Opinion ID: 572239
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Enforcement of the Ordinance

Text: 23 Appellants maintain that the district court incorrectly construed their complaint as only alleging a pre-enforcement facial challenge 30 to the precious metals ordinance enacted by the City of Orlando. Appellants argue that they have also complained of possible future attempts by Orlando to enforce the ordinance discriminatorily and arbitrarily by entrapping them into violations of the ordinance and that a prior instance of attempted entrapment by Orlando demonstrates Orlando's determination to enforce the precious metals ordinance discriminatorily and arbitrarily. Appellants maintain that this allegation creates a genuine issue of material fact that makes summary judgment inappropriate. 31 24 The district court found that appellants have shown some actual injury as a result of an alleged investigation of them by defendants. 32 The district court determined that appellants had rejected certain precious metals transactions out of fear of being arrested for violation of the ordinance. The district court also noted that appellants had submitted affidavits showing that they were threatened with enforcement of the ordinance. The district court ruled that these facts gave appellants standing to challenge the ordinance. We note that it was not necessary for appellants to have been harmed in order for them to make a pre-enforcement challenge to the constitutionality of the ordinance. 33 However, allegation of injury is a necessary component of appellants' section 1983 discriminatory and arbitrary enforcement claims. 25 The district court did not err in considering appellants' complaint as only alleging a pre-enforcement challenge to the ordinance. Appellants' claims that the ordinance has been and will be enforced discriminatorily and arbitrarily against them are premature, because they have yet to suffer any injury. No genuine issue therefore exists for resolution by a factfinder. 26 As to the alleged past efforts at enforcement or entrapment: appellants have not been charged with any violations of the ordinance, and they have suffered no discernible injury from the alleged discriminatory and arbitrary enforcement. 34 Moreover, we have examined the depositions and briefs carefully and can find no support for appellants' assertion that the ordinance has been enforced discriminatorily and arbitrarily. Appellants specifically argue that two depositions support their claims of discriminatory and arbitrary enforcement. 35 Appellants point to the deposition of a police officer assigned to enforce the ordinance as evincing improper enforcement of the ordinance. However, the officer deposed that over forty businesses provided the information required by the ordinance voluntarily, that at one time he requested that appellants provide the same information but that appellants refused, and that he had taken no action whatsoever against appellants for their refusal to comply with the ordinance. 36 From the officer's deposition, it appears that other secondhand goods dealers might have a claim of discriminatory enforcement, but not appellants. Appellants also point to the deposition of the police chief as evidencing discriminatory and arbitrary enforcement, but we could not discern any relevant information therein. 27 The record thus shows that the ordinance at issue has been used to obtain information from numerous businesses in the Orlando area. Appellants have not pointed to any evidence that there are other businesses who refuse to comply with the ordinance and who have not been subject to attempts to enforce the ordinance. If appellants' business is the only business that refuses to comply with the ordinance, the police would certainly be justified in singling out appellants' business for compliance checking. That appellants may have been subject to an enforcement attempt does not show in any way that such enforcement was discriminatory or arbitrary. 28 As to possible future attempts at enforcement: Appellants simply have not shown that the threatened injury they complain of is sufficiently ripe for judicial resolution. 37 Because appellants have not been formally charged with violations of the ordinance, appellants have not shown any evidence that they are immediately in danger of sustaining some direct injury as the result of the challenged official conduct or that the threat of injury is both real and immediate, not conjectural or hypothetical. 38 It is entirely hypothetical that appellants will violate the precious metals ordinance in the future. We assume that appellants will conduct their activities within the law and so avoid prosecution and conviction as well as exposure to the challenged course of conduct said to be followed 39 by the City of Orlando. In fact, the president of appellant Diversified Numismatics, appellant Richard Eargle, deposed that Diversified is in compliance with the ordinance because it does not at present purchase from the public any of the items regulated by the ordinance. 40 According to Eargle's statement, appellants are not in any danger of being caught in or entrapped into a violation of the ordinance by any efforts of the Orlando police. Appellants therefore have not presented a controversy that is sufficiently ripe for a court to adjudicate. Speculation is not sufficient to support an injunction against a contingency as remote as possible future attempts to enforce a valid ordinance. 29 We conclude that summary judgment was appropriate as to all of appellants' claims.