There's been yet another cert petition asking the Suprme Court to revist and discard the ripeness rules of Williamson County Regional Planning Comm'n v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U.S. 172 (1985).
In Colony Cove Properties, LLC v. City of Carson, 640 F.3d 948 (9th Cir. 2011), the Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a property owner's claim that the city's mobilehome rent control ordinance is a taking. The district court dismissed the facial takings claim because it was filed outside the statute of limitations, and the as-applied takings challenge as unripe.
The property owners' petition poses these Questions Presented:
This case involves a regulatory takings claim brought under the Fifth Amendment and 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district court’s dismissal of the claim, holding that Petitioner is required to seek a remedy for the taking through the California state courts, rather than the federal courts, pursuant to Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U.S. 172 (1985). The Ninth Circuit reached this conclusion even though it recognized that California does not offer a remedy of inverse condemnation to plaintiffs like Petitioner, who assert a violation of their Fifth Amendment rights through the application of a confiscatory rent control ordinance. The questions presented are:
1. Should Williamson County be overruled, to the extent that it arbitrarily denies a federal forum to regulatory takings claimants seeking just compensation for the violation of their rights under the Fifth Amendment, contrary to the intention of Congress in enacting Section 1983?
2. Should this Court recognize an exception to Williamson County’s "state procedures" requirement for takings claimants like Petitioner, whose Fifth Amendment claims will otherwise be relegated to a California state court system that does not recognize or provide a remedy of just compensation for their injuries?
This is the most recent in a series of petitions (see here and here for two others), and we've criticized the Williamson County ripeness rules as illogical, unfair, and not the result of a textual analysis of the Fifth Amendment, as the Court in Williamson County held. Four Justices expressly called for a do-over in San Remo Hotel, L.P. v. City and County of San Francisco, 545 U.S. 323, 350-52 (2005). So it seems this issue is ripe for another look.
Will the Court finally agree to review a case directly challenging Williamson County? Follow along here, or on the Court's docket report.
Petition for a Writ of Certiorari, Colony Cove Properties LLC v City of Carson, No. 11-189 (filed Aug 11, 2...