Case ID: f-appx_503/html/0082-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

TZ MANOR, LLC, Pondview Corporation, Parkfield Properties, (as assignee of Exchange Authority LLP, Trustee of the Almeida Parkfield Exchange Trust), as Tenants in Common, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Richard F. DAINES, M.D., Commissioner of the New York State Department of Health, Robert P. Dougherty, Director of the New York State Department of Health, Division of Home and Community Based Care, Judith R. Mooney, Co-Director of the New York State Department of Health, Division of Home and Community Base Care, Marybeth Fader, Director, ACF CON Certification Unit of the New York State Department of Home and Community Base Care, Alan J. Lawitz, Esq., Associate Attorney, Bureau of House Counsel, New York State Department of Health, The Long Hill Alliance Company, Inc., Defendants-Appellees, Kevin Mahon, Commissioner of the New York State Department of Social Services, Defendant.
    No. 11-4620-cv.
    United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
    Nov. 27, 2012.
    Vincent R. Fontana, Esq., Garden City, NY, for Appellant.
    Matthew W. Grieco, Assistant Solicitor General, Barbara D. Underwood, Solicitor General, Richard Dearing, Deputy Solicitor General, on behalf of Eric T. Schneid-erman, Attorney General of the State of New York, New York, New York, for Defendants-Appellees Richard F. Daines, Robert P. Dougherty, Judith R. Mooney, Marybeth Fader, ACF CON.
    David E. Nardolillo, Esq., for Defen-danb-Appellee The Long Hill Alliance Company, Inc.
    PRESENT: B.D. PARKER, REENA RAGGI and GERARD E. LYNCH, Circuit Judges.
   SUMMARY ORDER

Plaintiffs TZ Manor, LLC, Pondview Corporation, and Parkfield Properties appeal from the dismissal of their amended complaint charging five officials of the New York State Department of Health, as well as the Long Hill Alliance Company, Inc., with violations of substantive due process insofar as they deprived plaintiffs of their full property rights in a 100-bed adult care facility located in Nyack, New York. On de novo review of the challenged dismissal, see Galiano v. Fid. Nat’l Title Ins. Co., 684 F.3d 309, 313 (2d Cir.2012), we consider whether the complaint pleads “enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face” to survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007); see Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 677-78, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009). We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts and record of prior proceedings, which we discuss only as necessary to explain our decision to affirm substantially for the reasons stated by the district court in its detailed opinion. See TZ Manor, LLC v. Daines, M.D., 815 F.Supp.2d 726 (S.D.N.Y.2011).

To plead a plausible substantive due process claim, a plaintiff must allege facts establishing (1) a cognizable property interest (2) that was invaded in an arbitrary and irrational manner. See O’Mara v. Town of Wappinger, 485 F.3d 693, 700 (2d Cir.2007); Natale v. Town of Ridgefield, 170 F.3d 258, 262-63 (2d Cir.1999). Plaintiffs do not argue that they had a property right to be issued a temporary or permanent license to operate the facility themselves. Insofar as plaintiffs fault the Board defendants for failing to revoke Long Hill Alliance’s license to operate the adult care facility in the period between the end of Long Hill Alliance’s receiver appointment and the grant of an operating license to plaintiffs, we need not here decide whether state law would have permitted plaintiffs to eject Long Hill Alliance from the care facility upon termination of the receivership, or to bring a claim against Long Hill Alliance for rent on a theory of quantum meruit or unjust enrichment. Plaintiffs sought no such relief. In the complicated circumstances presented, plaintiffs fail plausibly to plead that it was arbitrary or irrational for Department of Health officials not to revoke Long Hill Alliance’s operating license until such time as the Department granted an operating license to plaintiffs. See Lombardi v. Whitman, 485 F.3d 73, 81-82 (2d Cir.2007) (holding that conduct “must be outrageous and egregious under the circumstances” to state substantive due process claim); Natale v. Town of Ridgefield, 170 F.3d at 262. Insofar as plaintiffs submit that defendants’ actions deprived them of their property right to close down the adult care facility, the complaint itself makes clear that plaintiffs had no such intent, much less that they communicated it to defendants.

Moreover, despite plaintiffs’ contention that defendants deprived them of their property right to the rent generated by the adult care facility, we conclude, for the reasons stated by the district court, that plaintiffs fail to plead a plausible property right to such rents either as a matter of contract or state regulation. See TZ Manor, LLC v. Daines, M.D., 815 F.Supp.2d at 741-42. Where plaintiffs cannot point to any clear authority supporting the right they assert, they cannot claim that defendants’ alleged failure to award them the rents at issue so shocked the conscience as to state a constitutional violation. See County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 846-849, 118 S.Ct. 1708, 140 L.Ed.2d 1043 (1998). In urging otherwise, plaintiffs contend that Long Hill’s lack of maintenance threatened the health, safety, and comfort of the home’s residents, and thus constitutes egregious conduct. Because this allegation nowhere appears in their amended complaint, we need not consider whether an allegation of egregious personal harm to a third party, even if true, is sufficient to demonstrate that a defendant’s interference with a plaintiffs property right is so arbitrary and irrational to violate substantive due process.

We have considered all of plaintiffs’ remaining arguments and find them to be without merit. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court. 
      
      . Because plaintiffs abandoned their procedural due process and equal protection challenges in the district court, and have forfeited their takings clause challenge on appeal, see Poupore v. Astrue, 566 F.3d 303, 306 (2d Cir. 2009), we need here address only their substantive due process claim.