The Chicken or the HOA?

“Do not count your chickens before they are hatched.”

- Aesop

This column we take a look, in a lighthearted manner, at a Missouri case about chickens, albeit a case with some important issues.

The Four Seasons Lakeside Property Owners Association sued the State of Missouri in 2024 as a result of a state law recentlypassed that prohibited community associations from restricting the ownership or pasturing, i.e. roaming free, of up to six chickens per residential Lots.

In January 2024 the Missouri House of Representatives passed HB 2026. Added onto that bill at the last minute was a provision that allowed owners in condominium associations to have chickens, prohibiting association from having more restrictive provisions that banned them.

This was a bit of a problem as the title of the Bill was An Act to Amend Chapter 535, RSMo, by Adding Thereto One New Section Relating to a Moratorium on Eviction Proceedings. It was originally introduced, before amendments, with but a single provision, which related not to chickens but to prevent counties and other political subdivisions from imposing or enforcing moratoriums on eviction proceedings.

After passing through the legislative process, the likes of which have been compared unfavorably, but likely accurately, as making (chicken) sausage, several amendments were added and repealed and “perfected” to use the word of the Missouri House of Representatives.

At one point there were at least 54 (!) amendments added during the process of “perfecting” the legislation, the Senate renaming it as the “Truly Agreed and Finally Passed House Bill 2026.”

The only provision common to both the Senate and House bills hatched by the legislators did not have to do with chickens, but with tenant evictions.

The governor signed it into law on August 28, 2024.

The final version contained one sentence noting that no provision could be created that would prohibit the owning and possessing up to six chickens, on a lot of at lease two-tenths of a Lot, i.e. about 200' x 400', i.e. 8,000 s.f.

The Court noted 99% of the Lots in Lakeside were this size or larger which could result in nearly every Lot having chickens roaming freely, and that the law ran “afowl” of the Lakeside covenants which prohibited any owner from having chickens, other than for dinner, which prohibitive provisions had been in existence since the 1970s.

Repeated violations had occurred, the Court noting “the neighbors just wanted the chickens gone.”

The trial court ruled in favor of Lakeside, noting the law was unconstitutional as the Missouri Constitution prohibited a bill from being “so amended in its passage through both houses as to change its original purpose (unlike chickens which change from egg to, well, a chicken).

The Court noted the possession of chickens was a far cry from the original intent of prohibiting a municipality from creating an eviction moratorium on tenant homes, not the tenants of chicken coops.

It further violated the Missouri Constitution language that noted, “No bill shall contain more subjects than which shall be clearly expressed in its title.”

So the court struck the law in its entirety thus allowing community associations to set their own laws regarding chicken ownership.

New Hampshire with its much larger legislature does not have such prohibitions against having muddled or scrambled bills. It has the right to create omnibus bills which you may remember from your high school civics bill means a piece of legislation that covers topics far and wide.

So the chicken language may have survived a challenge in New Hampshire except for one problem.

The Missouri court also struck down the provision noting it violated the contracts clause of Missouri's Constitution, similar in this regard to New Hampshire's, that guarantees that no law can “impair the obligation of contracts.”

The New Hampshire Supreme Court has repeatedly noted the declaration and bylaws of condominium associations are a contract, so it is questionable whether such a law in New Hampshire would survive a challenge as it is longstanding that associations may have language that is more restrictive than the law. (For instance, each municipality in New Hampshire allows for the ownership of pets, but community associations are allowed to ban them.)

Regardless of how such an issue would play out in New Hampshire, Lakesside considered the court's decision an “eggcellent” one. But the “yolk” may be on them as the State of Missouri, as of March 2026 indicated it was going to appeal the ruling, so the final decision has not yet come home to roost.