Opinion ID: 771678
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Standing Against the City8

Text: 21 An injury in fact is an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized . . . and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.  Id. at 560 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). The district court found that [t]he injury in fact that plaintiffs have suffered is damage to their property interests in their homes. 22 Defendants contend that Homeowners made only a general allegation that they would be adversely affected by the Van Ness Project. In their complaint, however, Homeowners specifically alleged that: 23 The Proposed Project will adversely affect the Historic Properties by diminishing the integrity of the Historic Properties' location, design, setting, and feeling and by introducing visual and atmospheric elements that are out of scale, and character, with the Historic Properties. Furthermore, the Proposed Project's height, bulk and lack of set-backs will over shadow and diminish the Historic Properties, thus introducing atmospheric elements that are out of character with the Historic Properties. 9 24 We may also look to documents supporting the complaint in determining the scope and specifics of Homeowners' claim. See Roth, 942 F.2d at 625 n.1. In plaintiff Tyler's declaration, he stated that Homeowners were concerned about the effects of the Van Ness Project on their neighborhood, because of excessive building height, excessive building bulk, overall number of units, need for setbacks, restriction on future lot split, inadequate parking spaces, and building design and materials. Given that plaintiffs' homes are directly affected by changes to structures in the neighborhood, we conclude that they have adequately established an injury in fact for purposes of Article III standing in relation to the City. Cf. Lujan, 504 U.S. at 565-66 (holding that a plaintiff claiming injury from environmental damage must use the are a affected by the challenged activity) (citation omitted).
25 We hold as well that plaintiffs have established the second requirement of constitutional standing by showing a causal connection between their injury and the City's conduct. Causation requires that the injury be fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant, and [is] not the result of the independent action of some third party not before the court. Virginia Sur. Co. v. Northrop Grumman Corp., 144 F.3d 1243, 1246 (9th Cir. 1998) (citing Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)). 26 We conclude that this case is different from Warth. In Warth, petitioners sued the Town of Penfield, alleging that a zoning ordinance had the purpose and effect of excluding people of low and moderate incomes from the housing market. The Supreme Court found that petitioners' inability to reside in the town was a result of economies of scale and individual financial situations, rather than the zoning ordinance. See 422 U.S. at 506. The Court concluded that,the facts alleged fail to support an actionable causal relationship between Penfield's zoning practices and petitioners' asserted injury. Id. at 507. 27 In Warth, the link between plaintiffs' injury and defendants' actions was so tenuous that plaintiffs could not show causation. In the case at bench, however, the injury to Homeowners, who reside in historic homes in the Mission District, is fairly traceable to the City's actions in constructing the Van Ness Project, allegedly in violation of its obligation in Stipulation 5 of the MOA to consult with the public. See Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560. We conclude that Homeowners have adequately shown that the City's actions in accepting federal funding, issuing environmental reports, and assisting with construction of the Van Ness Project establish a causal connection to the injury to Homeowners' properties.
28 Under the third constitutional standing requirement, Homeowners must show that their injury is redressable; that it is likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision. Bennett v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154, 167 (1997) (citing Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560-61). With regards to the City, Homeowners have met this burden. Homeowners claim that the  `redress' which plaintiffs seek is not the demolition of the housing project, but rather, compliance with the terms of the MOA, including the consultations required by the MOA if `members of the public' believe that its terms are not being carried out. 29 We conclude that plaintiffs have standing against the City under Stipulation 5 of the MOA, which requires the City to take the objection into account and consult as needed with respect to any objection by a member of the public to the manner in which the MOA is being implemented. 30 The district court concluded that plaintiffs provide the court with no reason to believe that requiring . . . the City to honor the consultation provisions, if indeed [it has] not already done so, would be likely to result in a new color scheme, different landscaping or any other change to the Van Ness Project. The district court should not have pre-judged the outcome of consultation entered into pursuant to Stipulation 5 of the MOA. See Beno v. Shalala, 30 F.3d 1057, 1065 (9th Cir. 1994) ([T]he mere fact that, on remand, the Secretary might again issue a waiver does not defeat plaintiffs' standing.). As stated by the District of Columbia Circuit, [w]hether a plaintiff has a legally protected interest (and thus standing) does not depend on whether he can demonstrate that the will succeed on the merits. Louisiana Energy & Power Auth. v. Federal Energy Regulatory Comm'n, 141 F.3d 364, 368 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). 