Here’s the first in a series of posts we’re going to put up, with the cert petition and the supporting amici briefs (ours included) in Arrigoni, Ent., LLC v. Town of Durham, No. 150631 (petition filed Nov. 10, 2015).
In that case, the Second Circuit in a two-sentence ruling, summarily affirmed the District Court’s dismissal of Arrigoni’s regulatory takings claim under the “state procedures” prong of Williamson County, because the property owner “failed to ‘seek compensation through the procedures the State has provided for doing so.'” Slip op. at 2.
The petition poses these Questions Presented:
1. Whether the Court should reconsider, and then overrule or modify, the portion of Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U.S. 172, 194 (1985), barring property owners from filing a federal takings claim in federal court until they exhaust state court remedies, when this rule results in numerous jurisdictional “anomalies” and has a “dramatic” negative impact on takings law, San Remo Hotel, L.P. v. City and County of San Francisco, 545 U.S. 323, 351- 52 (2005) (Rehnquist, C.J., concurring)?
2. Alternatively, whether federal courts can and should waive Williamson County’s state litigation requirement for prudential reasons when a federal takings claim is factually concrete without state procedures, as some circuit courts hold, or apply the requirement as a rigid jurisdictional barrier, as other circuits hold?
More to follow, naturally.
Petition for Writ of Certiorari, Arrigoni Ent., LLC v. Town of Durham, No. 15-631 (Nov. 10, 2015)