Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-12-55549/USCOURTS-ca9-12-55549-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
City of Fillmore
Appellee
El Dorado Estates
Appellant

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

EL DORADO ESTATES, a California

Limited Partnership,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

CITY OF FILLMORE, a California

Municipal Corporation,

Defendant-Appellee.

No. 12-55549

D.C. No.

2:11-cv-07562-

SJO-RZ

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

S. James Otero, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

November 7, 2013—Pasadena, California

Filed September 2, 2014

Before: Alfred T. Goodwin, Raymond C. Fisher,

and Richard R. Clifton, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Clifton

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2 EL DORADO ESTATES V. CITY OF FILLMORE

SUMMARY*

Fair Housing Act / Standing

The panel reversed the dismissal, for lack of Article III

standing, of a seniors-only mobile home park owner’s action

claiming violations of the Fair Housing Act when the City of

Fillmore, California, allegedly interfered with an application

for a subdivision of the mobile home park by causing

unreasonable delays and imposing extralegal conditions

because of a fear that subdivision would lead to the opening

of the park to families.

The panel held that, under the facts alleged in the

complaint, the mobile home park owner suffered a concrete

and particularized, actual injury, in the form of added

expenses caused by the city’s interference with the

subdivision application, and therefore had Article IIIstanding

to prosecute the action. The panel reversed the district court

and remanded for further proceedings.

COUNSEL

Robert S. Coldren and Mark D. Alpert (argued), Hart, King

& Coldren, Santa Ana, California, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Jeffrey Malawy (argued), Aleshire & Wynder, LLP, Irvine,

California; J. Roger Myers and Charmaine Hilton Buehner,

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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EL DORADO ESTATES V. CITY OF FILLMORE 3

Myers, Widders, Gibson & Jones, LLP, Ventura, California,

for Defendant-Appellee.

OPINION

CLIFTON, Circuit Judge:

Fair housing is the topic of the day, as we are presented

with a case involving the Fair Housing Act (“FHA”). El

Dorado Estates (“El Dorado”), is a mobile home park owner

located in the City of Fillmore (“City”), California. Litigation

between El Dorado and the City arose out of El Dorado’s

application for a subdivision of its seniors-only mobile home

park, the El Dorado Estates Mobile Home Park (the “Park”).

In its complaint, El Dorado alleges that the City interfered

with the application by causing unreasonable delays and

imposing extralegal conditions because of a fear that

subdivision would lead to El Dorado opening the Park to

families.

Protracted state court proceedings surrounding the legality

of various conditions the City imposed on El Dorado when

processing its subdivision application eventually led to El

Dorado bringing this action in federal court, alleging that the

City’s actions violated various provisions of the FHA. El

Dorado’s complaint was dismissed by the district court for

lack of standing under Article III.

We disagree that El Dorado lacks Article III standing.

When the injury suffered by El Dorado is construed as

alleged in El Dorado’s complaint, it becomes clear that El

Dorado has suffered a concrete and particularized, actual,

injury, in the form of added expenses caused by the City’s

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4 EL DORADO ESTATES V. CITY OF FILLMORE

interference with El Dorado’s subdivision application.

Accordingly, we reverse the district court and remand for

further proceedings.

I. Background1

El Dorado is the owner of a mobile home park located

within the City. The Park is operated byEl Dorado as a senior

rental park, in which homes are rented out to residents who

are 55 years of age or older.

In 2008, at the request of Park residents, the City

considered adopting a mobile home rent control ordinance. El

Dorado publicly discussed opening the Park to families—that

is, to residents of all ages, including children—in response to

the rent control ordinance, an action that it is free to

undertake without seeking approval from the City or the

Park’s residents. It instead decided to exit the rental mobile

home park business by subdividing the Park into single lots

to be sold to residents.

The legal saga that eventually led to this case began when

El Dorado applied to the City for a subdivision pursuant to

California law. Many residents opposed the subdivision for

fear that it would lead to the Park’s conversion from a senior

park to a family park, and the City twice deemed the

application incomplete and imposed additional requirements

not contemplated by California law. The City’s efforts

delayed, increased the cost of, and prevented the subdivision.

