[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

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No. 14-14986

Non-Argument Calendar

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D.C. Docket No. 8:14-cv-00252-VMC-TGW

CHRISTINE LACY, 

an Individual, 

 Plaintiff -Appellant,

versus

CITY OF ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA, 

a municipal corporation, 

WILLIAM FOSTER, 

a Former Mayor, 

CHUCK HARMON, 

Chief of Police, 

 Defendants-Appellees,

BALBOA INSURANCE GROUP,

a California Corporation,

 Defendant.

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Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Florida

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(June 26, 2015)

Before HULL, MARTIN and ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM: 

In 2011, the City of St. Petersburg demolished Christine Lacy’s house after 

it was damaged in a shoot-out between St. Petersburg police and Lacy’s husband. 

In this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 lawsuit, Lacy alleges the demolition was an 

unconstitutional taking and violated her procedural due process rights. We agree 

with the district court that Lacy has not pleaded facts showing that the relevant 

state procedure for seeking compensation for her property—an inverse 

condemnation action under Florida law—is inadequate. Thus, after careful review, 

we affirm the district court’s dismissal of her complaint. 

I.

 The Fifth Amendment requires the government to pay “just compensation” 

when it takes privately owned land for public use. U.S. Const. amend. V. In order 

to state a claim for an unconstitutional taking, a plaintiff must first allege that the 

government has deprived her of the use of her property. Agripost, Inc. v. MiamiDade Cnty., 195 F.3d 1225, 1231 (11th Cir. 1999). Second, a plaintiff must also 

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allege “either that the state law provides [her] no process for obtaining just 

compensation (such as an action for inverse condemnation) or that the state law 

appears to provide such process, but due to state court interpretation, the process is 

inadequate.” Id.

This second element—the inadequacy of state procedures—is of critical 

importance because a “property owner has not suffered a violation of the Just 

Compensation Clause until the owner has unsuccessfully attempted to obtain just 

compensation through the procedures provided by the State for obtaining such 

compensation.” Williamson Cnty. Reg’l Planning Comm’n v. Hamilton Bank of 

Johnson City, 473 U.S. 172, 195, 105 S. Ct. 3108, 3121 (1985). In other words, it 

is the State’s failure to provide just compensation, rather than the deprivation of 

property alone, that constitutes a constitutional injury. 

Lacy acknowledges both that Florida courts recognize an inverse 

condemnation action through which she may seek compensation and that her 

complaint did not allege facts showing that such an action is inadequate.1

 

Nonetheless, she argues that pursuing state procedures would cause her “needless 

delay” and points to Supreme Court precedent holding that a plaintiff need not 

 1 Under Florida law, a plaintiff may seek compensation for damage caused by the 

government to both personal and real property through an inverse condemnation action. See, 

e.g., Schick v. Fla. Dep’t of Agric., 504 So. 2d 1318, 1319 (Fla. 1st DCA 1987) (real property); 

Broward Cnty. v. Rhodes, 624 So. 2d 319, 319 (Fla. 4th DCA 1993) (“Appellees correctly assert 

that inverse condemnation applies to personal property.”). 

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exhaust administrative remedies before filing suit in federal court to vindicate her 

constitutional rights. This argument misses the mark because the issue is not one 

of exhaustion. Instead, there simply exists no constitutional injury for federal 

courts to redress unless and until Lacy shows that she cannot seek just 

compensation under Florida procedures. See Williamson Cnty., 473 U.S. at 195, 

105 S. Ct. at 3121. Thus, we affirm the district court’s dismissal of Lacy’s takings 

claim. 

For the same reason, Lacy has also failed to state a claim for a violation of 

her procedural due process rights. A procedural due process claim requires a

plaintiff to allege “(1) a constitutionally protected interest in life, liberty or 

property; (2) governmental deprivation of that interest; and (3) the constitutional 

inadequacy of procedures accompanying the deprivation.” Bank of Jackson Cnty. 

v. Cherry, 980 F.2d 1362, 1366 (11th Cir. 1993). Importantly, “[i]t is the state’s 

failure to provide adequate procedures to remedy the otherwise procedurally 

flawed deprivation of a protected interest that gives rise to a federal procedural due 

process claim.” Cotton v. Jackson, 216 F.3d 1328, 1331 (11th Cir. 2000) (per 

curiam). Thus, Lacy’s failure to plead facts showing that Florida’s inverse 

condemnation action is inadequate is also fatal to her procedural due process claim. 

AFFIRMED. 

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