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Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 10, 1996 Decided January 14, 1997

No. 96-7022

TRI COUNTY INDUSTRIES, INC., A MARYLAND CORPORATION,

APPELLANT

v.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, A MUNICIPAL CORPORATION, ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 94cv02014)

Frank J. Emig argued the cause and filed the briefs for appellant.

Martin B. White, Assistant CorporationCounsel, argued the cause for appellees. Charles F.C. Ruff,

CorporationCounsel,CharlesL.Reischel, DeputyCorporationCounsel, and LutzAlexanderPrager,

Assistant Deputy Corporation Counsel, were on the brief with him.

Before: EDWARDS, Chief Judge, WILLIAMS and SENTELLE, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge WILLIAMS.

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge: On September 20, 1993 the acting director of the District of

Columbia Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs ("DCRA"), Hampton Cross, summarily

and without a hearing suspended a building permit issued to Tri County Industries, Inc. Tri County

contends that the suspension deprived it of its property without due process of law, in violation of

the Fifth Amendment. Although we reject its "substantive due process" claim, we agree that the

suspension violated Tri County's procedural rights.

* * *

Tri County is in the business of decontaminating soil tainted with oil and other hazardous

materials. In July 1992 it applied to the District of Columbia government for a building permit to

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convert an empty warehouse in Washington, D.C. into a facility for its decontamination work. In

pursuing the application, it sought and obtained both an air quality permit and a waiver of the

requirement that it file an environmental impact statement. Both were prerequisites to the issuance

of Tri County's building permit. See District of Columbia Municipal Regulations §§ 20-200.1, 20-

7200.1.

On February26, 1993 the DCRAissued the building permit. Its licensing in place, Tri County

completed some work renovating the facility, but nearly six months later was not yet ready to begin

operations, primarily because of delays in the delivery of the decontaminating equipment. On

September 7 it was issued a citation for storing soil at the facility without the required certificate of

occupancy.

In the meantime, public opposition to the project had grown. On September 20, 1993 D.C.

officials held a public meeting, attended by residents of the nearby community, representatives of Tri

County, Hampton Cross of the DCRA, and one Merrick Malone, a representative of D.C.'s

Department of Housing and Community Development. The meeting was by all accounts a loud and

sometimes unruly affair. In the course of it Malone stated, incorrectly as it later turned out, that a

new public housing project was to be built immediately adjacent to the facility. Cross thereupon

stated that he wassuspending TriCounty's building permit, to the applause ofthe crowd. According

to his later testimony, he acted on the basis of Malone's statement. This suspension, Tri County

contends, also suspended its air quality permit.

Two days later, on September 22, Tri County was issued a stop work order for continuing

operations without a certificate of occupancy in violation of the September 7 citation. Tri County

took no action to challenge either the September 20 suspension, which all parties now agree had no

legal basis at all, or the stop work order, which is not challenged here and which all agree was a

legally sufficient bar to Tri County's continuing work on the facility. See District of Columbia

Municipal Regulations § 12-118.0.

More trouble followed. On October 15, 1993, Tri County was sent a letter by an official

working for Crossrequesting additionalinformation on the environmental effects ofthe project. This

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request was also of dubiouslegal authority. Although it cited authorization from § 4(c)(3)(C) of the

District's Environmental Policy Act (D.C. Code § 6-983(c)(3)(C)), the review process referenced in

that section presumably had ended when the waiver was granted. In any case, Tri County had already

answered many of the same questions as part of that original review process. Tri County did not

respond. On December 6, Cross sent another letter, again without clear basis in the D.C. Code,

rescinding the environmental waiver and stating that the District would soon start proceedings to

revoke the building permit. In fact it appears that the District never did start the revocation

proceedings. (In all probability the permit would have expired by now as a result of the permittee's

abandonment of the authorized work. See District of Columbia Municipal Regulations § 12-112.8.)

Tri County did nothing in response to this last missive except to remove the soil that had been the

basis of the September 7 citation.

