Opinion ID: 6330216
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Lack of an Injury-in-Fact and Lack of Causation

Text: Even if Plaintiffs asserted a colorable claim, they still do not have standing to bring it because, as the district court found, the challenged rezoning procedure of Johnstown did not apply to Plaintiffs’ property. For this basic reason, Plaintiffs have failed to establish an injuryin-fact and causation.
Recall that to suffer an Article III injury, the plaintiff must establish “an invasion of a legally protected interest.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560. To establish the invasion of a legally protected interest, “a plaintiff must show that the plaintiff has a right to relief if the court accepts the plaintiff’s interpretation of the constitutional or statutory laws on which the complaint relies.” CHKRS, LLC, 984 F.3d at 488 (citations omitted). No. 21-3268 Rice, et al. v. Village of Johnstown, Ohio Page 21 If we accepted Plaintiffs’ theory that Johnstown’s delegation of legislative authority to the P&Z Commission deprived them of a protected property interest without affording an adequate procedure, Plaintiffs would still lack a right to relief. That is so because Plaintiffs’ property was and remains in Monroe Township, subject to Monroe Township’s zoning ordinances. Therefore, Johnstown’s rezoning procedure did not apply to Plaintiffs’ property and could not change the zoning status of Plaintiffs’ property even if Johnstown had approved Plaintiffs’ rezoning application. If the challenged provision does not apply to the plaintiff, then the plaintiff cannot establish an injury-in-fact and lacks standing to challenge the provision. See FW/PBS, Inc. v. City of Dallas, 493 U.S. 215, 231–35 (1990) (finding that the plaintiffs lacked standing because the challenged ordinances did not apply to the plaintiffs); Déjà Vu of Cincinnati, L.L.C. v. Union Tp. Bd. of Trs., 411 F.3d 777, 795 (6th Cir. 2005) (en banc) (finding that a plaintiff-employer lacked standing to challenge disability provisions because the provisions did not apply to the plaintiff’s employees); East Brooks Books, Inc. v. City of Memphis, 48 F.3d 220, 227 (6th Cir. 1995) (same); L.M.P. on behalf of E.P. v. Sch. Bd. of Broward County, Fla., 879 F.3d 1274, 1281–82 (11th Cir. 2018) (finding that the plaintiffs lacked standing because the challenged school board policy did not apply to them). Here, there is no reason to depart from this established rule. However, the majority would find that Plaintiffs have standing because Johnstown’s ordinances did apply to Plaintiffs. The majority gets there by pointing out that Plaintiffs’ rezoning application went through Johnstown’s rezoning procedure, that Johnstown did not require annexation before an applicant could submit a rezoning application, and that it is typical practice for the rezoning and annexation processes to run together. Maj. Op., at 11–15. But it is the legal territorial status of Plaintiffs’ property that determines whether Johnstown’s rezoning procedure applied to Plaintiffs, not the typical practices of property developers or whether Johnstown allows rezoning applications for properties outside its jurisdiction. Standing requires the invasion of an actual legally protected interest, not a hypothetical or hoped-for one. No. 21-3268 Rice, et al. v. Village of Johnstown, Ohio Page 22 The majority holds that under the relaxed standing requirements for a procedural injury, Plaintiffs suffered an injury-in-fact. See Maj. Op. at 11–13. But the relaxed standing requirements for a procedural injury do not save Plaintiffs from their standing deficiencies. It is true that we relax standing requirements for procedural injuries. See Parsons v. U.S. DOJ, 801 F.3d 701, 712 (6th Cir. 2015). Procedural injuries do not require as much to confer standing because procedural rights do “not depend on upon the merits of a claimant’s substantive assertions.” Carey v. Piphus, 435 U.S. 247, 266 (1978); Lujan, 504 U.S. at 572 n.7 (finding that the plaintiff had standing to assert a procedural right “even though he cannot establish with any certainty” the desired outcome of the procedure). As the majority notes, “[w]hen the plaintiff is an object of the challenged action ‘there is ordinarily