Chertkof v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore

• Decision Date: 19 September 1980
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. M-79-2258.
• Citation: 497 F. Supp. 1252
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland
• Parties: Jack O. CHERTKOF, Trustee v. MAYOR & CITY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE, a Municipal Corporation and Anchor-Hocking Corporation.

497 F. Supp. 1252

Jack O. CHERTKOF, Trustee v. MAYOR & CITY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE, a Municipal Corporation and Anchor-Hocking Corporation.

Civ. A. No. M-79-2258.

United States District Court, D. Maryland.

September 19, 1980.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Arnold M. Weiner and Richard V. Falcon, Baltimore, Md. (Melnicove, Kaufman & Weiner, P. A., Baltimore, Md.), for plaintiff.

Benjamin L. Brown, City Sol. and Richard K. Jacobsen, Chief Sol., Baltimore, Md., for defendant, Mayor & City Council of Baltimore.

John Henry Lewin, Jr. and Sally Spencer Lazzara, Baltimore, Md. (Venable, Baetjer & Howard, Baltimore, Md.), for defendant, Anchor-Hocking Corp.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

JAMES R. MILLER, Jr., District Judge.

Plaintiff Chertkof, trustee of a trust owning an eleven (11) acre tract of land located in South Baltimore, alleges that the Mayor & City Council of Baltimore (City) and the Anchor-Hocking Corporation (Anchor-Hocking) have conspired to deprive the trust of its property for the private use of Anchor-Hocking. The complaint asserts that Anchor-Hocking, a Delaware glass manufacturer doing business in South Baltimore as the Carr-Lowrey Glass Company, sought to acquire the adjacent Chertkof property to enable it to expand its industrial operations. After unsuccessful negotiations with plaintiff in 1977 to purchase the land, Anchor-Hocking allegedly conspired with Baltimore officials to have the City designate the land as part of the Middle Branch Urban Renewal Project. The alleged conspiracy contemplated that the City would then obtain the land through purchase or condemnation and convey it to Anchor-Hocking.

On July 27, 1979, the City Council passed Bill No. 2515, designating the Chertkof property as part of the Middle Branch Urban Renewal Project and ordering condemnation should the City be unable to purchase the property. On October 22, 1979, a City appraiser visited plaintiff to initiate an appraisal, which plaintiff contends indicated that a condemnation suit was imminent. (Complaint, Paper No. 1, at 2-5; Plaintiff's Response to Motions to Dismiss, Paper No. 15, at 4-11).

Before a condemnation suit could be filed in state court, plaintiff brought this action, basing jurisdiction on 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1343, alleging that defendants' actions violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and seeking redress under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for alleged deprivations of federal rights under color of state law. Plaintiff also invoked this court's pendent jurisdiction in connection with a civil conspiracy claim and alleged violations of Article II of the Baltimore City Charter.¹ Plaintiff seeks injunctive and declaratory relief,² compensatory and punitive damages, and attorneys' fees and costs.

By separate motions, defendants have moved to dismiss on two grounds: (1) this court lacks subject matter jurisdiction, and (2) the complaint fails to state a claim for which relief can be granted. Rule 12(b)(1) and (6), F.R.Civ.P. Alternatively, defendants contend that this court should abstain because the case presents questions of state law whose resolution by the state courts could avoid the need for federal adjudication.

I. Subject Matter Jurisdiction

Defendants' contention that this court lacks jurisdiction over the subject matter of the action is essentially a ripeness argument. The major premise is that the mere inclusion of land within an urban renewal area does not amount to an exercise of the City's eminent domain powers. Therefore, they argue, since there has been no "taking," the suit is premature and plaintiff's claims are not ripe for adjudication as required by Article III of the United States Constitution. (Anchor-Hocking Memorandum, Paper No. 8, at 3-5; City Memorandum, Paper No. 6, at 2, 4). In response, plaintiff asserts that the prerequisites to a condemnation suit are virtually complete and the institution of such a suit is imminent. Thus, the controversy is sufficiently ripe for adjudication because the actual "taking" is impending sufficiently to warrant federal relief. (Plaintiff's Memorandum, Paper No. 8, at 14-20).

The classic test of justiciability was set forth by Mr. Chief Justice Hughes in Aetna Life Insurance Co. v. Haworth, 300 U.S. 227, 57 S.Ct. 461, 81 L.Ed. 617 (1937):