1 Consistent with the motion to dismiss stage of the proceedings, we

recount the background accepting the allegations inEl Dorado’s complaint

as true.

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EL DORADO ESTATES V. CITY OF FILLMORE 5

In response, El Dorado sued the City in California state

court. There, El Dorado was successful in obtaining a court

order that eliminated the vast majority of the requirements

imposed by the City. The City thereafter approved the

application, subject to compliance with local flood mitigation

regulations and with the California Environmental Quality

Act (“CEQA”), a condition that was imposed contrary to the

City staff’s judgment that the subdivision was exempt from

CEQA review.

The CEQA condition may have been merely pretextual.

City officials made statements that suggest that the City used

the CEQA condition as a way to prevent the conversion to a

family park. The City further offered to waive the CEQA

condition if El Dorado would commit to maintaining the Park

as a senior park. El Dorado went back to state court to

challenge the imposition of the conditions. Although the court

upheld the imposition of the CEQA environmental review, it

prohibited the City from considering local regulations.

In light of the protracted litigation and imposition of the

CEQA condition that survived El Dorado’s challenge in state

court, El Dorado filed this action. El Dorado alleged in its

First Amended Complaint as its sole cause of action that the

City violated the FHA, namely 42 U.S.C. §§ 3604(a)–(b) and

3617,which prohibit discrimination, including discriminatory

land use decisions, on account of familial status. El Dorado

further alleged that the City caused it damages through both

unreasonable delays and costly, extralegal conditions in

processing the subdivision application. In particular, El

Dorado alleged that the City “acted with the intent of

coercing, interfering with and preventing El Dorado from

potentially making housing available for families.”

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6 EL DORADO ESTATES V. CITY OF FILLMORE

The City filed a motion to dismiss under Federal Rules of

Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). The district court held

that El Dorado lacked standing under Article III and therefore

granted the City’s motion and dismissed El Dorado’s

complaint without leave to amend.

El Dorado timely appealed the district court’s order

granting the City’s motion to dismiss. We have jurisdiction

under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we review de novo a district

court’s decision to grant a motion to dismiss under Rule

12(b)(1). Colony Cove Props., LLC v. City of Carson,

640 F.3d 948, 955 (9th Cir. 2011).

II. Discussion

As it comes to us, this appeal raises only one substantial

question: we need to decide whether El Dorado has Article III

standing to prosecute this action against the City in federal

court. We conclude that El Dorado has standing in the

constitutional sense. We therefore reverse the district court’s

order dismissing the complaint for lack of jurisdiction and

remand for further proceedings.

Standing derives from the case-or-controversy

requirement of Article III. Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737,

750–51 (1984). Standing to bring suit in federal court under

Article III is an “irreducible constitutional minimum”

consisting of three elements: injury in fact, causation, and

redressability. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555,

560–61 (1992). An injury in fact is an invasion of a legally

protected interest that is both (1) concrete and particularized

and (2) actual or imminent, as opposed to conjectural or

hypothetical. Id. at 560. Causation is satisfied so long as the

injury is “fairly traceable to the defendant’s allegedly

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EL DORADO ESTATES V. CITY OF FILLMORE 7

unlawful conduct.” Allen, 468 U.S. at 751. Finally,

redressability requires only that the injury be likely to be

redressed if the requested relief is granted. Id. In the context

of the FHA and housing discrimination, a plaintiff need not

be among the class discriminated against in order to have

standing. See, e.g., Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman, 455 U.S.

363, 378–79 (1982). In particular, an organization may have

standing to bring suit on its own behalf, without relying in a

representative capacity on the standing of any third parties.

Id.

A. Injury in Fact

The requirement of injury in fact has been the source of

much confusion in this case. The district court analyzed the

particular provisions of the FHA under which El Dorado

brought suit to conclude that the interference the City caused

with El Dorado’s subdivision application “does not give rise

to a claim under the FHA because [El Dorado’s] inability to

‘potentially make housing available for families’ is not an

injury” and held that El Dorado therefore lacked standing. El

Dorado argues, however, that the district court’s analysis

misconstrues the alleged injury suffered by El Dorado. We

agree. El Dorado’s alleged injury is not its inability to make

housing available (whether potentially or not) to families.

