Court Opinion

ID: 9382535
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-27 22:00:30.582218+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:39.986916
License: Public Domain

United States Court of Appeals
                     For the First Circuit

No. 22-1485

                BACK BEACH NEIGHBORS COMMITTEE,

                     Plaintiff, Appellant,

                               v.

                       TOWN OF ROCKPORT,

                      Defendant, Appellee.

          APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
               FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

        [Hon. Nathaniel M. Gorton, U.S. District Judge]

                             Before

                  Kayatta, Lynch, and Howard,
                        Circuit Judges.

     Michael C. Walsh, with whom Walsh & Walsh LLP was on brief,
for appellant.
     Deborah I. Ecker, with whom KP Law, P.C. was on brief, for
appellee.

                         March 27, 2023
           LYNCH,      Circuit    Judge.        The    Back   Beach    Neighbors

Committee, an unincorporated association of individuals who reside

along or near Back Beach, a public beach in the Town of Rockport,

Massachusetts, sued the Town in federal district court, claiming

that the Town committed a class-of-one equal protection violation

by failing to adequately enforce various local rules against scuba

divers at Back Beach. The district court dismissed the Committee's

equal protection claim.          Back Beach Neighbors Comm. v. Town of

Rockport, 535 F. Supp. 3d 57, 63 (D. Mass. 2021).               We affirm.

                                        I.

                                        A.

           When reviewing the grant of a motion to dismiss for

failure to state a claim, "we accept as true all well-pleaded facts

alleged   in   the    complaint   and    draw   all    reasonable     inferences

therefrom in the [plaintiff]'s favor."                Legal Sea Foods, LLC v.

Strathmore Ins. Co., 36 F.4th 29, 34 (1st Cir. 2022) (alteration

in original) (quoting Alston v. Spiegel, 988 F.3d 564, 571 (1st

Cir. 2021)).

           Back Beach is one of several public beaches in the Town.

Across the street from Back Beach is a bathroom facility, a gazebo,

and public parking.        According to the Committee, the "parking

layout and metering" at Back Beach is "unlike [that at] any other

public area or beach in Town," making "access easier for strangers"

at Back Beach.       This ready access has allegedly made Back Beach a

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popular location in the last two decades for commercial scuba

diving.1

            The Committee alleges that the regular presence of scuba

divers has harmed the Committee members in various ways.                      For

example, the Committee alleges that noise from the divers and their

"clanging tanks" often can be heard early in the morning and past

midnight,    "depriving    the   [m]embers      of   sleep."       Further,   the

Committee claims that its members "have seen divers engaging in

actual public nudity" while "changing in the public street or

sidewalk,"       causing   distress     for    those     members     and   their

"impressionable" children and grandchildren.                   The divers also

purportedly leave "trash and refuse . . . strewn on the [Committee

members'] land" and park their cars in a manner that both causes

the members to be "blocked in their driveway[s], unable to drive

down the street, or unable to return home" and "prevent[s] fire

trucks and public safety vehicles" from accessing the area safely.

The Committee further alleges that some divers have "retaliat[ed]

against    the    Committee   [m]embers       for    summoning   the   police,"

including, in one instance, by "doxxing" a Committee member by

posting the member's "private personal information" onto a "niche

     1    As the district court noted, the Committee's reference
to "commercial" scuba diving ostensibly describes "professional
divers who provide equipment and instruction to paying customers,"
not "companies or individuals engaged in commercial fishing
operations." Back Beach Neighbors Comm., 535 F. Supp. 3d at 61
n.1.

                                      - 3 -
divers   internet     forum"   for   the    purpose    of   "embarrassment     or

harassment."     Ultimately, the divers' behavior has allegedly made

the    Committee    members    "no    longer    feel    safe   on   their     own

propert[ies]."

           The Committee alleges that the Town has a "bylaw against

diving"; a "beach regulation about changing in public"; a "bylaw

[that] prohibits commercial activities" and "limits large groups"

on public beaches; "rules and laws about day and nighttime beach

access"; and "parking rules at Back Beach."             The Committee claims

that   despite     its   members'    having    "made   concerted    efforts    to

persuade the Town . . . to mitigate the harmful effects of the

diving" by enforcing these various rules, the Town has failed to

do so, instead "opt[ing] to encourage diving at [Back Beach] unlike

[at] any other beach in the Town."

