Court Opinion

ID: 9702502
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:14:09.850941+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:38.086482
License: Public Domain

FLANDERS,-Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Although I agree with most of the court’s rulings on this appeal and with much of its reasoning in support of these rulings, I write separately because I wish to comment on what I perceive to be the legal significance of several aspects of the court’s opinion and because I respectfully disagree with some facets of the majority’s analysis.
I
The Availability of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to Enforce Private-Property Rights
In Jolicoeur Furniture Co. v. Baldelli, 653 A.2d 740 (R.I.1995), the court refused to *215apply 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (“ § 1983”) to a claim that private property owners had been deprived of their property in violation of their right to substantive due process and to just compensation for a municipality’s temporary taking of their property. Noting that the Jolicoeur plaintiffs were not members of a distinct, oppressed minority group, the court said that because they were only seeking to enforce a private-property right (a contract to purchase land from the municipality to build their furniture store) as opposed to what it considered to be a fundamental civil right (such as voting rights, jury or job discrimination, school desegregation, or the like), the “plaintiffs have merely stated private claims that address no public right or interest and that are actionable and compen-sable under state law. We therefore hold as a matter of law that defendants did not take plaintiffs’ property in violation of ‘the Constitution and laws’ of the United States.” Jolicoeur Furniture Co., 653 A.2d at 750. The court also rejected the plaintiffs’ substantive due process claims because, contrary to what the jury and trial justice had concluded, the court did not believe that either the municipality or the individual governmental officials responsible for interfering with the city’s real estate contract with Jolicoeur had acted in a way that was “ ‘egregiously unacceptable, outrageous, or conscience-shocking.’ ” Id. at 751.
Today, however, the court puts to rest any notion that § 1983 cannot be invoked in a Rhode Island State Court action against local governmental authorities by persons seeking to enforce private-property rights. The plaintiffs here are real-estate developers who seek to maximize the profit they can make from their land holdings. As in Jolicoeur plaintiffs are not looking to vindicate any broad public interest but are simply taking steps to enforce their own private-property rights. Their claims do not affect other fun-damentai civil rights such as voting rights, jury or job discrimination, school desegregation, or the like. Nor are they members of any distinct, oppressed minority group. Nonetheless, even though their claims address no other public right or interest (except to employ their land in its most valuable use) and are also actionable and compensable under state law (see III, infra), the court holds today that § 1983 can be used to vindicate such private-property rights if they are deprived without due process of law.
I agree with this result because the United States Supreme Court has long recognized that there is no distinction under § 1983 between private-property rights and other civil liberties: both are equally fundamental and protected by § 1983 and the Federal Constitution. See Lynch v. Household Finance Corp., 405 U.S. 538, 552, 92 S.Ct. 1113, 1122, 31 L.Ed.2d 424, 434-35 (1972) (“the dichotomy between personal liberties and property rights is a false one”). In applying § 1983 to a property-rights claim, the United States Supreme Court in Lynch stated:
“Property does not have rights. People have rights. The right to enjoy property without unlawful deprivation no less than the right to speak or the right to travel, is in truth, a ‘personal’ right[.] * * * That rights in property are basic civil rights has long been recognized.” Id. at 552, 92 S.Ct. at 1122, 31 L.Ed.2d at 435.
As Justice Holmes put it, “Property is protected because such protection answers a demand of human nature, and therefore takes the place of a fight.” Davis v. Mills, 194 U.S. 451, 457, 24 S.Ct. 692, 695, 48 L.Ed. 1067, 1071 (1904). Moreover, in the more recent private-property-takings case of Dolan v. City of Tigard, 512 U.S. 374, 392, 114 S.Ct. 2309, 2320, 129 L.Ed.2d 304, 321 (1994), the United States Supreme Court reaffirmed the proposition 4 that private-property rights stand on an equal constitutional footing with *216other fundamental personal civil liberties: “We see no reason why the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, as much a part of the Bill of Rights as the First Amendment or Fourth Amendment, should be relegated to the status of a poor relation in these comparable circumstances.” See also Kirchberg v. Feenstra, 708 F.2d 991, 998-99 (5th Cir.1983) (holding that the mere fact that private and not public rights have been vindicated in a § 1988 claim is not a reason to deny attorney’s fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988).
