Every now and then, there's a cert petition which those who generally support the petitioner's side of the equation secretly hope is not granted, and breathe a sigh of relief when the Court denies review. Today, we're sure that those on the regulatory side of the table are doing just that, because the Court declined to review the Third Circuit's decision in R&J Holding Co. v. Redevelopment Authority of Montgomery County, 670 F.3d 420 (3d Cir. Dec. 9, 2011), a case we detailed here.
In that case, the Third Circuit held that a property owner did not litigate its federal takings claims in an earlier state court case, and thus actually allowed a property owner to raise its federal constitutional claims in federal court. In its cert petition, the redevelopment agency claimed that the Third Circuit's application of Pennsylvania preclusion law created an "unfair procedural trap" for the agency, which as a result found it difficult to employ the Williamson County ripeness bar to dismiss a federal takings claim from federal court.
The reason we suspect that regulators really might not have appreciated a cert grant in this case is that Williamson County is on shaky grounds (in San Remo Hotel, four Justices noted it was time to revisit it), and a majority of the Court might just overrule Williamson County if the Justices ever took a case up on the issue. We imagine that regulators view the Williamson County ripeness rule as working just fine, thank you, and would not want to risk disturbing what in their view is a very good rule just to keep one redevelopment agency from having to possibly pay just compensation.
