Opinion ID: 6967924
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Justiciability and Ripeness

Text: To be justiciable, plaintiffs’ claims must be ripe for federal review. See AM-SAT Cable Ltd. v. Cablevision of Connecticut Ltd. Partnership, 6 F.3d 867, 872 (2d Cir.1993). The ripeness doctrine protects the government from “judicial interference until a[] ... decision has been formalized and its effects felt in a concrete way by the challenging parties.” Abbott Labs. v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 148-49, 87 S.Ct. 1507, 1515, 18 L.Ed.2d 681 (1967), overruled on other grounds, Califano v. Sanders, 430 U.S. 99, 97 S.Ct. 980, 51 L.Ed.2d 192 (1977). Moreover, an Article III court “cannot entertain a claim which is based upon ‘contingent future events that may not occur as anticipated, or indeed may not occur at all.’ ” Oriental Health Spa v. City of Fort Wayne, 864 F.2d 486, 489 (7th Cir.1988) (quoting Thomas v. Union Carbide Agric. Prods. Co., 473 U.S. 568, 580-81, 105 S.Ct. 3325, 3333, 87 L.Ed.2d 409 (1985)). Thus, when resolution of an issue turns on whether “there are nebulous future events so contingent in nature that there is no certainty they will ever occur,” the case is not ripe for adjudication. In re Drexel Burnham Lambert Group Inc., 995 F.2d 1138, 1146 (2d Cir.1993). Because the “ripeness doctrine is drawn both from Article III limitations on judicial power and from prudential reasons for refusing to exercise jurisdiction,” the court can raise it sua sponte, and, indeed, can do so for the first time on appeal. Reno v. Catholic Soc. Servs., Inc., 509 U.S. 43, 58 n. 18, 113 S.Ct. 2485, 2496 n. 18, 125 L.Ed.2d 38 (1993). It is, therefore, of no moment that the defendants in this case have failed to argue the issue.
Assuming arguendo (as did the district court below) that plaintiffs have a property or liberty interest in the continued renewal of their licenses, it is, nonetheless, premature for us to decide whether the TLC’s process of license issuance and renewal violates due process. None of the plaintiffs has, to date, been denied a license. And, while on the face of Local Law No. 51 and its regulations, no proceedings — either written findings or oral hearings — are mandated prior to the denial of licenses or of license renewals, we do not know at this time what procedures the TLC will in fact follow before denying licenses. It follows that a claim that a base station operator has been denied a license renewal without procedural due process is best considered in the context of a specific factual setting. In Coffran v. Board of Trustees, 46 F.3d 3 (2d Cir.1995) (per curiam), we held that a due process claim arising out of a medical board’s recommendation that a police sergeant be involuntarily retired was not ripe for review where the final decisionmaking board had not ruled on the recommendation. We there stated: Under Article III of the Constitution, it is “axiomatic” that this Court may not exercise jurisdiction over a dispute unless the plaintiff shows “‘that he personally has suffered some actual or threatened injury as a result of the putatively illegal conduct of the defendant.’ ” Where the challenged procedures have not been applied to the claimant, ... the Article III requirements have not been met. Id. at 4 (citations omitted). The same principles apply in the instant case. There are, of course, some limited situations in which preenforcement review of the validity of a statute or regulation is warranted. This occurs principally when an individual would, in the absence of court review, be faced with a choice between risking likely criminal prosecution entailing serious consequences, or forgoing potentially lawful behavior. For as the Supreme Court has said, in deciding whether a case is ripe, two factors must be considered: (1) “the hardship to the parties of withholding court consideration,” and (2) “the fitness of the issues for judicial decision.” Abbott Labs., 387 U.S. at 149, 87 S.Ct. at 1515. 4 In the instant case, not one of plaintiffs’ licenses has been denied. As a result, plaintiffs have not, as yet, suffered any harm to their procedural due process rights. Nor does any immediate hardship befall the parties if preenforcement review is denied. See State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Dole, 802 F.2d 474, 479-80 (I).C.Cir.1986) (“It is well settled that for an institutional interest in deferral to be outweighed, postponing review must impose a hardship on the complaining party that is immediate, direct, and significant.”). 5 Accordingly, “we think it unadvisable to consider the issue at this time in the context of a broad facial challenge to the regulations. We will leave the resolution of such challenges to case-by-case dispositions in concrete enforcement actions.” Cronin v. Federal Aviation Admin., 73 F.3d 1126, 1128 (D.C.Cir.1996). 6 And we hold that plaintiffs’ challenge to the procedures for renewal and issuance of licenses contained in the law and regulations is not ripe for review. 7
Unlike their procedural due process claim, plaintiffs’ equal protection and substantive due process claims are ripe for review. The equal protection claim challenges the imposition of allegedly discriminatory and burdensome requirements (such as off-street parking), which must be adhered to forthwith. 8 The substantive due process claim challenges the regulations’ $5000 bond requirement, which is a precondition for license renewal. As to both of these, plaintiffs must either incur great expense to comply with the requirements, or (if they choose to challenge the regulation through noncompliance) run the risk of incurring potentially even greater burdens — the denial of their licenses and the end of their businesses. Thus, in contrast to plaintiffs’ due process claim, which alleged only that a future injury might result from enforcement of the regulations without procedural due process, the equal protection and substantive due process claims allege a present hardship that results directly from the regulations themselves. As in Abbott Laboratories, “the impact of the regulations upon the [plaintiffs] is sufficiently direct and immediate as to render the issue appropriate for judicial review at this stage.” Abbott Labs., 387 U.S. at 152, 87 S.Ct. at 1517. Because plaintiffs’ equal protection and substantive due process claims are “fit for judicial resolution, and ... [the] regulation requires an immediate and significant change in the plaintiffs’ conduct of their affairs with serious penalties attached to noncompliance, access to the courts ... must be permitted.” Id. at 153, 87 S.Ct. at 1518. 9 We therefore examine the merits of these claims.