Accordingly, to the extent the Jolicoeur decision purported to preclude § 1983 from being used by private property owners to vindicate their private-property rights in a Rhode Island State Court action, the court today removes that barrier and restores § 1983 to its proper role in a state court action as an important means to remedy local governmental violations of federally protected rights — including the right not to be deprived of one’s private property without due process of law.
II
As Owners of Undeveloped Real Estate, Plaintiffs Possessed a Property Interest That Could Not Be Deprived without Due Process of Law
As previously stated, plaintiffs were real-estate developers who owned undeveloped parcels of land in the town of Cumberland (the town) when the town applied an invalid zoning amendment to their property so as to preclude them from proceeding with a lawful subdivision and sale of the land. When this action occurred, plaintiffs had neither sought nor obtained any building permit for their proposed development projects; they had failed to obtain final approval on any of their subdivision plans; and they had not as yet started to sell, much less to build upon, any of the parcels. Nonetheless, both the trial justice and this court have held that the developer plaintiffs were deprived of a constitutionally protected property interest when the local governmental authorities arbitrarily and irrationally refused to award a permit for their residential subdivision plans. I believe this result accords with long-standing federal constitutional principles that recognize that “[t]he right of [an owner] to devote [his or her] land to any legitimate use is property within the protection of the Constitution.” Washington ex rel Seattle Title Trust Co. v. Roberge, 278 U.S. 116, 121, 49 S.Ct. 50, 52, 73 L.Ed. 210, 213 (1928). “The Due Process Clause guarantees more than fair process * * * [it] specially protects those fundamental rights and liberties which are, objectively, ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.’ ” Washington v. Glucksberg, — U.S. -, 117 S.Ct. 2258, 138 L.Ed.2d 772 (1997) (quoting the plurality opinion in Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 503, 97 S.Ct. 1932, 1938, 52 L.Ed.2d 531, 540 (1977)).
Thus, pursuant to the United States Supreme Court’s early zoning cases of Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365, 47 S.Ct. 114, 71 L.Ed. 303 (1926), and Nectow v. City of Cambridge, 277 U.S. 183, 48 S.Ct. 447, 72 L.Ed. 842 (1928), local land-use laws must have a substantial relation to legitimate state interests and may not be arbitrarily or capriciously applied to individual properties and/or to their owners. “The governmental power to interfere by zoning regulations with the general rights of the land owner by restricting the character of his use, is not unlimited, and other questions aside, such restriction cannot be imposed if it does not bear a substantial relation to the public health, safety, morals, or general welfare.” Nectow, 277 U.S. at 188, 48 S.Ct. at 448, 72 L.Ed. at 844; see also Nollan v. California Coastal Commission, 483 U.S. 825, 834 n. 2, 107 S.Ct. 3141, 3147 n. 2, 97 L.Ed.2d 677, 687 n. 2 (1987) (“the right to build on one’s own property — even though its exercise can be subjected to legitimate permitting requirements — cannot remotely be described as a ‘governmental benefit,’” that is, merely a privilege); Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 97 S.Ct. 1932, 52 L.Ed.2d 531 (1977) (invalidating zoning ordinance limiting occupants of a “single dwelling unit” to es*217sentially members of a nuclear family as violative of Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process); id. at 513, 97 S.Ct. at 1943, 52 L.Ed.2d at 546 (Stevens, J., concurring on the basis of substantive due process protection of property ownership); Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 263, 97 S.Ct. 555, 562, 50 L.Ed.2d 450, 463 (1977) (long-term property lessee denied a rezoning permit for development of low-income housing had standing to assert its right to “be free of arbitrary or irrational zoning actions”); Frank Ansuini, Inc. v. City of Cranston, 107 R.I. 63, 68-71, 264 A.2d 910, 913-14 (1970) (a planning commission did not have power to require developers to donate a minimum percentage of their proposed subdivision for recreational purposes); Robert E. Riggs, Substantive Due Process in 1791, 1990 Wis. L.Rev. 941 (arguing that the “law of the land” was the accepted equivalent of “due process of law” and that the former phrase has historically embraced substantive as well as procedural rules).