"A justiciable controversy is thus distinguished from a difference or dispute of a hypothetical or abstract character; from one that is academic or moot. United States v. Alaska S. S. Co., 253 U.S. 113, 116, 40 S.Ct. 448, 449, 64 L.Ed. 808. The controversy must be definite and concrete, touching the legal relations of parties having adverse legal interests. South Spring Gold Co. v. Amador Gold Co., 145 U.S. 300, 301, 12 S.Ct. 921, 36 L.Ed. 712; Fairchild v. Hughes, 258 U.S. 126, 129, 42 S.Ct. 274, 275, 66 L.Ed. 499; Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U.S. 447, 487, 488, 43 S.Ct. 597, 67 L.Ed. 1078. It must be a real and substantial controversy admitting of specific relief through a decree of a conclusive character, as distinguished from an opinion advising that the law would be upon a hypothetical state of facts. Where there is such a concrete case admitting of an immediate and definitive determination of the legal rights of the parties in an adversary proceeding upon the facts alleged, the judicial function may be appropriately exercised although the adjudication of the rights of the litigants may not require the award of process or the payment of damages. Nashville, C. & St. L. Ry. Co. v. Wallace, supra, 588 U.S. 249, p. 263, 53 S.Ct. 345, 77 L.Ed. 730; Tutun v. United States, 270 U.S. 568, 576, 577, 46 S.Ct. 425, 426, 70 L.Ed. 738; Fidelity National Bank v. Swope, 274 U.S. 123, 132, 47 S.Ct. 511, 514, 71 L.Ed. 959; Old Colony Trust Co. v. Commissioner, supra, p. 725. And as it is not essential to the exercise of the judicial power that an injunction be sought, allegations that irreparable injury is threatened are not required. Nashville, C. & St. L. Ry. Co. v. Wallace, supra, 288 U.S. p. 264, 53 S.Ct. 345."

Id. at 240-41, 57 S.Ct. at 464. Although the Haworth test has been described as "cryptic," C. A. Wright, Law of Federal Courts 38 (3d ed.1976), and "imprecise," Public Service Comn. v. Wycoff Co., 344 U.S. 237, 242, 73 S.Ct. 236, 239, 97 L.Ed. 291 (1965), it nevertheless provides a guidepost for our immediate inquiry.

Generally, a case is ripe for adjudication when objective evidence of threatened state action establishes that the need to protect a plaintiff's rights outweighs the disadvantages of adjudication. See Brilmayer, The Jurisprudence of Article III: Perspectives on the "Case or Controversy" Requirement, 93 Harv.L.Rev. 297, 299 (1979). In Ex Parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908), for example, the state attorney general's threatened enforcement of Minnesota's newly established railroad rates prompted railroad stockholders to sue for an injunction before the allegedly confiscatory rates could go into effect. In upholding the issuance of the injunction the Supreme Court stated:

"We have, therefore, upon this record the case of an unconstitutional act of the state legislature and an intention by the Attorney General of the State to endeavor to enforce its provisions, to the injury of the company ....

Id. at 149, 28 S.Ct. at 449.

"The various authorities we have referred to furnish ample justification for the assertion that individuals who, as officers of the State, are clothed with some duty in regard to the enforcement of the laws of the State, and who threaten and are about to commence proceedings, either of a civil or criminal nature, to enforce against parties affected an unconstitutional act, violating the Federal Constitution, may be enjoined by a Federal court of equity from such action."

Id. at 155-56, 28 S.Ct. at 452. (emphasis supplied). With respect to the possible disadvantages of adjudication, the Court wrote:

"Finally it is objected that the necessary result of upholding this suit in the Circuit Court will be to draw to the lower Federal courts a great flood of litigation of this character, where one Federal judge would have it in his power to enjoin proceedings by state officials to enforce the legislative acts of the State, either by criminal or civil actions. To this it may be answered, in the first place, that no injunction ought to be granted unless in a case reasonably free from doubt. We think such rule is, and will be, followed by all the judges of the Federal courts."

Id. at 166-67, 28 S.Ct. at 456-57.

Thus, in Ex Parte Young, supra, the evident threat of state action demonstrated that the need to protect plaintiff's rights outweighed the potential costs of federal adjudication. Similarly, in Risty v. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Ry. Co., 270 U.S. 378, 46 S.Ct. 236, 70 L.Ed. 641 (1926), the Court held that suits to enjoin a county's proposed assessment of lands, on the basis of alleged special benefits, was ripe for adjudication. In Risty, supra, there was evidence that county officials had already completed the improvements upon which the special benefit assessments were to be based. Because the next step "would have been the assessment of costs of construction ... the threatened injury was imminent and the suits were not premature." 270 U.S. at 387-88, 46 S.Ct. at 240.

In the instant case, plaintiff seeks, in part, injunctive and declaratory relief, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, in connection with its claim that defendants have violated property rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. That 42 U.S.C. § 1983 protects such property rights is beyond dispute. Lynch v. Household Finance Corp., 405 U.S. 538, 92 S.Ct. 1113, 31 L.Ed.2d 424 (1972). It is also settled that 42 U.S.C. § 1983 is an expressly authorized exception to 28 U.S.C. § 2283, the federal anti-injunction statute. Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U.S. 225, 92 S.Ct. 2151, 32 L.Ed.2d 705 (1972), and an appropriate vehicle for obtaining declaratory relief. Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U.S. 452, 94...