little question that the action or inaction has caused him injury.’” Maj. Op. at 13 (quoting Thomas More L. Ctr. v. Obama, 651 F.3d 529, 537 (6th Cir. 2011) (quotation marks omitted)). Still, the “Due Process Clause ‘does not protect procedure for procedure’s sake.’” Fowler v. Benson, 924 F.3d 247, 259 (6th Cir. 2019) (quoting Rector v. City and County of Denver, 348 F.3d 935, 943 (10th Cir. 2003)). That is, the procedure must not only be “designed to protect” the plaintiff’s concrete interest, Lujan, 504 U.S. at 573 n.8, the procedure must be able to protect the plaintiff’s concrete interest, see Wright v. O’Day, 706 F.3d 769, 772 (6th Cir. 2013). Therefore, if the procedure is not able to protect the plaintiff’s interest, then the plaintiff cannot suffer a procedural injury. See Morgan v. McCotter, 365 F.3d 882, 889–90 (10th Cir. 2004) (holding that if the procedure cannot protect the plaintiff’s interest, then the plaintiff did not sustain an injury through the denial of due process) (citing Michael H. v. Gerald D., 491 U.S. 110, 127 n.5 (1989) (plurality opinion)). Two cases are instructive on this principle. In Rector, the plaintiffs brought a procedural due process claim that challenged the adequacy of procedures provided to those who receive parking tickets. 348 F.3d at 940. But the plaintiffs did not suffer a procedural injury because they never utilized the procedures to challenge their parking tickets on the merits. Therefore, the alleged deficiencies in the city’s procedures did not cause an injury “because there was nothing for [the procedures] to decide.” Id. at 945; see also Herrada v. City of Detroit, 275 F.3d 553, No. 21-3268 Rice, et al. v. Village of Johnstown, Ohio Page 23 558 (6th Cir. 2001) (holding that the plaintiff lacked standing to challenge a procedure under the due process clause because she was never subjected to that procedure). Another court with facts similar to those in this case held that the plaintiff lacked a procedural injury because the challenged procedures did not apply to the plaintiff. See Brewer v. D.C., 105 F. Supp. 3d 74, 96–97 (D.D.C. 2015). There, the plaintiff did not suffer a procedural injury because the plaintiff was a retiree and not subject to the procedural protections for teachers. Id. at 97. Even if the District of Columbia did not afford adequate procedural protections to the plaintiff, the plaintiff “was neither harmed by this failure nor stands to gain from its correction.” Id. In other words, the challenged procedures could not accomplish anything for the plaintiff because they did not apply to the plaintiff. As in Rector and Brewer, so too here. Plaintiffs’ Eubank claim challenges the adequacy of the Johnstown rezoning procedure. They claim that an inadequate rezoning procedure affected a procedural injury tied to an economic interest in their rezoning application. But even an inadequate procedure could not help them here because Johnstown’s rezoning procedure cannot accomplish a rezoning of Plaintiffs’ property. A counterfactual scenario helps to illustrate this point. If the P&Z Commission and the Village Council had approved Plaintiffs’ rezoning application, the property’s zoning status would not have changed. Approval of Plaintiffs’ rezoning application would have had no legal effect. As the district court found, Johnstown’s zoning procedures did not legally apply to Plaintiffs’ property because Johnstown did not have jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ property. Therefore, since Johnstown’s rezoning procedure could not accomplish what Plaintiffs sought, they did not suffer a procedural injury. We do not protect procedure for procedure’s sake. The majority says that the facts distinguish these cases because Johnstown told Plaintiffs that “there would be no issue with the annexation piece,” and that statements like this one demonstrated that the ordinance applied to Plaintiffs. Maj. Op. 12. But the legal territorial status of Plaintiffs’ property determines whether the ordinance applied to Plaintiffs, not Johnstown’s alleged statements. Plaintiffs’ property was never within the territory of Johnstown. Therefore, the ordinance did not apply because the ordinance could not accomplish a rezoning of a property No. 21-3268 Rice, et al. v. Village