Opinion ID: 2975302
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Ripeness / Subject Matter Jurisdiction

Text: Among its many other proscriptions against government infringement on individual rights, the Fifth Amendment—which is made applicable against the states and their subdivisions through the Fourteenth Amendment—provides: “ . . . nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” U.S. CONST. amend. V (“Takings Clause”); see also Lingle v. Chevron U.S.A. Inc., 544 U.S. 528, 536 (2005). Read plainly, the Takings Clause—in conjunction with 28 U.S.C. § 1983, the remedial statute with which it is often paired—would seem to provide a clear hook for federal question jurisdiction under Article III. In other words, it would seem that if a plaintiff properly alleges a taking of his private property by a municipality, he has a cognizable claim in federal court. Although this is true, the Supreme Court has ruled that constitutional takings claims are not ripe for federal court review until state compensation procedures, assuming they exist and are adequate, have been exhausted: The recognition that a property owner has not suffered a violation of the Just Compensation Clause until the owner has unsuccessfully attempted to obtain just compensation through the procedures provided by the State for obtaining such compensation is analogous to the Court’s holding in Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 68 L.Ed.2d 420 (1981). There, the Court ruled that a person deprived of property through a random and unauthorized act by a state employee does not state a claim under the Due Process Clause merely by alleging the deprivation of property. In such a situation, the Constitution does not require predeprivation process because it would be impossible or impracticable to provide a meaningful hearing before the deprivation. Instead, the Constitution is satisfied by the provision of meaningful postdeprivation process. Thus, the State’s action is not “complete” in the sense of causing a constitutional injury “unless or until the State fails to provide an adequate postdeprivation remedy for the property loss.” Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 532, n. 12, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 3203, n. 12, 82 L.Ed.2d 393 (1984). Likewise, because the Constitution does not require pretaking compensation, and is instead satisfied by a reasonable and adequate provision for obtaining compensation after the taking, the State’s action here is not “complete” until the State fails to provide adequate compensation for the taking. Williamson County Reg’l Planning Comm’n v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U.S. 172, 195 (1985). The critical lesson to be derived from Williamson is that prior to exercising jurisdiction over a takings case, a federal court must first inquire into whether or not the relevant state compensation procedures are “reasonable, certain, and adequate.” McNamara, 473 F.3d at 638 (citing Williamson, 473 U.S. at 194). In Ohio, at least until recently, the inquiry into the adequacy of state compensation procedures was muddled at best, primarily because Ohio—unlike many other states—does not have “an inverse condemnation or other direct, statutory cause of action for plaintiffs seeking just compensation for a taking.” Coles, 448 F.3d at 861 (emphasis added); see also Kruse, 74 F.3d at 698. Instead, Ohio law provides for an action in mandamus to force a government actor who is seeking to take or who is actively taking private property to first bring an appropriation proceeding against the private owner. Coles, 448 F.3d at 861. The courts of this circuit had for many years been uncertain as to just how “adequate” a procedure this action in mandamus really was. See id. at 861-65 (recounting the relevant decisional history involving Ohio takings cases). No. 05-4331 River City Capital v. Board of County Commissioners, et al. Page 6 Fortunately, this uncertainty no longer exists, because the Coles Court conclusively resolved the Williamson issue as follows: Today, Ohio has “reasonable, certain, and adequate procedures” for plaintiffs to pursue compensation for an involuntary taking . . . . Over the last ten years Ohio courts, including the Ohio Supreme Court, have consistently recognized mandamus as the vehicle with which to contest an involuntary taking, no matter whether that taking is a regulatory or a physical one, and no matter whether the public actor is a state or local entity. Id. at 865 (emphasis added). Coles thus affirmed that the primary inquiry, at least for purposes of assessing ripeness, is whether or not an Ohio takings plaintiff has fully exhausted his state mandamus remedies before coming to federal court. If he has, then the case is ripe for our review. If he has not, then it is not. Coles further held that in assessing the ripeness of a takings claim, it is wholly immaterial whether the alleged taking is styled as “physical” or “regulatory.” This notion is consistent with the Supreme Court’s recent recognition in Lingle that the line between physical and regulatory takings is fuzzy at best. For example, while there are several different paths of inquiry in regulatory takings cases, “[e]ach aims to identify regulatory actions that are functionally equivalent to the classic taking in which government directly appropriates private property or ousts the owner from his domain.” Lingle, 544 U.S. at 539. The Coles holding would also seem to comport with common sense, because determination of whether there was a “taking” in the first instance—in which is subsumed the inquiry into whether the taking was “physical” or “regulatory”—is often heavily reliant on an interpretation of state law. And if a state court correctly determines that there was no taking to begin with, there would seem to be little reason for the federal Takings Clause even to apply. See, e.g., Stewart E. Sterk, The Demise of Federal Takings Litigation, 48 WM. & MARY L. REV. 251, 293 (2006) (“[I]f federal district courts were free to hear takings claims in the first instance, their determinations would not have the benefit of any comparable record with respect to state law. Appellate review would pass through the federal courts of appeals, bypassing altogether the state supreme courts, who remain the ultimate expositors of state property law.”). In light of these considerations, River City’s continued reliance on Kruse (and cases citing to Kruse, such as Buckles) is simply misplaced. Cf. Lytle v. Potter, 480 F.Supp.2d 986, 989 (N.D. Ohio 2006) (noting that after Coles, much of the Kruse decision is no longer controlling). Furthermore, even if some of the reasoning in Kruse were still valid, the facts presented here may be readily distinguished. In Kruse, an Ohio family returned home one day “to discover, to their intense amazement and dismay, that their backyard was missing. . . . Agents of the Village had been busily at work that day, devastating the [family’s] yard and carting off tons of soil excavated from the property, as well as the family’s trees, bushes, and other plantings.” 