                                       B.

           On July 6, 2020, the Committee sued the Town in the U.S.

District Court for the District of Massachusetts.              The Committee's

complaint, as later amended, includes nine counts.              Count I of the

complaint brings a class-of-one equal protection claim against the

Town, alleging that the         "Back Beach [a]rea has been treated

differently than all other public beaches in [the Town]."                     The

Committee alleges that the Town's failure to consistently enforce

its various rules concerning diving, beach access, and parking has

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led to the "singl[ing] out [of Back Beach] as a place to welcome

divers."

            The Town moved to dismiss the complaint under Federal

Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), and on April 21, 2021, the

district court granted the motion as to Count I and six of the

eight other counts.    Back Beach Neighbors Comm., 535 F. Supp. 3d

at 67.   With respect to Count I, the court found that the Committee

had "fail[ed] to identify any individuals or groups to which it is

similarly situated" and thus had failed to plausibly allege a

class-of-one equal protection claim.    Id. at 63.

            The lawsuit proceeded with respect to the two surviving

counts until May 27, 2022, when the district court granted summary

judgment for the Town on those counts.     See Back Beach Neighbors

Comm. v. Town of Rockport, 605 F. Supp. 3d 243, 255 (D. Mass.

2022).     Judgment entered for the Town on June 3, 2022, and this

timely appeal, concerned only with the prior dismissal of Count I,

followed.

                                 II.

            We review de novo the district court's dismissal of the

complaint for failure to state a claim.2     Plazzi v. FedEx Ground

     2    At the outset, the Town contends that the Committee, as
an unincorporated association, is not a proper party to this
litigation, and thus that the Committee lacks associational
standing under the third prong of Hunt v. Washington State Apple
Advertising Commission, 432 U.S. 333 (1977). See id. at 343 ("[A]n
association has standing to bring suit on behalf of its members

                                - 5 -
Package Sys., Inc., 52 F.4th 1, 4 (1st Cir. 2022).             To survive a

motion to dismiss, the complaint must allege sufficient facts to

"state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face."             Ashcroft

v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v.

Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)).         Although we "accept as true

all well-pleaded facts alleged in the complaint and draw all

reasonable inferences therefrom in the [plaintiff]'s favor," Legal

Sea Foods, 36 F.4th at 34 (alteration in original) (quoting Alston,

988 F.3d at 571), we "credit neither 'conclusory legal allegations'

nor factual allegations that are 'too meager, vague, or conclusory

to   remove   the   possibility   of   relief   from   the   realm   of   mere

conjecture,'" id. at 33 (citation omitted) (first quoting Cardigan

Mountain Sch. v. N.H. Ins. Co., 787 F.3d 82, 84 (1st Cir. 2015);

when: (a) its members would otherwise have standing to sue in their
own right; (b) the interests it seeks to protect are germane to
the organization's purpose; and (c) neither the claim asserted nor
the relief requested requires the participation of individual
members in the lawsuit."). Because we find for the Town on the
merits, we bypass the prudential question of whether the Committee,
as opposed to its members, was the proper party to bring this
lawsuit. See United Food & Com. Workers Union Loc. 751 v. Brown
Grp., Inc., 517 U.S. 544, 555 (1996) ("[T]he associational standing
test's third prong is a prudential one."); Nisselson v. Lernout,
469 F.3d 143, 151 (1st Cir. 2006) (noting that "[t]he determination
of who may maintain an otherwise cognizable claim turns on a
question of prudential standing, not one of Article III standing,"
and thus may be bypassed); cf. Lexmark Int'l, Inc. v. Static
Control Components, Inc., 572 U.S. 118, 127 n.3 (2014) (declining
to decide whether limitations on third-party standing are
constitutional or prudential).

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and then quoting SEC v. Tambone, 597 F.3d 436, 442 (1st Cir. 2010)

(en banc)).