One year to the day after the fateful public meeting, Tri County filed suit in federal court

under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging deprivation of its property without procedural or substantive due

process. It identifies as deprivations not only the suspension of its building permit on September 20,

1993 but also the implied simultaneous suspension of its air quality permit on the same date and the

explicit rescission of its environmental waiver on December 6, 1993.

The district court granted the District's motion for summary judgment. It rejected the

substantive due process claim on the ground that Cross's actions were at most negligent and the

procedural due process claim on the ground that the building permit suspension was only an "interim

suspension" for whichCross had "sufficient factualbasis" and for which prompt review was available,

citing Barry v. Barchi, 443 U.S. 55, 64 (1979). See Tri-County Industries, Inc. v. District of

Columbia, 932 F. Supp. 4, 6, 7 (D.D.C. 1996). We review de novo. See Diamond v. Atwood, 43

F.3d 1538, 1540 (D.C. Cir. 1995).

* * *

We first dispose of TriCounty's claim that the implied suspension of the air quality permit on

September 20, and the explicitrescission the environmentalwaiver onDecember 6, were deprivations

that require our review. As to the air quality permit, the only ground for regarding it as suspended

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at all is the idea that it was joined at the hip with the building permit, so that the suspension of the

building permit equally suspended the air quality permit. That may well be true: the letter issuing the

permit saysthat it willnot become valid (as authorization for a stationary source of air pollution) until

a valid building permit is received by the issuing office. See letter of December 11, 1992 to Tri

County from the Environmental Regulation Administration of the DCRA. But it would seem to

follow that reactivation of the building permit would reactivate the air quality permit. Accordingly,

it is hard to see how the latter's suspension adds anything to that of the building permit.

Of course the air quality suspension might generate an additionalissue if the District defended

the suspension (if indeed there was a suspension) as an application of procedures explicitly laid out

for suspension of air quality permits; in that event we would be called on to review the

constitutionality of the specified procedures. But the District makes no such claim. Rather, as we

discussin detail below, since the suspension of both permits did not fit any authorized procedure, we

evaluate Cross's act, for proceduraldue process purposes, by inferring a hypothetical procedure from

his actual conduct. That conduct was, of course, identical for both permits. Accordingly, the air

quality permit seems to add nothing to the case that is not encompassed in analysis of the building

permit.

Tri County's attack on the rescission of the environmental waiver fails for a different reason.

While the air quality permit islegally stated as a prerequisite to construction and operation of a major

stationary source (apart from the need for a building permit), the waiver is merely a step towards the

acquisition of the building permit. District law requires that the environmental impact of a "major

action" be evaluated "before an agency shall approve any major action, or issue any lease, permit,

license, certificate, or other entitlement" approving the action. See District of Columbia Municipal

Regulations § 20-7200.1. The waiver was simply an administrative finding that no more was required

byway ofsatisfying that requirement for issuance of the building permit. But the due process clauses

(here, that of the 5th Amendment, see Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497, 499 (1954)) protect persons

only against deprivations of life, liberty or property. While satisfaction of each of the many steps

toward issuance of a building permit (conceded by the District to be a property right) is undoubtedly

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1

Insofar as a suit for damages for a regulation that "goes too far" to be a permissible exercise

of the police power is analytically distinguishable from a suit for failure to supply just

compensation, see Williamson, 473 U.S. at 197, a failure to establish the impact of the suspension

is similarly fatal, id. at 198-200. Finally, there is no claim for a "temporary taking." See First

English Evangelical Lutheran Church of Glendale v. Los Angeles, 482 U.S. 304, 318 (1987). 

a useful milestone, Tri County offers no authority for the proposition that an agency "deprives" an

applicant of "property" whenever it backtracks on a prior favorable finding on one of those steps,

independently of withdrawal of the permit itself.