31 The case at hand differs from Simon v. Eastern Kentucky Welfare Rights Organization, 426 U.S. 26 (1976), in which the Supreme Court held that the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge a ruling of the Internal Revenue Service that gave favorable tax treatment to nonprofit hospitals that provided only emergency-room services to indigents. The Court held that decisions of the hospitals may have been made without regard to tax implications. See id. at 42-43. The district court concluded that [m]uch as the hospitals involved in Simon might have continued to deny treatment to indigent patients in spite of an order striking down the contested revenue ruling, it seems as likely as not that . . . the City would continue to refuse plaintiffs' requests in spite of an order from this court requiring consultation. In pre-judging the outcome, however, the district court overlooked the close connection between the parties in this case. In Simon, there was only an attenuated connection between plaintiffs' injuries and the relief being sought because hospitals could choose not to care for indigent individuals rather than getting tax benefits. Here, consultation would require the assertedly injured Homeowners and representatives of the City, which caused the injury, to sit down together in a face-to-face meeting. Plaintiffs could, conceivably, directly impact the City's decisions. 32 The Fifth Circuit provided a well-reasoned analysis in Vieux Carre Property Owners, Residents & Assocs., Inc. v. Brown, 948 F.2d 1436, 1446-47 (5th Cir. 1991). In Vieux Carre, plaintiff property owners sued the Army Corps of Engineers concerning the construction of a riverside park which was potentially subject to NHPA review, even though the park was already complete. The Fifth Circuit determined that the action was not moot even though only smaller changes could still be made, compared to the broader relief plaintiffs initially sought. While Vieux Carre discussed mootness rather than redressability, we find its language instructive: 33 At this point . . . it is impossible for us to know with any degree of certainty just what the end result of the NHPA process would be. For example, NHPA review could result in a determination . . . that at this late date nothing can be done, or should be done, to mitigate the adverse effects of the park project on the historic properties . . . . We find it inappropriate to pre-judge those results as being limited to the extremes of either maintaining the status quo or totally demolishing the park. 34 Therefore, a district court should not pre-judge the result of the NHPA process by concluding that no relief is possible. . . . Even though, in this NHPA case, Vieux Carre's possible relief may appear to some to be irrelevant, trivial, or prohibitively expensive, a district court should beware of shortcutting the process which has been committed in the first instance to the responsible federal agency. 35 Id. (footnotes and internal quotation marks omitted). Likewise, we will not pre-judge the outcome of any consultations between the City and Homeowners engaged in pursuant to Stipulation 5.
36 The City argues that Homeowners cannot enforce the MOA because they lack privity of contract and are not intended beneficiaries of the MOA. The MOA is a contract and the City is bound by its terms. See Citizens' Comm. for Envt'l Protection v. United States Coast Guard, 456 F. Supp. 101, 115 (D.N.J. 1978). Federal law controls the MOA's interpretation because it was entered into pursuant to a federal scheme and HUD is a party. See Klamath Water Users Protective Ass'n v. Patterson, 204 F.3d 1206, 1210 (9th Cir. 2000) (holding that federal law controls the interpretation of a contract entered into pursuant to federal law when the United States is a party). The interpretation of a contract is a mixed question of law and fact subject to de novo review. In particular, the determination of whether contract language is ambiguous is a question of law. Id. (citation omitted). 37 Stipulation 5 of the MOA specifically provides that if a member of the public makes a written complaint, the City shall take the objection into account and consult as needed with the objecting party. While Homeowners were not signatories to the MOA, Stipulation 5 specifically provides that objections can be raised by members of the public. See Waterford Citizens' Ass'n v. Reilly, 970 F.2d 1287, 1290 (4th Cir. 1992) (holding that a citizen's association had standing to enforce the provisions of a MOA for a nearby sewer, even when it was neither a party to nor mentioned in the MOA). In Tyler II, we distinguished Citizens' Committee, 456 F. Supp. at 115, by noting that there the court held that plaintiffs could not enforce an Agreement entered into for purposes of NEPA when they were not signatories to it, nor mentioned in it . . . . Here, however, the public's right to bring objections is specifically mentioned in the Agreement. Tyler II, 136 F.3d at 610 (citation omitted). 38 The City nonetheless argues that Homeowners do not have standing to challenge the MOA because they are not third-party beneficiaries. See Helfand v. Gerson , 105 F.3d 530, 538 (9th Cir. 1997) (Courts have extended the right to sue for breach of contract to intended third-party beneficiaries.). Before a third party can recover under a contract, it must show that the contract was made for its direct benefit -that it is an intended beneficiary of the contract.  Klamath Water Users, 204 F.3d at 1210. Although Homeowners were not concurring parties to the MOA, this is not conclusive as a matter of law to show that they were not intended beneficiaries, especially since the public is specifically referenced in Stipulation 5. See 36 C.F.R. 800.5(e)(4) (1986); Klamath Water Users, 204 F.3d at 1210. It would appear that Stipulation 5's reference to the public would include Homeowners and, thus, that Homeowners have standing as third-party beneficiaries to the MOA. 39 We conclude that Homeowners have adequately alleged Article III standing as against the City under Stipulation 5. 10 They have also adequately alleged standing to survive the City's contract-based arguments on a motion to dismiss.