of Johnstown, Ohio Page 24 not within its jurisdiction. In other words, the procedure could not accomplish what Plaintiffs wanted. Therefore, under this principle as illustrated in Rector and Brewer, Plaintiffs did not suffer a procedural injury. Neither does this principle, properly understood, require “a change in the status quo ante” to establish an injury-in-fact. Maj. Op. at 12–13. A procedural injury requires that the challenged procedure can change the status quo ante. But whether the procedure does so is irrelevant to establishing a procedural injury. This explains why the existence of a procedural injury does not depend on whether the plaintiff’s claim to the desired outcome through use of the challenged procedure has merit. See Lujan, 504 U.S. at 572 n.7. Hence, a woman claiming to have been denied public employment because of her gender has standing to challenge the law, action, or procedure which, applied to her, prevented her from obtaining employment. See Maj. Op. at 12–13 (citing Dothard v. Rawlinson, 433 U.S. 321, 323 (1977)). But here, the challenged procedure could not change the status quo ante for Plaintiffs. It is true that Johnstown not only denied the requested rezoning, it also denied Plaintiffs’ petition to annex their property by letting the petition lapse. But the Village Council’s allowing that petition to lapse does not mean that the challenged rezoning procedure somehow applied to Plaintiffs. For one, at no point in time could Johnstown’s rezoning procedure accomplish a rezoning of Plaintiffs’ property because annexation never happened. For another, Johnstown’s ordinances do not regulate the annexation procedure in Ohio. Rather, a series of state statutes from the Ohio Revised Code regulate annexation. And more parties than Johnstown have a say in annexing Plaintiffs’ property. Under the annexation process that Plaintiffs utilized, property owners seeking annexation must petition the board of county commissioners in the county where the property is located. See Ohio Rev. Code § 709.02. Upon review and according to several criteria, the board of county commissioners by resolution grants or denies the petition for annexation. Id. at § 709.033. Interested parties can appeal the board’s grant or denial of the petition. Id. If the commissioners grant the petition and no interested party appeals, the board of county commissioners sends the resolution to the municipality. Id. at § 709.04. The municipality must either accept or reject the resolution. Id. No. 21-3268 Rice, et al. v. Village of Johnstown, Ohio Page 25 Whether the municipality’s decision is accepted or rejected, any of the interested parties have a right to appeal it to the county court of common pleas. Id. at § 709.07. Those parties include the agent for the petitioners, owners of property in the territory proposed for annexation, any township in the territory proposed for annexation, and the municipality itself. Id. Furthermore, an appeal stays the final decision until after the courts affirm or reverse the decision. Id. Here, while Johnstown had a say in the annexation process for Plaintiffs’ property, it did not have full control of the process. Even if Johnstown’s Village Council had not let Plaintiffs’ petition lapse, any of the interested parties, including Monroe Township, could have appealed, stayed the annexation, and the matter would have gone to state court. And interested parties have utilized this statutory right to appeal annexation decisions in the past.2 In the end, Plaintiffs’ injury-in-fact depends on too many “ifs.” If Johnstown had told Plaintiffs to file a petition to annex before rezoning, if Johnstown’s Village Council had not let their petition to annex lapse, if none of the interested parties appealed their petition, and if the state courts had affirmed approval of Plaintiffs’ annexation petition, then the challenged rezoning procedure would have applied to Plaintiffs. This is a great example of the old saw: “if we had some ham we could have a ham sandwich if we had some bread.” Kardules v. City of Columbus, 95 F.3d 1335, 1358 (6th Cir. 1996) (Batchelder, J., concurring). For these reasons, Plaintiffs have not established an injury-in-fact and therefore, they lack standing to bring a Eubank claim against Johnstown.
