Although the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit’s opinion in Warner v. City of Marathon, No. 2024-10901 (May 27, 2025) is unpublished, we’re posting it here because, as the title notes, this one might be the last victim of Williamson County‘s “state procedures” requirement.
As frequent flyers know, between 1985 and 2019 a property owner who claimed that a local government action resulted in a de facto taking of property under the Fifth Amendment could only raise that claim in a state court. The theory being that there had not been a taking without just compensation unless and until the state courts had told a claimant no compensation. And thus, the federal takings claim (and along with it, federal court jurisdiction) was not ripe until a property owner lost a state claim in state court.
Once that occurred it was theoretically possible, now having ripened a federal takings claim, for the owner to pursue that federal claim in federal court. But ironically, the very process of ripening the federal claim in state court also resulted in the death of the federal claim, with the courts holding that, having now lost a state takings claim in state court, the owner was precluded by res judicata from litigating the federal claim. The San Remo Catch-22.
In 2019 in Knick, the Supreme Court finally recognized the problem and overruled the state procedures requirement.
With that refresher, let’s go.
Warner sued the city for a taking in 2014 in state court (he read Williamson, and knew where he had to go). The city removed the case to federal court, which, predictably, dismissed the takings claim as unripe. Warner had to appeal to get the Eleventh Circuit to limit the dismissal of his takings claim to a dismissal without prejudice as unripe. After all that, Warner was right back where he started, in state court. Summary judgment for the city followed, along with affirmances by the Florida appeals courts.
While that was working through the state court system, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Knick. Several years later, shortly after the Florida Supreme Court declined to review Warner’s appeals, he asked the federal court to reopen the dismissed case and allow him to amend. Denied, and then appealed to the Eleventh Circuit.
That court affirmed. Not too surprising, but there are a couple of points worth noting. The court held that the district court didn’t abuse its Rule 60(b) discretion to refuse to reopen the case because the state court’s adverse judgment is entitled to full faith and credit in federal court. The San Remo preclusion trap is still good law, meaning that if Warner’s case “were to be reopened, it would have to be quickly dismissed.” Slip op. at 13.
But even if we were to think relief under Rule 60(b)(5) was warranted, we can’t say the district court abused its discretion in finding that Plaintiffs failed to file their motion to reopen their case “within a reasonable time.” Knick overruled Williamson County in June 2019, when no state court had yet ruled on Plaintiffs’ takings claim. No state court would until March 2022. Yet Plaintiffs waited until four years after Knick, having fully exhausted their state remedies, to file in federal court. Because Plaintiffs fully exhausted their state remedies, San Remo requires dismissal of any attempted reopening of a federal case. So by pursuing a judgment in the state-court system, Plaintiffs effectively forfeited their federal claim. And the district court did not abuse its discretion by concluding that their Rule 60(b) motion was not timely.
Slip op. at 14.
“San Remo remains binding precedent.” Slip op. at 14.
Warner v. City of Marathon, No. 2024-10901 (11th Cir. May 27, 2025) (unpub.)