Opinion ID: 2321964
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Extraordinary delay

Text: Appellants do not allege facts concerning the character of the governmental action that support a plausible inference of extraordinary delay. Determining whether a complaint states a plausible claim for relief will ... be a context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial experience and common sense. Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1950. It is in a common-sense context that we examine appellants' two allegations concerning problems with the District's behavior: (1) misinformation about the timing of the takings; and (2) replacement of the appraiser initially hired by the District. First, appellants allege that the District's predictions about the imminence of the takings turned out to be inaccurate. It would be unreasonable to infer from this allegation that the District's delay was extraordinary or unjustified. Appellants make no claim that the District knew any prediction was false at the time it made the prediction, and they did not allege fraud with particularity as Super. Ct. Civil P. Rule 9(b) would require. Appellants admit that when the District made these predictions, it was planning to replace the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge and genuinely intended to take their properties for that public purpose. Equally important, appellants make no factual allegations concerning the reasons why the District did not meet the schedule it initially described, much less that the reason or reasons for the delay were illegitimate. See Bass Enterprises Production Co., 381 F.3d at 1367 (courts must consider reasons for delay). In fact, appellants acknowledge that the timing of the announcement of the planned taking may have had any number of reasons behind it, and that reasons for delay such as budgetary restraints, administrative priorities, planning needs and the like are wholly legitimate. Appellants do not allege that at any time before they filed the lawsuit, the District had completed the public comment process, finalized its analyses and plans, and obtained all necessary funding. It would be unreasonable to characterize as unwarranted the District's decision to wait if it was not ready and able to proceed with the bridge replacement project. Indeed, as discussed in Section II. A.2.b.ii below, appellants allege that the fair market value of their and other properties near Nationals Park increased substantially during the period of delay, and the District had every reason to move as quickly as possible if delay would cause the amount of just compensation to increase. It would be at best speculative to infer from the facts alleged by appellants that the District needlessly or arbitrarily pushed back its initial schedule even though rising real estate values made delay costly to the District. Moreover, at oral argument, appellants stated that if the District had told them that it did not know when the planned taking would occur, appellants would have no claim that a de facto taking occurred in the interim, and for a substantial part of the four-year period of delay, appellants knew from the District's communications and non-communications that the timing of the actual taking was uncertain at best. The complaint alleges that after the initial optimistic predictions in 2005 and 2006, the Mayor informed appellants in mid-2007 that the acquisition schedule had been delayed and that DDOT had not obtained needed approval to acquire the properties. Appellants do not allege that the Mayor predicted when any missing approval would be granted or that the District subsequently told them that the District had managed to secure all necessary approvals. [5] Another important part of the context-specific analysis is that appellants do not allege facts permitting a plausible inference that the length of the delay for this bridge replacement project is extraordinary. The four-year delay experienced by appellants is substantial. However, appellants allege no facts reasonably implying that it is extraordinary for the planning of a public works project of the magnitude of the replacement of the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge to take four years from public announcement to institution of formal eminent domain proceedings. For any major capital project like this one, planning is complex and time-consuming, environmental and other reviews take time to complete, and funding takes time to secure, especially when the District and federal governments face fiscal constraints. Appellants do not identify any comparable project in the District or in other jurisdictions that moved more quickly, much less make any factual allegations reasonably suggesting that projects of this scale ordinarily get underway in substantially less than four years. See Bass Enterprises Production Co., 381 F.3d at 1367 (courts must consider whether the delay is disproportionate to the regulatory scheme from which it arises). Moreover, this four-year delay is no longer than the delay found not to be extraordinary in other cases. Cf. id. at 1366-67 (finding no taking despite 45-month delay in granting permit application for drilling); Wyatt, 271 F.3d at 1099 (same for six-year delay in granting permit application for mining); see also Kirby Forest Industries, 467 U.S. at 6-8, 104 S.Ct. 2187 (no taking occurred until 1982 when government actually acquired forest land for a national park, even though government publicly announced its desire to create the national park in the mid-1960s, legislation directing the acquisition was passed in 1974, and the government filed a condemnation case in 1978). The second problem that appellants contend supports their delay-based taking claim is that the District replaced the first appraiser because it thought his appraisals would be too high. Although the District hired a new appraiser within a month, the new appraiser allegedly had to start from scratch, delaying the appraisal process by a longer period. Appellants, however, do not allege that but for replacement of the appraiser, the District could or would have initiated formal eminent domain proceedings before appellants filed this lawsuit, so this allegation does not support a claim that the delay was extraordinary or unjustified. To the extent the District's replacement of the original appraiser is suspicious, it would be suspicious regardless of the timing of initiation of eminent domain proceedings. As the trial court observed, appellants have a remedy for any illegitimate decision to replace the appraisercalling the first appraiser as a witness in the eminent domain case to testify that the properties are worth more than the District claims. In any event, this allegation does not support a plausible inference that the District acted improperly or in bad faith. Appellants would be entitled to replace their appraiser if they thought his appraisals were too low, and the District has an equivalent prerogative. Appellants do not allege facts from which a plausible inference can be drawn that when the District discharged Mr. Mitchell, it believed that his expected appraisals were correct. Appellants assert in conclusory terms that the District actively, deliberately and consistently, over many years, prevented plaintiffs from making productive use of the properties. However, this is not a factual allegation but rather a pejorative spin on advance notice under the District's Advance Acquisition program. As appellants concede, it serves a valid public purpose for government to inform property owners in advance of plans to take their property so that owners will not make wasteful investments. See Section II.A.1.c above. [6] Appellants also assert that the District deliberately singled out their property to ensure it would not increase in value. However, they allege no facts supporting that conclusory statement, and they admit that other properties were included in the District's Advance Acquisition program relating to the bridge replacement project. In sum, appellants do not allege facts concerning the character of the District's actions that support a plausible inference of extraordinary delay. Appellants do not allege facts reasonably implying that it is extraordinary for a local government to take more than four (or even six) years to carry out takings in a major project like replacement of the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge, that the reasons for the delay were illegitimate or insubstantial, or that the District had obtained funding and completed all of the other actions necessary to proceed yet arbitrarily chose to wait, even though rising real estate values gave the District an incentive to take the properties as quickly as possible. In fact, appellants admit that, as far as they know, the reasons for the timing of the original announcement and the subsequent delays were entirely valid. In this context, the two problems alleged by appellants do not support a plausible inference that any effect on their ability to make productive use of the properties was not an unintended by-product of ordinary delays in a major bridge replacement project.