Opinion ID: 3032189
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Spoklie’s Federal Claims

Text: [8] The district court dismissed Spoklie’s federal takings claim for lack of ripeness, noting that he had failed to show that I-143 deprived him of all economically viable use of his property. A federal takings claim is not ripe until a litigant has “[sought] compensation through the procedures the State has provided for doing so.” Williamson County Reg’l Planning Comm’n v. Hamilton Bank, 473 U.S. 172, 194 (1985). This requirement applies to facial challenges as well as to asapplied challenges. Southern Pac. Transp. Co. v. City of Los Angeles, 922 F.2d 498, 505-06 (9th Cir. 1990) (“[A] claim alleging that mere enactment of a statute effects an unconstitutional taking is unripe unless and until it is known what, if any, compensation is available.”) Spoklie has filed suit in state court challenging I-143 under the federal and state takings clauses, but so far as we are aware, no decision has been SPOKLIE v. STATE OF MONTANA 6923 rendered in that suit. Until the state court has finally ruled on the state takings claim, the federal takings claim is not ripe. See Williamson County, 473 U.S. at 195. It is true that we have previously held that one aspect of a facial takings claim is exempt from the Williamson County ripeness requirement. In Sinclair Oil Corp. v. County of Santa Barbara, 96 F.3d 401 (9th Cir. 1996), we observed that a plaintiff could bring a takings claim under either of two theories. Either a plaintiff could show that the challenged land use restriction deprived him of all economically viable use of his land, or he could show that the action did not “substantially advance a legitimate state interest.” Id. at 406-07. We found that, while the first showing required that the plaintiff comply with the ripeness criterion of Williamson County, the second showing did not. [9] Spoklie’s takings claim appears to be based in part on the theory that I-143 does not substantially advance a legitimate state interest. However, to the extent Spoklie’s takings claim is premised on this theory, it must be dismissed. In Lingle v. Chevron U.S.A. Inc., No. 04-163, 2005 WL 1200710 (May 23, 2005), at , the Supreme Court has just disavowed the use of the “substantially advances” test in takings claims, holding that “the ‘substantially advances’ formula is not a valid takings test, and . . . it has no proper place in our takings jurisprudence.” To the extent that Spoklie’s takings claim is premised on an asserted failure of I-143 to satisfy the “substantially advances” test, Lingle requires that his claim be dismissed with prejudice. We affirm the district court’s dismissal on this ground. Atel Fin. Corp. v. Quaker Coal Co., 321 F.3d 924, 926 (9th Cir. 2003) (per curiam) (a court may affirm on any ground evident from the record). Because we hold that Spoklie has failed to establish that there has been a taking, we do not need to address the question whether a state may be sued for damages under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment in the absence of its 6924 SPOKLIE v. STATE OF MONTANA consent. Compare First English Evangelical Lutheran Church v. County of Los Angeles, 482 U.S. 304, 316 n.9 (1987) (finding that, notwithstanding “principles of sovereign immunity,” the Constitution “dictates” a damages remedy in takings cases, but not specifically addressing whether suits against states for damages may be maintained in takings cases consistent with the Eleventh Amendment), with Broughton Lumber Co. v. Columbia River Gorge Comm’n, 975 F.2d 616 (9th Cir. 1992) (applying the Eleventh Amendment to a takings claim against the state).
[10] The district court correctly dismissed Spoklie’s claim that I-143 is invalid because it is impermissibly retroactive legislation. The Supreme Court has noted that “the presumption against retroactive legislation is deeply rooted in our jurisprudence” and “finds expression in several provisions of our Constitution.” Landgraf v. USI Film Prods., 511 U.S. 244, 265-66 (1994). The relevant provision in this case is Art. I, § 10, cl. 1, which provides that “[n]o State shall . . . pass any . . . ex post facto Law.” However, “[t]he Constitution’s restrictions . . . are of limited scope,” id. at 267, and “[a] statute does not operate ‘retrospectively’ merely because it . . . upsets expectations based in prior law.” Id. at 269. Instead, the relevant question is “whether the new provision attaches new legal consequences to events completed before its enactment.” Id. at 270. Under this standard, many statutes that “unsettle expectations and impose burdens on past conduct” are nonetheless “uncontroversially prospective.” Id. at 269 n.24. For example, a ban on gambling is not impermissibly retrospective simply because it “harms the person who had begun to construct a casino before the law’s enactment.” Id. Spoklie argues that I-143 has had impermissible retroactive effect because it has caused him to lose “vested rights” in his animals, ranches, alternative livestock licenses, and business goodwill. While these business losses are potentially relevant SPOKLIE v. STATE OF MONTANA 6925 to Spoklie’s takings claim, they provide no basis for arguing that the state’s abolition of formerly legal fee shooting practices is impermissibly retroactive. A state may outlaw a formerly legal business even if it causes hardship to those who relied on the earlier law. See Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U.S. 623, 669 (1887) (Kansas ban on the sale of beer was constitutional even though Kansas had allowed the sale of beer at the time the plaintiffs constructed their breweries). Indeed, Montana law specifically warns Montana citizens not to rely on the expectation that the law will never be changed. Mont. Code Ann. § 1-2-110 (“Any statute may be repealed at any time except when it is otherwise provided therein. Persons acting under any statute are deemed to have acted in contemplation of this power of repeal.”).