Plaintiffs also failed to establish causation for the same reasons that they failed to establish an injury-in-fact. To establish causation, a plaintiff must show “a causal connection between the injury and the conduct.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560. That is, “the injury has to be fairly 2 See, e.g., State ex. rel. Overholser Builders, L.L.C. v. Clark Cnty. Bd. of Commrs., No. 2007 CA 36, 2008 WL 5104738 (Ohio Ct. App.); In re Petition for Annexation of 368.08 Acres, More or Less, in Springfield Twp., 706 N.E.2d 1 (Ohio. Ct. App. 1997); Thornton v. Salak, Nos. 03 CA 63, 03 CA 64, 2005 WL 749821 (Ohio Ct. App.); Concord Twp. Bd. of Trs. v. Painesville, 822 N.E.2d 386 (Ohio Ct. App. 2004); Washington Twp. Bd. of Trs. v. McLaughlin, 690 N.E.2d 1348 (Ohio Ct. App. 1997). No. 21-3268 Rice, et al. v. Village of Johnstown, Ohio Page 26 traceable to the challenged action.” Id. (quotation marks and alterations omitted). However, we relax the causation requirement for procedural injuries. Maj. Op. at 13 (quoting Klein v. U.S. Dep’t of Energy, 753 F.3d 576, 579 (6th Cir. 2014)). In other words, causation does not require certainty that a plaintiff would get the desired outcome through the challenged procedure. See Wright, 706 F.3d at 772. But these relaxed causation requirements are still requirements that the plaintiff must meet. See Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. Lueckel, 417 F.3d 532, 539 (6th Cir. 2005) (“[T]he particular nature of a case does not—and cannot—eliminate any of the ‘irreducible’ elements of standing . . . .” (quotation omitted)). Similar to an injury-in-fact, causation still requires that the challenged procedure can accomplish what the plaintiff sought. Therefore, if another cause blocked the plaintiff’s desired outcome, then the challenged procedure did not cause the plaintiff’s alleged injury. See Kiser v. Kamdar, 831 F.3d 784, 792 (6th Cir. 2016) (holding that the challenged procedure did not cause the plaintiff’s alleged injury because another source caused the alleged injury). Here, the legal territorial status of Plaintiffs’ property blocked Johnstown’s rezoning procedure from rezoning Plaintiffs’ property. As in Kamdar, something else—Monroe Township’s jurisdiction over the property—caused Plaintiffs’ alleged injury, not the challenged rezoning procedure. Further disrupting the causal connection here, Johnstown did not require Plaintiffs to file a petition to annex concurrent with their application to rezone. As the district court correctly noted, Plaintiffs chose to do both at the same time and for that reason, they caused their own injury. This self-inflicted injury disrupted the causal connection between the challenged procedure and the denial of rezoning. “A self-inflicted injury, by definition, is not traceable to anyone but the plaintiff.” Bucholz v. Meyer Njus Tanick, PA, 946 F.3d 855, 866 (6th Cir. 2020). A plaintiff cannot establish traceability “when an injury is ‘so completely due to the [plaintiff’s] own fault as to break the causal chain.’” Id. (quotation omitted). Taylor v. F.D.I.C. from the D.C. Circuit provides an instructive example for our purposes, and one cited with approval by this court. See No. 21-3268 Rice, et al. v. Village of Johnstown, Ohio Page 27 Bucholz, 946 F.3d at 866. In Taylor, two disgruntled employees quit of their own volition after their employer reassigned them to other positions. 132 F.3d 753, 767 (D.C. Cir. 1997). The employees sued seeking reinstatement. Id. But the plaintiffs lacked standing because their voluntary choice to quit caused an “injury that [was] in large part self-inflicted.” Id. Here, Plaintiffs’ choices caused their own injury. As the plaintiffs in Taylor chose to resign, Plaintiffs here chose to apply for rezoning before their property was annexed to Johnstown. The majority points to a representation that Johnstown made in a letter to Plaintiffs stating that the annexation can be approved contemporaneous with approval of rezoning. Maj. Op. at 14. But that letter merely spelled out the “potential annexation results under different zoning outcomes.” In fact, Johnstown encouraged and advised Plaintiffs to seek legal counsel “to fully understand all of the potential outcomes of annexation petitions under Ohio law.” Furthermore, Johnstown emphasized that the letter “should not be interpreted as Village support for either process.” Johnstown did not require Plaintiffs to petition for annexation and apply for a rezoning at the same time. In applying for both contemporaneously, they willingly subjected their rezoning application to Johnstown’s rezoning procedure before their property was annexed to Johnstown. That risky choice caused their claimed injury. As the district court put it, “[t]hat this risk did not pay off was not caused by the alleged unlawful delegation to the P&Z Commission.” For these reasons, Plaintiffs failed to establish causation.