The court today confirms that private property owners are entitled to substantive due process protection in connection with local governmental efforts to limit and restrain the use of their property. In the case of DeBlasio v. Zoning Board of Adjustment, 53 F.3d 592 (3rd Cir.1995), the Third Circuit articulated the standard to be applied in determining whether a property owner’s right to substantive due process has been violated.
“[0]wnership is a property interest worthy of substantive due process protection. * * * Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to find a property interest more worthy of substantive due process protection than ownership. Thus, in the context of land use regulation, that is, in situations where the governmental decision in question impinges upon a landowner’s use and enjoyment of property, a land-owning plaintiff states a substantive due process claim where he or she alleges that the decision limiting the intended land use was arbitrarily or irrationally reached. Where the plaintiff so alleges, the plaintiff has, as a matter of law, impliedly established possession of a property interest worthy of substantive due process protection.” Id. at 600-01.
Although I agree with the majority’s conclusion that defendants’ conduct here was indeed egregious, in my view it did not have to be so — much less “‘conscience-shocking,’” Jolicoeur, 653 A.2d at 751—for plaintiffs to establish a substantive due process violation. Rather, as indicated by the above-cited authorities, all that had to be shown was that the enactment and application of the new zoning and planning laws to plaintiffs’ property was arbitrary and not rationally in furtherance of any legitimate governmental interest. See Glucksberg, — U.S. at-, 117 S.Ct. at 2271, 138 L.Ed.2d at 792 (“[t]he Constitution also requires, however, that [legislation] be rationally related to legitimate government interests”); Eide v. Sarasota County, 908 F.2d 716, 721 (11th Cir.1990) (recognizing substantive due process claim where the plaintiff alleges that a property regulation is “arbitrary and capricious, does not bear a substantial relation to the public health, safety, morals, or general welfare, and is therefore an invalid exercise of the police power”). Such a claim is one alleging that the regulations at issue are arbitrary and capricious either on their face or as applied to a plaintiffs particular piece of property. See id. at 722.
Ill
The Alleged Inadequacy of Any Remedy under Rhode Island Law for Due-Process Violations
The majority concludes that “the postde-privation remedy under state law is inadequate to compensate the plaintiffs” for the procedural and substantive due process viola*218tions that are at issue in this case. The basis for this aspect of the court’s ruling is that “the statutory limitation on damages under the Governmental Tort Liability Act clearly rendered inadequate the postdeprivation relief available to remedy the due process violations in this case.” However, the $100,000 cap provided for by the Governmental Tort Liability Act, G.L.1956 chapter 31 of title 9, only applies to tort actions against municipalities, not to constitutional claims such as these. See, e.g., Thompson v. Village of Hales Corners, 115 Wis.2d 289, 340 N.W.2d 704, 708-09 (1983) (refusing to apply state statutory recovery ceiling to § 1983 claims). Moreover, it has no application to tort suits against the individual governmental officials who perpetrated the due process violations that occurred here. Pridemore v. Napolitano, 689 A.2d 1053, 1056 (R.I.1997) (appending unpublished decision in Hudson v. Napolitano, No. 86-291-A. (R.I., filed May 20,1987), holding that statutory tort cap does not apply to an individual governmental official’s own tortious actions). The plaintiffs have not shown that pursuing a damages remedy against these individuals for their tortious misconduct would be inadequate. Indeed in Jolicoeur the court affirmed a tortious-inter-ference damages award against the individual municipal officials who were responsible for the interference with a contract that was at issue in that ease. Jolicoeur, 653 A.2d at 753 (“[although defendants here may have had good motives because of the potential loss of state funds to the city, they were not legally justified in their attempt to obstruct the successful completion of the contract between the city and plaintiffs”). Thus I see no reason why such a remedy would be inadequate in this case.
