Chainey v. Street
| Decision Date | 14 April 2008 |
| Docket Number | No. 06-1061.,No. 06-1256.,06-1061.,06-1256. |
| Citation | 523 F.3d 200 |
| Parties | Nannie CHAINEY; Leroy Hampton, Jr.; Ernestine M. Rice; Trina McClain; Lynne Johnson; Teresa A. Grayer-Campbell; Cassandra Carter Johnston; Thomas Mapp Sr.; Betty Mapp H/W; Betty Mapp1; Ernest Hubbard; Esther Hubbard H/W; Esther Hubbard1; Robert Ford; Gwendolyn Ford H/W; Gwendolyn Ford1; Olaitan Odeniyi; Adeola Odeniyi H/W; Adeola Odeniyi1; Lucretia Wilson; Anne Lee; Gerald Renfrow; Constance Renfrow H/W; Virginia Cox; Hazel Taylor; Milton Williams; Sherry Williams H/W; Frank Lewis; Eva Lewis H/W; Eva Lewis1; Kermit Bostic; Elizabeth Bostic H/W; Mary J. Jackson; Samuel Mattaway; Yvette Mattaway H/W; Yvette Mattaway1; Charles Renfrow, Jr.; Gerald Renfrow1; Carrie F. Foskey; Beridan Payne; Constance Renfrow1, Appellees at 06-1061/Cross-Appellants at 06-1256 v. John STREET, Mayor, City of Philadelphia; City of Philadelphia; Edward McLaughlin, Commissioner, Department of Licenses and Inspections; Herbert E. Wetzel, Executive Director; Redevelopment Authority of the City of Philadelphia, Appellants at 06-1061/Cross-Appellees at 06-1256. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit |
Craig R. Gottlieb, Esquire (Argued), Richard G. Feder, Esquire, City of Philadelphia Law Department, Philadelphia, PA, Attorney for Appellants/Cross-Appellees.
Robert T. Vance, Jr., Esquire (Argued), Philadelphia, PA, Adrian J. Moody, Esquire, Law Offices of Adrian J. Moody, Philadelphia, PA, for Appellees/Cross-Appellants.
Before: SCIRICA, Chief Judge, FUENTES and CHAGARES, Circuit Judges.
This is an appeal from the District Court's partial denial of defendants' post-trial motion after a jury verdict against the City of Philadelphia based on its decision to halt repairs on houses rebuilt in the aftermath of the 1985 MOVE bombing. Defendants are the city, the city Redevelopment Authority, and three former city officials: Mayor John Street, former Licenses and Inspections Commissioner Edward McLaughlin, and Redevelopment Authority Executive Director Herbert Wetzel. Plaintiffs are twenty-four of the sixty-one homeowners whose houses were destroyed in a fire caused by the MOVE bombing. In 1986, the city agreed to rebuild plaintiffs' houses and to repair defects for up to ten years. After having spent $12.8 million over 14 years, the city decided in July 2000 it would make no further repairs to the houses. A federal jury rendered a partial verdict for plaintiffs. Defendants filed post-trial motions, which the District Court granted in part, reducing the jury award. Both parties appealed. We will affirm in part and reverse in part. We will remand for an analysis of the substantive due process claim and Fed.R.Civ.P. 50 waiver and, if the issue has not been waived, for a determination of whether each plaintiff proved causation and damages.
This case arises from the city's 1985 bombing during the administration of Mayor Wilson Goode (mayoral term 1984-1992) of a home occupied by MOVE, a group formed in the 1970s as part of a "back to nature" movement. In 1978, the city attempted to execute an eviction order on MOVE members living in a home in the Powelton Village neighborhood of Philadelphia. MOVE members resisted with gun-fire killing one police officer and wounding other officers and firefighters. Nine MOVE members were convicted and sentenced for the officer's murder.
By 1985, at least thirteen MOVE members had relocated to a single family home at 6221 Osage Avenue in West Philadelphia. Disrupting the neighborhood with loudspeakers, MOVE members made violent and profane threats to neighbors, police, and city officials. According to a police probable cause affidavit submitted to support arrest and search warrants, MOVE members carried weapons, blocked the windows of their house with wooden slats, constructed a bunker on the roof, and threatened to blow up the entire neighborhood. Arrest and search warrants were issued on May 11, 1985. On May 12, the police evacuated residents from the surrounding neighborhood, anticipating a raid on the MOVE house.
