Opinion ID: 560456
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The As-Applied Challenge--Southview.

Text: 28 It is apodictic that, where a state law or municipal ordinance contains provisions for administrative relief, an as-applied claim can only arise when a property owner has actually sought, and been denied, a permit. See, e.g., Pennell v. San Jose, 485 U.S. 1, 10, 108 S.Ct. 849, 856, 99 L.Ed.2d 1 (1988); MacDonald, Sommer & Frates v. County of Yolo, 477 U.S. 340, 348-53, 106 S.Ct. 2561, 2565-68, 91 L.Ed.2d 285 (1986); Tenoco Oil Co. v. Department of Consumer Affairs, 876 F.2d 1013, 1026 (1st Cir.1989). It is only at this point that one's property is meaningfully burdened by the law, bringing an actual controversy between the owner and the government into being. Thus, the disparate situations of the plaintiff groups--the Southview plaintiffs applied for, and were denied, removal permits in 1980, while the Blevins plaintiffs never sought permits--provoke different analytic concerns. Hence, we consider the two groups' as-applied claims separately. We begin with Southview. 29 The limitation period applicable to a section 1983 claim is to be found in the general personal injury statute of the jurisdiction in which the claim arises. See Owens v. Okure, 488 U.S. 235, 249-50, 109 S.Ct. 573, 581-82, 102 L.Ed.2d 594 (1989); Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261, 276-79, 105 S.Ct. 1938, 1947-49, 85 L.Ed.2d 254 (1985); Altair Corp. v. Pesquera de Busquets, 769 F.2d 30, 31 (1st Cir.1985). In Massachusetts, Mass.Gen.L. ch. 260, Sec. 2A fixes a three-year limitation for the commencement of tort actions and, consequently, applies to section 1983 suits. See Doty v. Sewall, 784 F.2d 1, 11 (1st Cir.1986). The limitation period begins to run upon the invasion of the plaintiffs' interests. See Altair, 769 F.2d at 32; Kadar Corp. v. Milbury, 549 F.2d 230, 234-35 (1st Cir.1977); cf. Chardon v. Fernandez, 454 U.S. 6, 8, 102 S.Ct. 28, 29, 70 L.Ed.2d 6 (1981) (in discrimination case, statute of limitations begins to run when illegal act takes place, not when the consequences of the act become painful). A straightforward application of the rule dictates, then, that the time for bringing suit on the Southview plaintiffs' as-applied claims expired in 1983 (on the third anniversary of the denial of their permit applications). The Southview plaintiffs seek to avoid this temporal bar in three ways. 30 1. Nature of Relief Sought. First, the Southview plaintiffs contend that the statute of limitations is inapplicable to an action cast in the declaratory judgment mold. The argument is meritless. To prevent plaintiffs from making a mockery of the statute of limitations by the simple expedient of creative labelling--styling an action as one for declaratory relief rather than for damages--courts must necessarily focus upon the substance of an asserted claim as opposed to its form. It is settled, therefore, that where legal and equitable claims coexist, equitable remedies will be withheld if an applicable statute of limitations bars the concurrent legal remedy. See Cope v. Anderson, 331 U.S. 461, 464, 67 S.Ct. 1340, 1341, 91 L.Ed. 1602 (1947); Russell v. Todd, 309 U.S. 280, 289, 60 S.Ct. 527, 532, 84 L.Ed. 754 (1940). 31 Given this precedential guidance, we agree entirely with the Second Circuit that if a claim for declaratory relief could have been resolved through another form of action which has a specific limitations period, the specific period of time will govern. Orangetown v. Gorsuch, 718 F.2d 29, 42 (2d Cir.1983), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1099, 104 S.Ct. 1592, 80 L.Ed.2d 124 (1984); cf. Golemis v. Kirby, 632 F.Supp. 159, 164 (D.R.I.1985). Moreover, we see no reason why this rule should apply with less force to declaratory judgment actions in the civil rights field than to other, less volatile areas of the law. See, e.g., Clulow v. Oklahoma, 700 F.2d 1291, 1302 (10th Cir.1983) (civil rights claims are assertable as legal rights, enforceable in actions at law as well as in equity; hence equity's jurisdiction is concurrent, not exclusive); Swan v. Board of Higher Educ., 319 F.2d 56, 59-60 (2d Cir.1963) (section 1983 action seeking declaratory relief barred by statute of limitations). 32 2. Anticipating One's Defenses. The Southview plaintiffs next claim that, as they are still under the lash of the Ordinance, it makes no sense to deny them declaratory relief since, in any future enforcement action, they would promptly raise the constitutionality of the Ordinance as a defense. We find this idea, albeit precocious, to be equally unavailing. The temporal bar cannot be sidestepped merely by asserting that the appellants' declaratory judgment suit was brought to establish defenses against the rainy day, in the future, when the Ordinance might be enforced against them. Cf., e.g., Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. v. United States EPA, 790 F.2d 289, 315 (3d Cir.1986), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 1084, 107 S.Ct. 1285, 94 L.Ed.2d 143 (1987) (party's demand for a promise of exemption from waste water regulations on the basis of an as-yet-hypothetical situation held to be premature). Such a smoke-and-mirrors approach would place far too much priority on theoretical possibilities at the expense of practical actualities, requiring us, in the last analysis, to treat aggressor as defender, petitioner as respondent. In effect, it would also serve to make justiciable claims which were simultaneously stale (i.e., time-barred as to the actual permit denial) and unripe (i.e., not yet mature as to any potential enforcement action). The decided cases are to the contrary. See Mobil Oil Corp. v. Department of Energy, 728 F.2d 1477, 1488 (Temp.Emerg.Ct.App.1983) (holding that laches can be invoked against a declaratory judgment plaintiff who seeks affirmatively to challenge an agency rule to which it remains subject), cert. denied, 467 U.S. 1255, 104 S.Ct. 3545, 82 L.Ed.2d 849 (1984); see also Peter Henderson Oil Co. v. Port Arthur, 806 F.2d 1273, 1275 (5th Cir.1987) (holding that statute of limitations barred plaintiff's Sec. 1983 suit seeking declaration that municipal drilling ordinance was unconstitutional). 33 We refuse to subvert the realties of the case before us simply to suit a party's convenience. The Southview plaintiffs are, indeed, plaintiffs. They have been barred from bringing a claim for damages since three years after the denial of their permit applications. Draping their claim in the raiment of the Declaratory Judgment Act, some five years after the window of opportunity framed by the statute of limitations has closed, cannot elude this time bar. 34 3. Continuing Violation Theory. Finally, the Southview plaintiffs attempt to invoke tolling on the theory that the Board's denial of permits constituted a continuing violation of their constitutional rights. This approach, too, leads down a blind alley. As we have said in the Title VII context, courts must be careful to differentiate between discriminatory acts and the ongoing injuries which are the natural, if bitter, fruit of such acts. Jensen v. Frank, 912 F.2d 517, 523 (1st Cir.1990); see also Mack v. Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Co., 871 F.2d 179, 182 (1st Cir.1989). 35 On the facts of this case, the Southview plaintiffs' argument obfuscates what we have termed the critical distinction between a continuing act and a singular act that brings continuing consequences in its roiled wake. Altair, 769 F.2d at 32. The single act challenged--the Board's denial of the Southview plaintiffs' permit applications--comprised a discrete event. It occurred in 1980. The statute of limitations ran uninterrupted after that denial took place. In a Sec. 1983 case concerning the unlawful taking of property, the statute of limitations begins to run on the date of the wrongful appropriation. Id. It is altogether beside any relevant point that the Southview plaintiffs continued to feel the effects of the Board's adverse decision in 1983 (when the limitation period expired) and beyond. See Jensen, 912 F.2d at 523. Whatever harms were suffered add up to nothing more than the predictable, albeit painful, consequences of the permit denial. Absent any showing of the kind of ongoing acts needed to foster tolling, the Southview plaintiffs cannot belatedly resurrect their as-applied claims. 9 36