Opinion ID: 3022613
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Merits of the Substantive Due Process Claims

Text: The District Court dismissed appellants’ SDP facial challenge to the Ordinance on the ground that “[s]electing a recognized use of land and setting lot sizes of three acres on the face of a zoning ordinance is rationally related to a legitimate state interest, and is not egregious governmental abuse or official conduct against liberty or property rights that shock the conscience.” (App. 13.) The facial challenge being ripe, we first reject appellees’ contention, with which the District Court agreed, that under United Artists Theater Circuit, Inc. v. Twp. Of Warrington, Pa., 316 F.3d 392, 400 (3d Cir. 2003), government action does not violate substantive due process when merely motivated by an “improper motive,” as we had formerly held, but now must rise to the higher level of “shock[ing] the conscience,” a standard, appellees allege, with “the same practical effect” as a “taking.” (Appellees’ Letter Br. 7.) But United Artists did not apply the “shocks the conscience” standard to legislative action; rather, we clearly held in United Artists that “executive action violates substantive due process only when it shocks the conscience.” United Artists, 316 F.3d at 399-400 (emphasis added). There is a distinction in the standard of review for legislative and executive acts that allegedly violate substantive due process. As Judge, now Justice, Alito explained in Nicholas v. Pennsylvania State Univ., 227 F.3d 133, 139 (3d Cir. 2000), “typically, a legislative act will withstand substantive due process challenge if the government ‘identifies the legitimate state interest that the legislature could rationally conclude was served by the statute.’” Id. (citation omitted). On the other hand, non-legislative state action violates substantive due process if “arbitrary, irrational, or 13 tainted by improper motive,” or if “so egregious that it ‘shocks the conscience.’” Id. (citations omitted) When a municipal body in New Jersey acts to “either recommend[] or vot[e] for a change in the permitted uses in a zoning district,” the act is legislative in character. See Timber Properties v. Chester, 500 A.2d 757, 763 (N.J. Super. Ct. Law Div. 1984); see also Bow & Arrow Manor, Inc. v. West Orange, 307 A.2d 563, 567 (N.J. 1973) (“It is fundamental that zoning is a municipal legislative function.”). “‘[F]ederal judicial interference with a state zoning board’s quasi-legislative decisions, like invalidation of legislation for ‘irrationality’ or ‘arbitrariness,’ is proper only if the governmental body could have had no legitimate reason for its decision.’” Phillips v. Bd. of Keyport, 107 F.3d 164, 186 (3d Cir. 1997) (Alito, J., concurring and dissenting) (quoting Pace Resources, Inc., v. Shrewsbury Twp., 808 F.2d 1023, 1034 (3d Cir. 1987)) (emphasis added in Pace); see also Nicholas, 227 F.3d at 139. Thus, for appellants’ facial substantive due process challenge to the Ordinance to be successful, they must “allege facts that would support a finding of arbitrary or irrational legislative action by the Township.” Pace, 808 F.2d at 1035. In Pace, we affirmed the dismissal of a landowner’s SDP challenge to the facial validity of a zoning ordinance because the “complaint fail[ed] to make any factual allegations that indicate[d] irrationality,” and merely alleged that the zoning change in question “did not conform to the spirit and general guidelines of the comprehensive plan which encouraged industrial development.” Id. We explained that such an allegation only indicated that political compromise and difference of opinion were motivating the zoning ordinance. Things would have been different, we suggested, had the plaintiff “present[ed] a case involving actions aimed at this developer for reasons unrelated to land use planning.” Id. Appellants have alleged facts that indicate irrationality and arbitrariness, and “present a case involving actions aimed at [appellants] for reasons unrelated to land use planning.” See id. The complaint charges appellees with attempting to impede 14 appellants’ sand and gravel extraction operations on one tract, and their attempts to expand to another tract, through false accusations, verbal disparagement and the imposition of illegal conditions and restrictions on their business in violation a 1993 agreement. On the heels of this alleged animus, the Township enacted the Ordinance, which rezoned appellants’ land from Industrial to either Rural Residential or Open Space. While the land in question is of an industrial nature and has been zoned for industrial uses for close to fifty years, the new designations only permit single-family detached dwellings and a minimum lot size of three acres. Allegedly, this action was taken knowing that it violated appellants’ legal and contractual rights. There is nothing in the complaint that would indicate any possible motivation for the enactment of the Ordinance other than a desire to prevent appellants from continuing to operate and expand their extraction business. Such animus is not a legitimate reason for enacting a zoning ordinance, see Brady v. Town of Colchester, 863 F.2d 205, 216 (2d Cir. 1988), and is unrelated to land use planning. See Pace, 808 F.2d at 1035. Thus, appellants have alleged facts which, if true, state a claim that the Ordinance, on its face, violates substantive due process. While their claim may be ultimately unsuccessful if the Township is able to demonstrate a legitimate reason for the Ordinance, there was no basis for a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal.
As we noted above, appellants argue that the District Court reduced Count One “to bald allegations of a ‘substantive due process violation for enacting a zoning ordinance,’” but that “the[ir] complaint undeniably entails much more than this.” We agreed with that characterization, and discussed Blanche Road, where the SDP claim was that the defendant Township officers “engaged in a campaign of harassment designed to force [it] to abandon its development of [an] industrial park.” 57 F.3d at 258. In Blanche Road, we “reject[ed] defendants’ argument that [the plaintiff] failed to assert a constitutional claim because it has no vested property right that could be subject to a due process violation,” inasmuch as the plaintiff “had the right to be free from harassment in [its] land development efforts.” Id. at 15 268 n.15. Appellants have leveled similar allegations of harassment and obstruction and have, therefore, stated a substantive due process claim.