Moreover, in addition to pursuing individual tort actions against the municipal officials responsible for the interference with plaintiffs’ prospective economic advantages, article 1, section 2, of the Rhode Island Constitution provides that “[n]o person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.” Before Rhode Island’s Constitution was amended in 1986, article 1, section 2, had been held to be merely advisory and not mandatory in nature because it had been addressed to the General Assembly as advice and direction rather than to the courts as a restraint on the legislative power. See Sepe v. Daneker, 76 R.I. 160, 168, 68 A.2d 101, 105 (1949). All this changed in 1986 when the framers of the new State Constitution decided to add equal-protection, due process, and antidiscrimi-nation clauses to this section of our state constitution. “The intent of the resolution [adding these clauses] was to include the due process and equal protection language of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in the Rhode Island Constitution. The Committee Report stated that including these protections in the state Constitution “would create an independent state foundation for individual rights.’ ” Constitution of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations at 2 (annotated edition published by the Office of Secretary of State — 1988).
Accordingly, Rhode Island’s constitution now includes the due process protections that are part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. To fulfill the framers’ intention that these new rights would “ ‘create an independent state foundation for individual rights,’ ” it would appear axiomatic that our state courts are required to remedy any violations of due process under this provision of the Rhode Island constitution. See also R.I. Const., art. 1, see. 5 (“[e]very person within this state ought to find a certain remedy, by having recourse to the laws, for all injuries or wrongs which may be received in one’s person, property, or character”).
Moreover, we have long had a provision in our State Constitution prohibiting takings for public use without just compensation. See R.I. Const., art. 1, sec. 16 (“[p]rivate property shall not be taken for public uses, without just compensation”). In Annicelli v. Town of South Kingstown, 463 A.2d 133 (R.I.1983), this court recognized that an inverse condemnation action would lie under the takings clauses of both the State and Federal Consti*219tutions for governmental regulations that deprive property owners of all beneficial use of their land without just compensation.
These state constitutional provisions provide property owners like these plaintiffs with adequate post-deprivation damages remedies for any alleged due process and takings violations. Cf. Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (1971) (holding a damages remedy exists directly under the Federal Constitution for Fourth Amendment violations). Moreover, any such state constitutional damage remedies would not be subject to the statutory cap on tort claims against state and municipal entities. (The $100,000 cap only applies to tort claims against state or municipal governmental entities, not to constitutional claims such as alleged due process and takings violations and not to breach-of-contract claims like those prosecuted to judgment in Jolicoeur.) Moreover, the cap would not apply to claims against state government officials sued in their individual capacities.
Nonetheless, despite the adequacy of Rhode Island’s post-deprivation-damage remedies for due process violations, plaintiffs here were still entitled to a meaningful pre-deprivation notice and hearing before their property could be rezoned, one which they failed to receive. Accordingly, I believe that plaintiffs’ federal procedural due process claims were actionable even though Rhode Island provides adequate post-deprivation-damage remedies for such violations. In this case, the municipality’s failure to provide a meaningful predeprivation notice and hearing was not the result of random and unauthorized acts by low-level governmental officials. Cf. Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 533, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 3203, 82 L.Ed.2d 393, 407 (1984) (“when deprivations of property are effected through random and unauthorized conduct of a state employee, predeprivation procedures are simply ‘impracticable’ since the state cannot know when such deprivations will occur”). Rather, it occurred when several of the highest policy-making officials in the town of Cumberland decided (for improper purposes) to apply a new, two-acre zoning scheme to plaintiffs’ property without following the requisite preadoption notiee-and-hearing procedure for doing so. Thus in this situation no postdeprivation hearing would remedy the failure to comply with the prede-privation notice-and-hearing mandates of state zoning laws, let alone with the state and federal constitutional imperatives to provide such predeprivation process. Thus, to avoid a procedural due process violation, the requisite notice and hearing for this type of a zoning change has to precede any property deprivation irrespective of the adequacy of the state’s post-deprivation-damage remedies for such a violation.