Rather, its alleged injury consists of the expenses incurred

through unreasonable delays and extralegal conditions

imposed by the City in processing the subdivision

application, allegedly in the belief that El Dorado would be

opening the Park to families after subdivision. In other words,

the City’s interference with El Dorado’s subdivision

application directly injured El Dorado, regardless of El

Dorado’s intent with regard to providing housing for families.

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8 EL DORADO ESTATES V. CITY OF FILLMORE

It is a concrete and particularized injury suffered only by El

Dorado, and it is an actual injury that requires no conjecture.

It is true, as the City argues, that this injury exists as a

legally protected interest only because the FHA prohibits

discrimination against families, thereby creating a new legal

right “the invasion of which creates standing.” Lujan,

504 U.S. at 578 (quoting Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 500

(1975)). What El Dorado has alleged, which we must take as

true at the motion to dismiss stage, is that the City has

discriminated against families byinterferingwith El Dorado’s

subdivision application and conditioning application approval

on El Dorado’s promising not to open the Park to families.

The right not to have to endure housing discrimination, even

if one is not among the class of persons discriminated against,

is a constitutionally cognizable legal interest supporting

standing. See Havens, 455 U.S. at 378–79 (holding that an

organization has standing in its own capacity to sue to recoup

costs incurred in combating racially discriminatory steering

practices); see also id. at 375–78 (opening the door to a white

plaintiff bringing suit against a property owner for housing

discrimination against blacks under the rubric of

“‘neighborhood’ standing”). El Dorado’s alleged injury thus

satisfies the injury-in-fact requirement.2

B. Causation and Redressability

Having established the actual injury alleged by El

Dorado, causation and redressability easily follow.

 

2

 Viewing the injury alleged by El Dorado as described in this section,

we also conclude that El Dorado’s claims are ripe for adjudication. See

Thomas v. Anchorage Equal Rights Comm’n, 220 F.3d 1134, 1138–39

(9th Cir. 1999) (en banc).

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EL DORADO ESTATES V. CITY OF FILLMORE 9

The delays and additional expenses El Dorado was

subjected to were a direct result of the City’s alleged

interference with the subdivision application. El Dorado’s

allegations therefore demonstrate that its injury is fairly

traceable to the City’s conduct.

In addition, the district court could redress El Dorado’s

alleged injuries. It could award damages that would allow El

Dorado to recoup the additional costs incurred in connection

with the City’s interference with the subdivision application.

It could also enjoin the City from continuing to delay the

processing of or impose extralegal conditions on the

subdivision application. El Dorado’s alleged injury is thus

likely to be redressed were the court to grant its requested

relief.

In sum, we conclude that El Dorado has Article III

standing to prosecute this action against the City.

As an alternative basis to affirm the district court’s

judgment, the City argues that El Dorado has failed to state a

claim under Rule 12(b)(6), referencing the motion to that

effect it filed in the district court. Having dismissed the action

under Rule 12(b)(1), the district court did not reach that Rule

12(b)(6) motion. We decline to take it up in the first instance.

Subsequent to the district court’s order in this case, the

Supreme Court indicated that the question of whether a

particular plaintiff has a right to sue under a given substantive

statute, though often previously discussed as “prudential

standing,” is more appropriately dealt with not in terms of

standing but instead as a matter of statutory interpretation,

determining “whether a legislatively conferred cause of

action encompasses a particular plaintiff’s claim.” Lexmark

Int’l, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc., 134 S. Ct. 1377,

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10 EL DORADO ESTATES V. CITY OF FILLMORE

1387 (2014). If raised, that question should be addressed by

the district court.

III. Conclusion

El Dorado has established Article III standing.

Accordingly, the district court’s order dismissing the

complaint for lack of jurisdiction must be reversed. We

remand for further proceedings.

REVERSED and REMANDED.

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