Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 1037.0

529ORD Unit: $PT1

[10-09-01 14:49:26] PGT: ORD1PP (Prelim. Print)

1048

OCTOBER TERM, 1999

Scalia, J., dissenting

529 U. S.

authority to establish either (1) that the demand met the require-
ments of Nollan and Dolan, or (2) that denial would have ensued
even if the demand had been met. Cf. Mt. Healthy City Bd. of
Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U. S. 274 (1977). The record (and the Court of
Appeal’s opinion) make clear that the latter cannot be estab-
lished here.

Finally, and still on the assumption that the Court of Appeal
acknowledged that petitioners’ failure to accede to the fee demand
was a motivating factor in the commission’s denial, the court’s
refusal to apply Nollan and Dolan might rest upon the distinction
that it drew between the grant of a permit subject to an unlawful
condition and the denial of a permit when an unlawful condition is
not met. See Cal. Rptr. 2d, at 569 (Strankman, P. J., dissenting)
(characterizing the majority’s opinion in this fashion). From one
standpoint, of course, such a distinction makes no sense. The
object of the Court’s holding in Nollan and Dolan was to protect
against the State’s cloaking within the permit process “ ‘an out-
and-out plan of extortion,’ ” Nollan, 483 U. S., at 837 (quoting
J. E. D. Associates, Inc. v. Atkinson, 121 N. H. 581, 584, 432 A. 2d
12, 14–15 (1981)). There is no apparent reason why the phrasing
of an extortionate demand as a condition precedent rather than
as a condition subsequent should make a difference.
It is undeni-
able, on the other hand, that the subject of any supposed taking
in the present case is far from clear. Whereas in Nollan there
was arguably a completed taking of an easement (the homeowner
had completed construction that had been conditioned upon con-
veyance of the easement), and in Dolan there was at least a
threatened taking of an easement (if the landowner had gone
ahead with her contemplated expansion plans the easement would
have attached), in the present case there is neither a taking nor
a threatened taking of any money.
If petitioners go ahead with
the conversion of their apartments, the city will not sue for
$600,000 imposed as a condition of the conversion; it will sue to
enjoin and punish a conversion that has been prohibited.

The ﬁrst two of the conceivable bases for the Court of Appeal’s
decision are so implausible as to call into question the state court’s
willingness to hold state administrators to the Fifth Amendment
standards set forth by this tribunal. There is reason to believe
that this may be more than a local and isolated phenomenon.
See, e. g., Delaney, Development Agreements: The Road from Pro-
hibition to “Let’s Make a Deal!” 25 Urb. Law. 49, 52 (1993) (“In