If you picked up and read a copy of Braun v. Ann Arbor Charter Township, No. 07-1370 (Mar. 13, 2008), an opinion by the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, without having read the briefs of the parties and the decision of the court below, you might not see anything terribly unusual.
The case arose after property owners asked the Township to rezone their parcels from Agricultural to Residential, and the Township refused. The property owners did not seek a variance because the Township informed them that none was available. The property owners then dutifully went to state court to seek compensation, arguing that the only economically beneficial use of the property was residential. The state courts did not reach the constitutional claims, and dismissed the case on procedural grounds because the property owners had not sought a variance. See Braun v. Ann Arbor Township, 683 N.W.2d 755 (Mich. Ct. App. 2004). The Township’s Zoning Board of Appeals denied the variance because it lacked jurisdiction .
Probably believing it was futile to thrash about in this state court procedural shell game (hadn’t the Michigan Court of Appeals just held the ZBA did have jurisdiction?), the property owners filed suit in federal district court, asserting the denial of their zoning change request deprived them of substantive and procedural due process, denied them equal protection, was a regulatory taking and a violation of a federal civil rights statute (42 USC § 1983).
They fared no better in federal court, however, which dismissed all of their claims on Williamson County ripeness grounds because they had not sought and been denied just compensation by the state courts (more on the Williamson County rule here).
But wait, you say, the regulatory takings claim was only one of the property owners’ claims; what about the due process and equal protection claims — those are not subject to Williamson County because denial of just compensation is not an element of a due process and equal protection claim. You’d be right, but apparently the District Court was following the now-discredited and overruled Armendariz doctrine from the Ninth Circuit which treats all property owner claims as takings claims, even when they plainly are not.
The court of appeals affirmed, holding that the regulatory takings claim was not ripe under the Williamson County rule, and that the due process, equal protection, and 1983 claims were “ancillary” to the takings claim, and thus were also not ripe. See Braun, slip op. at 3. The court of appeals held:
Because the plaintiffs did not fulfill their obligation of seeing just compensation in state court, we do not have jurisdiction to reach the merits of their takings claim.
Slip op. at 5 (emphasis added).
If the Sixth Circuit’s opinion stopped there, it would be “nothing to see here, folks, just move along” time — yet another case to add to the growing list of certworthy decisions highlighting the weird regulatory takings ripeness rules property owners find themselves up against when they have the audacity to believe they can assert federal constitutional claims in federal court. However, having just held it did “not have jurisdiction” to reach the merits of the property owners’ claims, the Sixth Circuit spent the next four pages doing just that, on issues not analyzed by the District Court’s opinion (the District Court dismissed the case without prejudice), and not raised, briefed, or argued by either party to the appeal. The Sixth Circuit apparently believed it possesses the power to raise and decide these issues on its own initiative, without the benefit of input by the parties. See slip op. at 6-9.
But the Federal courts are limited by Article III of the Constitution to hear only “cases” and “controversies,” meaning that they have no power to decide cases over which they lack jurisdiction, especially when a court expressly acknowledges it does “not have jurisdiction” over a case, as the Sixth Circuit did here.