In the early morning of May 13, police officers and firefighters surrounded the MOVE residence. At 5:30 a.m., with a bullhorn, police announced they had arrest warrants for four MOVE members and gave them fifteen minutes to surrender. The MOVE members resisted, shouting back threats that they were prepared for a gun battle. After fifteen minutes, police fired tear gas and smoke projectiles at the house. Firefighters sprayed the house with water to provide cover for advancing police officers. Some minutes later, the police came under fire from gunshots fired from inside the house. Muzzle flashes were seen coming from the rooftop bunker.
A massive gun battle ensued. Police were unable to enter the house because the walls of the house were fortified. Police retreated, and considered other methods to breach the defenses MOVE had erected. Later that afternoon, a police helicopter dropped a bomb on the roof of the MOVE residence. The bomb's detonation ignited several barrels of gasoline, starting a fire that killed eleven of the thirteen residents. Houses on the Pine and Osage blocks were consumed in the blaze. The bombing, the resultant deaths, and the destruction of neighbors' homes were viewed as a national tragedy.
This case involves the owners of houses on the Pine and Osage blocks. In the fire's aftermath, the city engaged in extensive negotiations with the owners of the sixty-one destroyed houses. In June 1985, the city asked the Redevelopment Authority to use its eminent domain authority to acquire the damaged area for "develop[ment] as a redevelopment project." The homeowners filed objections to the eminent domain/redevelopment plan. In April 1986, the Philadelphia City Council enacted Ordinance 861, obligating the city to rebuild the sixty-one houses "destroyed in the conflagration." The city also agreed to provide a ten-year warranty for certain defects from the day each homeowner moved into his/her home.
In September 1986, the parties entered into an agreement (the 1986 Agreement), in which the city agreed to build and warrant sixty-one new houses in compliance with all applicable Philadelphia Codes, as required by Ordinance 861, and plaintiffs agreed to waive damages claims in the eminent domain proceeding. The city enlisted the Redevelopment Authority, which selected a developer, Edwards & Harper, a corporation specifically formed to rebuild the houses. The city allocated $6.7 million to Edwards & Harper through the Urban Local Development Corporation to finance the rebuilding project. Edwards & Harper hired a general contractor, Ebony Construction Company, Inc., of which Ernest Edwards was a director.
Edwards misappropriated funds and was prosecuted and convicted of theft. See Commonwealth v. Edwards, 399 Pa.Super. 545, 582 A.2d 1078, 1082-90 (1990). Edwards & Harper failed to complete the project. The city and the Redevelopment Authority hired another general contractor to complete the houses. In February 1986, when Edwards's companies defaulted, the new general contractor was left with over one million dollars of unpaid costs.
For two years, plaintiffs lived in substitute housing at the city's expense. In 1987, plaintiffs moved into their newly constructed homes. But the houses were defective. Within weeks of moving in, several homeowners experienced problems including: leaking roofs, defective bathroom and kitchen plumbing, improper or inadequate flooring, nails popping out of walls, bursting pipes, defective electrical wiring, flooded basements and backyards, and non-functioning appliances. In June 1987, the city amended Ordinance 861 to authorize the city to hire the Redevelopment Authority to warrant the houses against "construction, design and related defects." In January 1988, the city and the Redevelopment Authority entered into a new agreement (the 1988 Agreement)— the Redevelopment Authority agreed to perform the city's repair obligations and the city agreed to compensate the Redevelopment Authority.
Between 1988 and 1997, when the warranties were set to expire, the Redevelopment Authority conducted piecemeal repairs of reported problems, replacing roofs, stoves, dishwashers, and garbage disposals. The record suggests a continuous flow of money into the project, but does not present a clear picture of the total expenditures during that time.1 In 1995, the Redevelopment Authority estimated it would cost $8.5 million to repair the original defective construction.
The city and the Redevelopment Authority hired the United States Army Corps of Engineers to evaluate the cost of the remaining repairs. In 1997, the Corps issued a comprehensive report outlining the remaining necessary repairs, estimating it would cost the city and the Redevelopment Authority $1.657 million to fulfill their warranty obligations and to bring each house into compliance with city building codes. The Corps determined that repairs to the building envelope—the roofing, bricks, sliding doors, siding, and windows—would account for seventy percent of the total projected remaining cost.
In 1998, the city, the Redevelopment Authority, and the Corps designed a solicitation for bids from private contractors to complete the repair work. On August 30, the Redevelopment Authority entered into a $1,765,538 contract with the successful bidder, Allied Construction Company (the Redevelopment Authority-Allied Construction Agreement). The city allocated $2 million to pay Allied Construction for the repairs. Shortly thereafter, Allied Construction workers uncovered several other problems hidden from view until discovered in the course of conducting repairs. The Redevelopment Authority subsequently authorized payment of an additional $800,000. But by the end of 1999, the estimated cost for modifications rose from $800,000 to between $2.1 million and $3.5 million, an increase...
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