. Wells, 3 P.3d at 867. In Wyoming, the recognized exception to this rule is that a governmental agency may be estopped for the unintentional, misleading statements of its representative when the agency is functioning in a proprietary capacity. Id.
[ ] Here, there is no assertion that the board of county commissioners was functioning in a proprietary capacity, and the recognized exception does not apply. Therefore, absent a showing by the Thompsons of rare and exceptional circumstances justifying the application of equitable estoppel, the claim must fail.
[ ] The Thompsons argue that unusual circumstances do exist justifying the application of equitable estoppel. They claim that county officials induced them to change their position to their detriment by encouraging them in 1991 to purchase a larger parcel of land zoned A-1 and representing that, if they did so, they could continue their log home operations. They claim that county officials further induced them to change their position to their detriment by assuring them that they could build their buildings, make other improvements, and conduct operations on the new parcel without permits. They claim that they relied on the statements of county officials when they invested $170,000 in making the improvements and county officials knew about the investment. Under these "unusual circumstances," the Thompsons claim, the county should be estopped from taking the position nearly eight years later that the operations are in violation of county zoning resolutions.
[ ] From our review of the record, we are not persuaded that the district court abused its discretion in rejecting the Thompsons' equitable estoppel claim. This is particularly true in light of the longstanding rules that members of boards of county commissioners cannot act to bind the county except through official proceedings, and persons dealing with public entities are charged with ascertaining that the person with whom they are dealing possesses the legal authority to bind the entity. Robert W. Anderson Housewrecking & Excavating, Inc. v. Bd. of Trustees, School Dist. No. 25, Freemont County, 681 P.2d 1326, 1329-30 (Wyo. 1984); George W. Condon Co. v. Bd. of Com'rs of Natrona County, 56 Wyo. 38, 103 P.2d 401, 403 (1940). The Thompsons were charged with ascertaining that neither the county zoning administrator nor a single, individual member of the board of county commissioners had any authority to bind the board and an official proceeding before the board of county commissioners as a whole was required to determine what they could and could not do on their property. From the record before us, there is no indication the Thompsons made any effort to ascertain what authority individual county representatives had, nor is there any evidence of any official proceeding before the board of county commissioners as a whole. We hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion in rejecting the Thompsons' equitable estoppel claim.
Laches
[ ] The Thompsons assert that the board of county commissioners' claim for injunctive relief should be barred by laches. Specifically, they assert that the board of county commissioners stood by for eight years while they expended considerable sums of money improving their property and it should not now be allowed to enjoin the business at their expense.
[ ] Laches is defined
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