                  As the Supreme Court has recognized, a plaintiff can

bring an equal protection claim as a "class of one" even where the

plaintiff does "not allege membership in a class or group."3

Village of Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562, 564 (2000) (per

curiam).          In a class-of-one claim, the plaintiff must show that

"she       has    been   intentionally      treated    differently      from   others

similarly situated and that there is no rational basis for the

difference in treatment."             Id.

                  To   bear   their   burden   of     showing    that   others      are

"similarly situated," class-of-one plaintiffs must "identify[]

comparators who are 'similarly situated in all respects relevant

to   the         challenged   government     action.'"          McCoy   v.   Town    of

       3  The Town argues that a class-of-one equal protection
claim can only be brought by a single plaintiff, and thus that the
Committee (an unincorporated association with multiple members)
cannot bring such a claim.    But the Supreme Court has squarely
foreclosed this argument, stating that "[w]hether [a] complaint
alleges a class of one or of [more than one] is of no consequence
because . . . the number of individuals in a class is immaterial
for equal protection analysis." Village of Willowbrook v. Olech,
528 U.S. 562, 564 n.* (2000) (per curiam). Indeed, the Supreme
Court case that articulated the class-of-one framework involved a
complaint that "could [have been] read to allege a class of five."
Id. Our statement that "a class of one is not a class of many,"
Cordi-Allen v. Conlon, 494 F.3d 245, 254 (1st Cir. 2007), is not
to the contrary: this statement stands only for the proposition
that when the burdens identified by class-of-one plaintiffs are
also shared by non-plaintiffs, that fact undercuts an inference of
differential treatment. See id. Indeed, the class-of-one claim
in Cordi-Allen was brought by two plaintiffs. Id. at 248.

                                         - 7 -
Pittsfield,       59     F.4th       497,    507       (1st    Cir.     2023)    (quoting

Gianfrancesco v. Town of Wrentham, 712 F.3d 634, 640 (1st Cir.

2013)).     "Plaintiffs must show an                    'extremely high degree of

similarity'   between          themselves        and    those    comparators."         Id.

(quoting Cordi-Allen v. Conlon, 494 F.3d 245, 251 (1st Cir. 2007)).

Although an "[e]xact correlation" is not required, Cordi-Allen,

494 F.3d at 251 (alteration in original) (quoting Tapalian v.

Tusino, 377 F.3d 1, 6 (1st Cir. 2004)), class-of-one plaintiffs

must demonstrate that the comparators "have engaged in the same

activity    vis-à-vis            the       government         entity      without     such

distinguishing or mitigating circumstances as would render the

comparison inutile," id.

            The    Committee         has    failed      to    plausibly     allege    that

similarly situated comparators exist. As the district court noted,

the   complaint        makes    no     attempt      whatsoever     to     "identify    any

individuals   or       groups     to    which      [the      Committee]    is   similarly

situated, such as other residents or neighborhood associations" in

the Town.     Back Beach Neighbors Comm., 535 F. Supp. 3d at 63.

Instead, the Committee's claim is premised on the argument that

Back Beach has been treated differently from the Town's other

public beaches.

            Even if, as the Committee contends, the Town's public

beaches are appropriate units of comparison in the class-of-one

equal protection analysis, the complaint falls short of plausibly

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alleging that the Town's other beaches are similarly situated to

Back Beach.       On the contrary, the complaint states that the

"parking arrangement at Back Beach is unlike [that at] any other

public area or beach in Town." The availability of public parking,

which     the   Committee   acknowledges   makes   "access   easier   for

strangers," differentiates Back Beach from the Town's other public

beaches in a manner relevant to the complaint's central allegation

that the Town fails to adequately enforce regulations against

divers at Back Beach.4        And the Committee "makes no effort to

establish how or why [Back Beach] is similarly situated to [the

Town's other public beaches] in any relevant way, and does not

mention any other putative comparator."        Gianfrancesco, 712 F.3d

at 640.