IV
Depriving Persons of Property without Due Process of Law Results in Greater Damages Than if the Property Is Lawfully Taken by Eminent Domain
Because plaintiffs prevailed on their § 1983 claims, they are entitled to full compensatory damages, including any lost profits that they can prove with reasonable certainty. Carey v. Piphus, 435 U.S. 247, 255-58, 98 S.Ct. 1042, 1047-49, 55 L.Ed.2d 252, 259-61 (1978) (applying what it called the “compensation principle,” the court observed that damage concepts from tort law will often be helpful in awarding damages in § 1983 cases). However, in eminent-domain proceedings, owners of unimproved property are not generally entitled to recover for anticipated but unrealized future profits. O’Donnell v. State, 117 R.I. 660, 665, 370 A.2d 233, 236 (R.I.1977) (citing 4 Nichols, Eminent Domain § 13.3 at 13-148.2, 13-161 (3d ed.1976)). Rather the measure of damages is the fair market value of the unimproved land as and when it was taken by the government. Ocean Road Partners v. State, 612 A.2d 1107, 1110 (R.I.1992). Although the value of the land should reflect its current market potential, the award does not normally include lost future profits.
Moreover, prevailing plaintiffs in § 1983 cases are entitled to an award of their reasonable attorney’s, fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988. In an eminent-domain proceeding *220the property owners have no such entitlement.
Accordingly, to avoid paying greater damages and facing personal-liability exposure under § 1983, local governments and their officials have a strong incentive to proceed by eminent domain or by agreement with the property owner rather than by attempting to deprive owners of their property without due process of law or by simply taking it via oppressive regulation without just compensation. If the measure of damages for these types of wrongful regulatory takings and deprivations were the same as those available in eminent-domain proceedings, governmental actors would have little or no incentive to proceed lawfully.
y
The Ripeness of Plaintiffs’ Substantive Due Process Claims Under § 1983
In Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank, 473 U.S. 172, 105 S.Ct. 3108, 87 L.Ed.2d 126 (1985), the United States Supreme Court held that a property owner’s federal takings and substantive due process damage claims were premature because the property owner “ha[d] not yet obtained a final decision regarding how it will be allowed to develop its property,” and “did not seek compensation through the procedures the State ha[d] provided for doing so.” Id. at 190, 194, 105 S.Ct. at 3118, 3120, 87 L.Ed.2d at 141, 143.
Here it would appear to me that the first prong of Williamson’s ripeness doctrine has been satisfied. The town’s decision not to allow plaintiffs to proceed with their proposed subdivision of their property was final. Although plaintiffs never sought a variance from the invalid two-acre zoning ordinance, no such application should be required when the ordinance itself is being facially challenged as invalid. See Suitum v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, — U.S. -, n. 10, 117 S.Ct. 1659, 1666 n. 10, 137 L.Ed.2d 980, 991 n. 10 (1997) (“‘facial’ challenges to regulation are generally ripe the moment the challenged regulation or ordinance is passed”); cf. Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 153, 87 S.Ct. 1507, 1518, 18 L.Ed.2d 681, 694 (1967) (FDA’s labeling regulation held ripe for challenge from drug manufacturers despite lack of any attempt by FDA to enforce the regulation against the manufacturers because FDA’s adoption of the regulation constituted a final agency decision and the regulation required “an immediate and significant change in the plaintiffs’ conduct of their affairs with serious penalties attached to noncompliance”), overruled on other grounds by Califano v. Sanders, 430 U.S. 99, 97 S.Ct. 980, 51 L.Ed.2d 192 (1977). However, for the reasons previously stated, plaintiffs have not even tried, much less exhausted, what I consider to be the adequate and ayailable state-damage remedies for defendants’ misconduct. Nonetheless, I do not believe the second exhaustion-of-state-remedies prong of Williamson’s ripeness doctrine applies to substantive due process claims like these.
The applicability of Williamson’s exhaustion of state-compensation-remedies requirement to substantive due process claims has resulted in a split among the federal circuit courts. Compare Pearson v. City of Grand Blanc, 961 F.2d 1211, 1215 (6th Cir.1992) (substantive due process claim arising from a zoning-change denial is ripe for judicial review without a variance application) with Culebras Enterprises Corp. v. Rivera Rios, 813 F.2d 506, 516 (1st Cir.1987) (“there can be no violation of substantive due process * * * at least until the state inverse condemnation proceeding is resolved”). But there should be no exhaustion requirement for substantive due process claims like those here because, unlike takings claims, the due process clause does not require a denial of just compensation before a property deprivation is actionable. In a property regulation context, substantive due process is concerned with the rationality of the state’s regulation and the nonarbitrariness of its selected means for doing so. Thus, proving whether a state provides an adequate remedy for the property owner to be compensated for such violations is not a condition precedent to stating a substantive due process claim. Indeed, even if the state adequately compen*221sates property owners for substantive due process violations, the challenged deprivation should not be allowed to stand if it is arbitrary, capricious, or devoid of any rational governmental purpose. Thus such substantive due process claims should be actionable in either state or federal court without first exhausting whatever otherwise adequate compensation remedies may be available under state law.