* * *

"Substantive" due process

Tri County's substantive due process claim is not crystal clear. In part the argument appears

to be that the District's conduct was a taking of its property, unconstitutional because it was without

just compensation. Tri County says that the District's "illegal and improper actions" inflicted

"financial losses and delays" which in turn forced Tri County to abandon its plans and rendered the

project "worthless." See Amended Complaint at 22. As to this claim, the District's ripeness defense

is clearly sound. Under Williamson Cty. Regional Planning Comm'n v. Hamilton Bank, 473 U.S.

172 (1985), a plaintiff advancing a claim for just compensation under the Taking Clause must have

pursued its administrative remediesfar enough to establish conclusively the effect of the regulations;

only then can the court determine whether the impact has been draconian enough to make out a

taking without just compensation. Id. at 186-97. As Cross's ukase of September 20, 1993 purported

only to suspend Tri County's permit, and Tri County sought no relief, it cannot be said to have met

this requirement.1

AlternativelyTriCounty appearsto be invoking the more nebulous branch ofsubstantive due

process, which in our circuit requires the plaintiff to show "grave unfairness" by state (or District)

officials. See Silverman v. Barry, 845 F.2d 1072, 1080 (D.C. Cir. 1988). There is some authority

under which the very closeness of this claim to the taking argument might be a ground for rejecting

it. "Where a particular Amendment "provides an explicit textual source of constitutional protection'

against a particular sort of government behavior, "that Amendment, not the more generalized notion

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of "substantive due process' must be the guide for analyzing these claims.' " Albright v. Oliver, 510

U.S. 266, 273 (1994) (quoting Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 395 (1989)) (plurality opinion of

Rehnquist, C.J.). But in this circuit at least, under Silverman, the requirements of the takings clause

cannot be said to exhaust the Fifth Amendment's substantive protection of property rights from

government imposition. See also Albright, 510 U.S. at 286-87 (Souter, J., concurring) (noting that

the Court has rejected the proposition that "the Constitution's application to a general subject (like

prosecution) is necessarily exhausted by protection under particular textual guarantees addressing

specific events within that subject (like search and seizure)"). We thus turn to the District's ripeness

defense to the Silverman claim.

We identified in Silverman two ways in which a plaintiff might show the "grave unfairness"

that it requires. "Only [1] a substantial infringement of state law prompted by personal or group

animus, or [2] a deliberate flouting of the law that trammels significant personal or property rights,

qualifies for relief ..." 845 F.2d at 1080. A mere state law violation does not give rise to a

substantive due process violation, although "the manner in which the violation occurs as well as its

consequences are crucial factors to be considered." Committee of U.S. Citizens in Nicaragua v.

Reagan, 859 F.2d 929, 944 (D.C. Cir. 1988).

Thus, both types of "substantive" due process under Silverman have a substantiality

requirement built inunlike procedural due process, under which there may be recovery even for

nominal damages. See Carey v. Piphus, 435 U.S. 247, 266-67 (1978). This requirement is obvious

enough in the first formulation"a substantialinfringement...." And we think it implicit in the second

as well. Theoretically, the reference to "trammel[ling] significant personal or property rights" might

embrace trivial trammelling of an important property right, but we think our clear intent in Silverman

wasto confine the concept ofsubstantive due process, itself oxymoronic,see Gosnell v. City of Troy,

59 F.3d 654, 656 (7th Cir. 1995), to actions that in their totality are genuinely drastic. Although

Williamson addressed only taking claims, its logic appears to us ordinarily to apply to

Silverman-esque invocations of the due process clause: unless the victim of government imposition

has pushed its local remedies to the hilt, it ordinarily will not be able to show the necessary

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substantiality. Given that on its face the order of September 20 was only a suspension, and that Tri

County failed to pursue its apparent remedy under District of Columbia MunicipalRegulations § 12-

123.0 (allowing appeal of agency action within a department and then to Board of Appeals and

Review), the claim must fail either for want of ripeness or on the merits.

We thus affirm the district court's dismissal of the substantive due process claim.

Procedural due process

We turn next to the procedural due process claim. Section 1983 explicitly treats the District

of Columbia as a state, and there is no doubt that Hampton Cross acted "under color" of District law

when he suspended Tri County's building permit. As noted above, the District concedes that the

permit was a property right.

