Another day, another property rights decision from SCOTUS. This time, the unanimous per curiam opinion in a case we've been following, Pakdel v. City & County of San Francisco, No. 20-1212 (June 28, 2021).
[Disclosure: our PLF colleague Jeff McCoy is lead counsel on this case, and we pitched in with help on the petition and related.]
Because we're directly involved in this one, we're not going to take a deep dive analysis. But the opinion is short, and the result clear: grant, vacate, remand, with instructions:
On remand, the Ninth Circuit may give further consideration to these claims in light of our recent decision in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, ante, p. ___.
Slip op. at 3, n.*.
The Pakdels sued San Francisco for a regulatory taking because of the city's requirement that as a condition of converting a tenancy-in-common to a condominium, the owners must first offer any tenant a lifetime lease. The Pakdels twice requested exemptions from the lifetime lease requirement, but the city denied both requests. That sounds like a "final decision" that qualifies under Williamson County, no? After all, the reviewing court knows exactly what uses the city is allowing or requiring, and that is the whole point of the final decision requirement.
No, held the panel, it turned out that the Pakdels had "Committed a procedural default during the administrative process" and this meant that not only was their claim not ripe for not obtaining a final decision from the city, their claim could never become ripe because it was too late in the administrative process to "un-default" the default.
If that strikes you as weird, you are not alone. Not only did Judge Bea dissent from the panel decision, nine judges dissented from the denial of the en banc petition. The dissenters concluded that this isn't really a final decision requirement, but rather a way of backing into an administrative exhaustion requirement, something the Supreme Court has long rejected in section 1983 cases, and which the Williamson County final decision requirement doesn't really address. The dissenters concluded that the owners' failure to fulfill administrative requirements "is an exhaustion requirement pure and simple[.]" Dissent at 10. It's one thing to say they didn't go through the admin process, another to say the city hasn't reached a final decision about what they can do with their property.
Looks like the entire Supreme Court agreed:
But, contrary to the Ninth Circuit’s view, administrative missteps do not defeat ripeness once the government has adopted its final position. See Williamson County, 473 U. S., at 192–193 (distinguishing its “finality requirement” from traditional administrative “exhaust[ion]”). It may very well be, as Judge Bea observed, that misconduct during the administrative process is relevant to “evaluating the merits of the . . . clai[m]” or the measure of damages. 952 F. 3d, at 1170, n. 2 (dissenting opinion); cf. Palazzolo, 533 U. S., at 625. For the limited purpose of ripeness, however, ordinary finality is sufficient.. . .Given that the Fifth Amendment enjoys “full-fledged constitutional status,” the Ninth Circuit had no basis to relegate petitioners’ claim “‘to the status of a poor relation’ among the provisions of the Bill of Rights.” Knick, 588 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 6).
Slip op. at 7.
Pakdel v. City & County of San Francisco, No. 20-1212 (U.S. June 28, 2021) (per curiam)