Moreover, the existence of constitutional and common-law remedies under state law is generally no bar to a § 1983 claim because such actions “exist independent of any other legal or administrative relief that may be available as a matter of federal or state law. They are judicially enforceable in the first instance.'” Felder v. Casey, 487 U.S. 131, 148, 108 S.Ct. 2302, 2312, 101 L.Ed.2d 123, 144 (1988) (quoting Burnett v. Grattan, 468 U.S. 42, 50, 104 S.Ct. 2924, 2929, 82 L.Ed.2d 36, 44 (1984)). Indeed, any state law rules or practices that may inhibit the prosecution of § 1983 actions in state courts are preempted by the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution. Id. at 138, 153, 108 S.Ct. at 2306-07, 2314, 101 L.Ed.2d at 137-38, 147; see also Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 183, 81 S.Ct. 473, 482, 5 L.Ed.2d 492, 503 (1961) (“[t]he federal remedy is supplementary to the state remedy, and the latter need not be first sought and refused before the federal one is invoked”), overruled on other grounds by Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978); Willbourn v. City of Tulsa, 721 P.2d 803, 805 (Okla.1986) (“the remedy provided by § 1983 must be independently enforceable even if a parallel state remedy is available”). As one commentator has noted:
“[T]he denial of access to state courts because of the existence of state remedies is inconsistent with the supplementary nature of the § 1983 remedy. Thus, when plaintiffs raise claims under § 1983 because of the superior federal remedial policies, including the availability of attorney fees, the disagreement of state courts with the federal policies is not a valid excuse for rejecting plaintiffs’ federally created actions or refusing to apply the remedial attributes of § 1983.” 1 Steven H. Steinglass, Section 1983 Litigation in State Courts § 10.4 at 10-13 (1996).
Thus, in Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U.S. 113, 124, 110 S.Ct. 975, 982, 108 L.Ed.2d 100, 113 (1990), the United States Supreme Court held that “overlapping state remedies are generally irrelevant to the question of the existence of a cause of action under § 1983.” The Court in Zinermon distinguished between § 1983 claims based on violations of substantive due process and those claims based on procedural due process, noting that only when a § 1983 claim raises procedural due process issues is the existence of an available state or common law remedy even relevant. Id. at 125-26, 110 S.Ct. at 983, 108 L.Ed.2d at 113-14. Quoting Monroe, 365 U.S. at 183, 81 S.Ct. at 482, 5 L.Ed.2d at 503, the Zinermon Court stated:
“It is no answer that the State has a law which if enforced would give relief. The federal remedy is supplementary to the state remedy, and the latter need not be first sought and refused before the federal one is invoked.” 494 U.S. at 124, 110 S.Ct. at 982, 108 L.Ed.2d at 113. (Emphasis added.)
Indeed, in Howlett v. Rose, 496 U.S. 356, 110 S.Ct. 2430, 110 L.Ed.2d 332 (1990), the United States Supreme Court held that in § 1983 eases state courts are obliged to enforce § 1983 claims “according to their regular modes of procedure”:
“Federal law is enforceable in state courts not because Congress has determined that federal courts would otherwise be burdened or that state courts might provide a more convenient forum * * * but because the Constitution and laws passed pursuant to it are as much laws in the States as laws passed by the state legislature. The Supremacy Clause makes those laws ‘the supreme Law of the Land,’ and charges state courts with a coordinate responsibility to enforce that law according to their regular modes of procedure.” 496 U.S. at 367, 110 S.Ct. at 2438, 110 L.Ed.2d at 347.