74 F.3d at 696. Long ago, the Kruses’ backyard had been part of a street owned by the Village, but it had formally vacated the street in the mid-1800s. Oddly, the Village presumed it still owned the street, and thus chose to pave over the Kruses’ yard without notice. The Kruses filed a trespass action against the Village in state court, and were victorious both at trial and on appeal. Id. (“[T]he state appellate court affirmed the grant of summary judgment to the Kruses, holding that the Village had clearly vacated the street in 1863 and that the Kruses, as deed holders of record, were entitled to quiet title of the property.”). Yet the state courts declined to consider whether the Kruses’ complaint raised a constitutional claim. In the view of the Kruse court, Ohio’s remedy in mandamus, whose efficacy had only been confirmed by the Ohio Supreme Court after the Kruses had filed suit in state court, see Levin v. City of Sheffield, 637 N.E.2d 319, 323-24 (Ohio 1994), was cold comfort now that the Kruses were seeking relief in the federal system: No. 05-4331 River City Capital v. Board of County Commissioners, et al. Page 7 There is no question that the Village effected a taking of the Kruses’ property. The state court has definitively ruled that title to the property belongs to them. The Village no longer contests either the fact that the property belongs to the Kruses or that the Village’s actions constituted a taking. All that remains is for the Village to provide compensation to the Kruses for the taking, something which the Village steadfastly refuses to do. In spite of the clear dictates of the Constitution, in spite of the illegality of the Village’s actions, and in spite of the fact that the Kruses filed, in accordance with some of the dictates of the Ohio Supreme Court, an action designed to obtain that compensation, the Village insists that until the Kruses file just the right kind of action to obtain the compensation to which even the Village admits they are entitled, the Village need not and will not pay. Kruse, 74 F.3d at 701. The facts in the instant case stand in stark contrast to those in Kruse. Unlike the Kruses, River City appears not to have filed a trespass action, a mandamus action, or indeed any action at all with the Ohio state courts. Nor is there any reason to believe, except based on River City’s alleged theories, that a “taking” attributable to Clermont County has actually occurred.2 And given the nature of River City’s takings allegations—which are quite novel in their assertion that Clermont County’s development policies have somehow appropriated to the public good what was formerly an entirely private rainwater drainage system—it would seem eminently reasonable for the state courts to be given first crack at this puzzle. See, e.g., Sterk, 48 WM. & MARY L. REV. 251, 300-01 (“[T]he unusual Williamson County ripeness doctrine tracks the unusual nature of federal takings claims, which are heavily dependent on the content of background state law. In light of that dependence, the Supreme Court’s takings doctrine effectively delegates much enforcement of the Takings Clause to the state courts, and that delegation will be far more effective if takings litigation is confined to one court system rather than two.”). In other words, the plaintiffs here are very much unlike the Kruses, who had already clearly established a taking via state court proceedings, but were now being rebuffed at the door to the federal courts by “Dickensian formalities.” Buckles, 90 F. App’x at 930. And unlike the Kruses, River City cannot claim it was unaware of the Ohio Supreme Court’s ruling in Levin, a decision published many years prior to the events giving rise to River City’s claim. See Coles, 448 F.3d at 863 (“The use of the writ of mandamus in such circumstances has been affirmed by the Ohio Supreme Court at least six times since 1996. Moreover, the Ohio intermediate appellate courts routinely accept mandamus actions from plaintiffs alleging a local government actor has unconstitutionally taken their property.”). In sum, River City’s takings claim is not ripe, and we therefore lack jurisdiction to hear it on the merits, as did the district court below. “Ripeness is more than a mere procedural question; it is determinative of jurisdiction. If a claim is unripe, federal courts lack subject matter jurisdiction and the complaint must be dismissed.” Bigelow v. Mich. Dep’t of Natural Resources, 970 F.2d 154, 157 (6th Cir. 1992) (quoting Southern Pac. Transp. Co. v. City of Los Angeles, 922 F.2d 498, 502 (9th Cir. 1990)). 2 River City continues to rest on the contention that because it has paid almost $272,000 in repairs, and because its property is consequently “worthless,” see Appellant’s Letter Br. at 6, a constitutionally cognizable taking must have occurred. First of all, there is no reason to believe that River City’s property is valueless. Having its storm sewer pipes repaired was a significant capital expenditure, to be sure, but assuming the repair was done properly, the market value of the property should not have been substantially diminished. Second, even if the market value of River City’s property were now zero, the federal Takings Clause would provide no relief if, as may well be the case, it was private—not public—action that resulted in River City’s losses. No. 05-4331 River City Capital v. Board of County Commissioners, et al. Page 8