H.H.B., LLC v. D&F, LLC

D&F (plaintiff) sought to rezone land to build a CVS pharmacy, offering extra self-imposed restrictions beyond what the new zoning required; the planning commission recommended approval 6-2 and the city council voted 4-3 in favor, but the change failed because it needed a supermajority. Decades earlier a much smaller drugstore had occupied the same site before the land was cleared and used for other purposes. D&F appealed the denial, and a lower court found the council's decision arbitrary and capricious, reasoning the current zoning bore no substantial relationship to public health or welfare and that the question was not fairly debatable since D&F wasn't proposing to change the property's basic use; the case reached the Alabama Supreme Court.