*222Accordingly I concur in the court’s decision to reach the merits of plaintiffs’ due process claims notwithstanding their failure to invoke or to pursue adequate and available state remedies.
VI
The Damages Award to L.A. Ray Realty
The majority of the court affirms the trial justice’s refusal to award lost-profits damages for the proposed subdivision and sale of lots in sections 3 and 4 of L.A. Ray Realty’s property. Because plans for these areas were not yet at the final approval stage, the trial justice believed that the town’s planning authorities could have rejected these development plans for any number of legitimate reasons.
However, the trial justice found that the plans were rejected for illegitimate and arbitrary reasons, thereby violating this plaintiffs right to substantive due process and depriving it of its right to use its property for any lawful purpose. Such conduct also amounts to a taking of property because it fails to “substantially advance[] legitimate state interests.” Nollan, 483 U.S. at 834, 107 S.Ct. at 3147, 97 L.Ed.2d at 687 (quoting Agins v. Tiburon, 447 U.S. 255, 260, 100 S.Ct. 2138, 2141, 65 L.Ed.2d 106, 112 (1980)); see also Alegria v. Keeney, 687 A.2d 1249, 1252 (R.I.1997). The fact that the town might have been able to reject final plans on sections 3 and 4 for some unknown but legitimate reason or reasons seems to me to be irrelevant. It did not in fact do so. Nor is it reasonable to assume that this plaintiff would have been unable to satisfy any legitimate objections that may have been raised to its proposed subdivision of sections 3 and 4. Indeed, under Dolan v. City of Tigard, 512 U.S. 374, 386-91, 114 S.Ct. 2309, 2317-20, 129 L.Ed.2d 304, 318-21 (1994), the burden of proof would be on the town to establish not only the existence of an “essential nexus” between the asserted legitimate governmental interests and the permitting conditions in question, but also a “rough proportionality” between any subdivision or development conditions it may seek to impose and the projected impact of the proposed subdivision/development on the municipality.
Moreover, I believe that plaintiff had already taken sufficient steps in reliance on the pre-1987 zoning scheme to allow it to proceed with the proposed subdivision of sections 3 and 4 of their property. See Tantimonaco v. Zoning Board of Review of Johnston, 102 R.I. 594, 602, 232 A.2d 385, 389 (1967) (“ ‘rights existing under an ordinance may not be swept aside by a subsequently enacted zoning ordinance, where, in reliance on the existing ordinance, expenses are incurred in preparing for the issuance of a permit’ ”); see also DeFalco v. Voccola, 557 A.2d 474, 476 (R.I.1989) (“[w]e have recognized the doctrine of equitable estoppel in zoning contexts”); Jones v. Rommell, 521 A.2d 543, 545 (R.I.1987) (“equity immunizes a building permit from cancellation when the property owner incurs substantial obligations in good-faith reliance on the issuance of the permit”); Shalvey v. Zoning Board of Review of Warwick, 99 R.I. 692, 210 A.2d 589 (1965). When the town unlawfully prevented plaintiff from proceeding with its planned subdivision of phases 3 and 4, it should be held liable for the plaintiffs lost-profits damages proximately caused by the town’s misconduct.
Conclusion
For these reasons, I concur in all aspects of the majority’s opinion except as indicated above. But I dissent from its decision not to award damages to L.A. Ray Realty for the town’s refusal to allow it to subdivide and sell sections 3 and 4 of its proposed development.

. Since as early as 1979 the United States Supreme Court has recognized that an action lies under § 1983 for the alleged improper deprivation of private-property rights by a governmental entily. See Lake Country Estates, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 440 U.S. 391, 394-400, 99 S.Ct. 1171, 1173-76, 59 L.Ed.2d 401, 405-09 (1979). More recently it has also recognized a direct right of action under the Fourteenth Amendment for a temporary regulatory taking of private property by a local governmental entity. First English Evangelical Lutheran Church v. County of Los Angeles, 482 U.S. 304, 315, 107 S.Ct. 2378, 2386, 96 L.Ed.2d 250, 264 (1987) (takings claim is "self-executing” under the Fifth and the Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution).