Opinion ID: 4530284
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Eviction from the Park Without Due Process

Text: To assert a due process claim, a plaintiff must show that he has been “deprived of a protected interest in ‘property’ or ‘liberty.’” Am. Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Sullivan, 526 U.S. 40, 59 (1999) (quoting U.S. Const. amend. XIV § 1). Such an interest must be “individual in nature.” Harrington v. County of Suffolk, 607 F.3d 31, 34 (2d Cir. 2010). “Thus, where the ‘intended beneficiaries’ of a particular law ‘are entirely generalized,’ . . . the law does not create a property interest protected by the Due Process Clause.” Id. at 34–35. Here, Plaintiffs claim that they had a protected interest to remain in the Park because of an “easement” created by a City zoning resolution, Pls.’ Reply at 11, and because the Mayor “publicly announced that so long as the camping demonstrators continued to obey the law they must and would be allowed to stay in the [P]ark,” App’x 89. Neither source created an individualized right to remain in the Park, let alone to do so while flouting City rules. 10 The City’s zoning laws granting access to the Park “run[] to the public generally;” “[s]uch universal benefits are not property interests protected by the Due Process Clause.” Harrington, 607 F.3d at 35 (internal quotation marks omitted). And setting aside whether the Mayor’s general statement could even create an individualized entitlement, Plaintiffs ignore the Mayor’s qualification that they could remain in the Park only so long as they obeyed the law. Since Plaintiffs refused to comply with a lawful dispersal order – necessitated in part by the protestors’ own habitual violation of City rules – the Mayor’s statement provides them with no basis for asserting a property interest in remaining permanently at the Park.