     4    At oral argument, the Committee's counsel posited that
the Town committed an equal protection violation when it chose to
provide public parking at Back Beach but not at other public
beaches. Counsel stated, for example, that another beach called
Front Beach does not have public parking, despite being located
further downtown. But these allegations are not presented in the
Committee's complaint.    Rather, the complaint alleges that the
Town failed to enforce various local rules -- such as those related
to diving, public nudity, beach access, and parking -- at Back
Beach in the same manner that it enforced those rules at other
public beaches. In any event, even if the Committee's complaint
claimed that the Town's decision to place public parking at Back
Beach was the source of the equal protection violation, the
complaint still fails to plausibly allege that Back Beach was
similarly situated to other public beaches "in all respects
relevant" to that decision.     McCoy, 59 F.4th at 507 (quoting
Gianfrancesco, 712 F.3d at 640). Indeed, the complaint makes no
attempt to describe Front Beach or any other public beaches.

                                  - 9 -
               The Committee argues that the Supreme Court's decision

in Engquist v. Oregon Department of Agriculture, 553 U.S. 591

(2008), relaxed or eliminated the requirement that class-of-one

plaintiffs       must     identify     similarly    situated    comparators.      It

contends that when a plaintiff asserts that there has been an

"unfair deviation from a clear [governmental] standard," rather

than       a   "subjective     governmental        decision,"    that    allegation

suffices to make out a class-of-one claim, regardless of whether

the existence of similarly situated comparators has been plausibly

alleged.       The Committee posits that its complaint would meet this

relaxed        standard      because    although     it     included    allegations

concerning "lack of enforcement," it also pleaded that "clear

standards, such as the rule against diving in harbors and the beach

regulations, were not being applied" at Back Beach.

               This     argument     misconstrues     Engquist    and    is   flatly

inconsistent          with    the    Supreme      Court's    class-of-one      equal

protection precedent.           In Engquist, the Supreme Court identified

one sphere -- public employment -- in which plaintiffs cannot bring

class-of-one equal protection claims at all.5                  See id. at 598.    It

       5  The Supreme Court noted that there may be other "forms
of state action," in addition to personnel decisions in the public
employment context, that "by their nature involve discretionary
decisionmaking based on a vast array of subjective, individualized
assessments" and thus are not susceptible to class-of-one equal
protection challenges. Engquist, 553 U.S. at 603. The Court cited
the example of a traffic officer issuing a speeding ticket to one
speeding driver among many, noting that "allowing an equal

                                         - 10 -
did not purport to alter the analytical framework for class-of-

one claims that can be pursued in other contexts.      On the contrary,

Engquist expressly preserved the class-of-one framework set forth

in Olech.   See id. at 602 (citing Olech for the proposition that

"[w]hen those who appear similarly situated are [intentionally]

treated differently, the Equal Protection Clause requires at least

a rational reason for the difference").         And nothing in Engquist

remotely supports the Committee's argument that the Supreme Court

intended to relax the "similarly situated" requirement.           See id.;

see also id. at 608 (agreeing with the appellant's argument that

even where the class-of-one framework is applicable, a plaintiff

must   "prove   that   the   government's   differential    treatment   was

intentional, that the plaintiff was treated differently from other

similarly situated persons, and that the unequal treatment was not

rationally related to a legitimate government purpose," which is

a "difficult" showing to make (emphasis added)).           The Committee's

argument that the Town deviated from clear standards thus, at most,

helps protect the Committee's claim from being inadequate under

Engquist (a possibility on which we express no view), but does not

protection claim on the ground that a ticket was given to one
person and not others, even if for no discernible or articulable
reason, would be incompatible with the discretion inherent in the
challenged action." Id. at 604. We need not decide whether the
Town's alleged actions here are of the sort that are insulated
from class-of-one suits under Engquist, because even if they are
not, the Committee's failure to plausibly allege the existence of
similarly situated comparators vitiates its class-of-one claim.

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obviate   the   requirement   of    identifying   similarly   situated

comparators.

          Because the Committee has not plausibly alleged the

existence of similarly situated comparators, its class-of-one

equal protection claim fails.

                                   III.

          For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district

court is affirmed.

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