The district judge believed that Cross's act did not violate the due process cause because it

was a mere "interim suspension," for which Cross had a "sufficient factual basis" and for which

prompt review was available. Tri-County Industries, 932 F. Supp at 7. We disagree on the adequacy

of Cross's grounds, but, more pertinently, the central issue is the adequacy not of his facts but of the

process that he purported to follow.

The District acknowledges that the D.C. Code makes no provision at all for oral orders of

suspension. So far as suspension itself is concerned, it points to District of Columbia Municipal

Regulations § 12-118.1, which allowsstop work ordersin the event that work on a structure is being

performed contrary to code or "in an unsafe and dangerousmanner." Assuming that Cross's act could

be equated with a stop work order (such as was issued two days later), the District's classification

here would still not be pertinent. Cross never claimed to have issued his pronouncement because of

defectsin the manner of TriCounty's constructionand the sequence of events at the public meeting

would have undercut any such claim. Rather, Cross candidly rested his suspension on Malone's

statement that a public housing project would be built adjacent to TriCounty'ssite. The District does

not even suggest to usthat there wassome procedure forsummarysuspension based on word ofsuch

a prospect.

Given this total deficiency, one might expect the District to defend the due process claim on

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the theory that Cross's act was "randomand unauthorized." See Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 541

(1981). Because the losses from such an act are not the result of any state procedure, and because

the state cannot predict when such losses will occur, such acts are not violations of the due process

clause so long as there is an adequate post-deprivation remedy. Id. at 541-42; see also Doe v.

District of Columbia, 93 F.3d 861, 868-69 (D.C. Cir. 1996).

In this case, however, the District has not only failed to argue Parratt but has explicitly

thrown the point away, "assum[ing], for purposes of this appeal, that the doctrine of Parratt ... does

not apply to actions by the Director of a government agency acting within the general scope of his

authority." In fact, there is a circuit split on this issue. Compare Easter House v. Felder, 910 F.2d

1387, 1400 (7th Cir. 1990) (en banc) (Parratt does apply to actions of high officials); id. at 1408-10

(Easterbrook, J., concurring), with Piatt v. MacDougall, 773 F.2d 1032, 1036 (9th Cir. 1985) (en

banc) (Parratt does not apply). It being inappropriate for us to resolve this sharply contested issue

in a case where the parties appear to resolutely agree, we do not take that approach.

Evaluation of the adequacy of pre-deprivation procedures is governed by the balancing test

stated in Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335 (1976). The first step, of course, is to identify the

procedure, a matter normally accomplished by looking at state (or District) law. In the case of a

random and unauthorized act, however, there is, by definition, no explicitly articulated procedure.

Accordingly, the procedure must be reverse engineered from the official's acthow might a

procedure authorizing such an act have been stated? (An advantage of the view that Parratt applies

even to the acts of high officials is that it renders this construction project unnecessary.)

Here Cross acted on the basis of an assertion by another government official, made at a public

meeting attended by the representatives ofthe permit holder, that at some time in the indefinite future

there would be a greater population than had formerly been expected near the site; thus more people

were likely to be affected by whatever air pollution the project would emit once it was constructed

and operational. He had no formal evidence before him suggesting that the calculations on which his

own agency had relied in issuing both the environmental waiver and the air quality permit were

unsound, with or without regard to the new (mis)information about the supposed increase in the

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population affected. Even summarizing this "procedure" most favorably to the District, it appears

to permit indefinite suspension of a building permit on the basis of information about greater adverse

impacts than projected at the time the permit was issued, expected to occur several years in the

future, without any factual basis for believing that the information, if true, would justify revocation

of the permit.

But to call the suspension "indefinite" requires another stepconsideration of the speed of

any post-deprivation hearing and possible correction. See Barry v. Barchi, 443 U.S. at 61, 66

(suspension of horse trainer's license without pre-deprivation hearing unconstitutional because neither

rule nor practice applied to trainer assured timely post-deprivation hearing); Cokinos v. District of

Columbia, 728 F.2d 502, 503 (D.C. Cir. 1983) (car towing without pre-deprivation hearing valid in

light of assurance of prompt post-deprivation hearing).

The District appears to provide two ways to appeal a suspension by the Director. The first

is District of Columbia Municipal Regulations § 12-112.13, but the subsection entitling a permit

holder to an "expedited hearing" is available only for a permit revocation under § 12-112.9.3.

Alternatively, Tri County could have sought to have the Director himself review hisillegal act under

District of Columbia Municipal Regulations § 12-123.1.2, which requires that an official within the

DCRA review actions against a permit holder within three days and that the Director review any

decision by that official within another three days. Given that the reviewing official under both

provisions would have been Cross himself, and that the rules appear to specify no minimum

procedural entitlement for the aggrieved permit holder, these procedures do not advance the ball.

Finally, however, Tri County could have appealed to the Board of Appeals and Review, which may

provide a "hearing." See id. §§ 123.2, 123.3. Pending ultimate decision, the Board could have issued

a stay of the Director's order, but there appearsto be no assurance that any such stay would be issued

promptly. See id. § 5-503.5-12. In short, then, there is provision for correction of the sort of

suspension issued by Cross, but uncertainty as to its likely speed.

We evaluate these procedures under the tripartite test of Mathews v. Eldridge:

First, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk

of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the

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probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and finally,

the Government's interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and

administrative burdensthat the additionalorsubstitute proceduralrequirement would

entail.

424 U.S. at 335.

The property interest herethe entitlement to continue construction without unfair

interferenceis substantial; any interruption of construction is likely to be very costly. It might be

claimed in favor of the District that the holder of a permit would not want to pour money into a

project during the course of more thorough procedures, if revocation were at all likely. But that is

a calculation that the permit-holder would want to make for itself, balancing the costs of interruption

against the costs of spending that may prove fruitless. While the harm is mitigated by assurance of

higher-level review, the absence of time limits leaves the degree of mitigation in doubt.

The risk of erroneous deprivation is high. It is in principle reduced by the official character

ofCross'sinformant (Malone wasspeaking ofmattersin his agency'sjurisdiction) and by the presence

of Tri County's representatives. Even so, the gaps were substantial. Cross's own department had

conducted an elaborate review of the air quality impacts of Tri County's project. Assuming the full

truth of Malone'sstatement about the housing project, Crossso far as appears pursued no procedure

at all to assess whether the alleged change in circumstances materially undermined his agency's prior

finding. Thus, although the "procedure" applied was not formally ex parte, it was a classic case of

shooting from the hip on complex technical matters. It is a safe understatement to say that modest

improvements in procedureeven rudimentary ones for testing the relationship between the new

claims and the previously established factshad a high probability of reducing the risk of error.

Finally, the government interest in swift action was negligible. Assuming the unbuilt housing

project was ever to be built, or that the air pollution from Tri County might affect its residents

materially, there was no gain whatever in halting construction a few days sooner than could have

occurred if Cross had afforded Tri County an opportunity for testing his assumptions. Cross's

"procedure" thus deprived Tri County of property without due process of law.

This conclusion is not affected by the uncertainties arising fromTriCounty'sfailure to contest

either Cross's suspension or the stop work order. A violation of procedural due process may occur

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even if the damages are only nominal, see Carey v. Piphus, 435 U.S. at 266-67, and one pursuing a

procedural due process claimneed not exhaust hislocalremedies,see Patsy v. Board of Regents, 457

U.S. 496, 516 (1982). In calculating any damages, however, both the possibility of relief from the

District's Board ofAppeals andReview, as well asthe possible mooting effect ofthe stop work order,

may be pertinent.

Thus, finding TriCounty's procedural due processrights violated byCross'ssuspension ofthe

building permit, we vacate the judgment and remand the case to the district court to consider the

extent of Tri County's damages.

So ordered.

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