[11] The district court correctly dismissed Spoklie’s substantive due process claim, which is based on his theory that I-143 is an “irrational and arbitrary” law. Substantive due process provides no basis for overturning validly enacted state statutes unless they are “clearly arbitrary and unreasonable, having no substantial relation to the public health, safety, morals, or general welfare.” Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365, 395 (1926). If the legislature “could have concluded rationally” that certain facts supporting its decision were true, courts may not question its judgment. Vance v. Bradley, 440 U.S. 93, 111 (1979) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). The justifications the State has offered for I-143 far exceed what is necessary to meet this minimal standard. Voters who supported I-143 could rationally have concluded that the proposition would promote environmentally sound resource management by encouraging sport hunting in preference to fee hunting, and that it would prevent transmission of disease from the interbreeding of game farm and wild populations. Supporters could also rationally have concluded, as advocates 6926 SPOKLIE v. STATE OF MONTANA of I-143 urged in their pre-election arguments, that fee hunting created an “unacceptable, bankrupt image of hunting portrayed by the paid shooting of captive animals,” thereby threatening the state’s “strong economy based on the public pursuit and enjoyment of wild, free-ranging public wildlife.” None of these rationales is clearly arbitrary or pretextual, and all implicate issues of safety, health, and welfare that are within a state’s legitimate police power. See Euclid, 272 U.S. at 395.
[12] The district court properly rejected Spoklie’s argument that I-143 places an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce. When a state statute affects interstate commerce, courts assess whether the statute “regulates even-handedly to effectuate a legitimate local public interest” and whether “its effects on interstate commerce are only incidental.” Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U.S. 137, 142 (1970). If so, the statute “will be upheld unless the burden imposed on such commerce is clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits.” Id. States enacting statutes affecting interstate commerce “are not required to convince the courts of the correctness of their legislative judgments.” Minnesota v. Clover Leaf Creamery Co., 449 U.S. 456, 464 (1981). Instead, “those challenging the legislative judgment must convince the court that the legislative facts on which the classification is apparently based could not reasonably be conceived to be true by the governmental decisionmaker.” Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). As discussed above, a rational legislator could have found that I-143 serves a legitimate public interest. Spoklie concedes that I-143 does not discriminate overtly against interstate commerce, and he has not plausibly alleged that I-143 imposes more than incidental burdens on interstate commerce. The only basis for Spoklie’s assertion that I-143 unduly burdens interstate commerce is his claim that fee shooting priSPOKLIE v. STATE OF MONTANA 6927 marily attracts out-of-state residents. That a particular service or recreation appeals to out-of-staters, however, does not impose on states an obligation to permit it. Spoklie argues that a state law whose actual goal is economic protectionism is subject to a “virtually per se rule of invalidity.” See Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U.S. 617, 624 (1978). However, this rule applies only when no legislative objectives other than protectionist ones are “credibly advanced” or where legislation results in “patent discrimination against interstate trade.” Id. Here, appellees have advanced several credible non-protectionist motives, while appellants have asserted no plausible protectionist ones. Indeed, to the extent that fee hunting is particularly popular with out-of-staters, I-143 removes one way in which Montana businesses can attract out-of-state dollars. It thus accomplishes virtually the opposite of economic protectionism. See Clover Leaf, 449 U.S. at 473 n.17 (“The existence of major in-state interests adversely affected by the [challenged statute] is a powerful safeguard against legislative abuse.”)