Agripost v. Miami-Dade County, AGRI-DAD
| Decision Date | 15 November 1999 |
| Docket Number | MIAMI-DADE,No. 97-5654,AGRI-DAD,LTD,97-5654 |
| Citation | 195 F.3d 1225 |
| Parties | (11th Cir. 1999) AGRIPOST, INC., a Florida Corporation,, a Florida Limited Partnership, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v.COUNTY, through its Manager and Board of County Commissioners, Defendant-Appellant |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
[Copyrighted Material Omitted]
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 94-2031-CV-EBD
Before TJOFLAT and EDMONDSON, Circuit Judges, and KRAVITCH, Senior Circuit Judge.
In 1987, the Board of Commissioners of Dade County, Florida, granted Agripost, Inc. an unusual use zoning permit for the construction and operation of a waste disposal facility. In 1991, the Dade County Zoning Appeals Board revoked the permit. After an appellate panel of the Dade County Circuit Court affirmed the revocation, and the Florida District Court of Appeal declined review, Agripost brought this suit against Dade County, claiming that the revocation constituted a taking without just compensation, in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.1 The district court dismissed Agripost's takings claim as unripe because Agripost had failed to pursue Florida's inverse-condemnation remedy. The County now appeals,2 contending that the district court should have dismissed Agripost's takings claim under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine 3 for want of subject matter jurisdiction, or, alternatively, granted it summary judgment on the ground that principles of res judicata and collateral estoppel barred the claim. We agree with the district court that Agripost's takings claim was unripe. We therefore affirm its dismissal of the suit.
In 1986, Dade County's Board of Commissioners (the "Board") sought proposals for the construction and operation of a waste disposal plant that would create an environmentally safe, useful end product from the county's solid waste. Agripost submitted a proposal, which the Board subsequently accepted. Agripost then leased a site for its facility.4 Because the site was zoned for agricultural use, Agripost needed to obtain from the Board an unusual use zoning permit before it could construct and operate the plant. Agripost therefore applied for such a permit. On March 5, 1987, the Board approved Agripost's application, but made its approval subject to several conditions. One condition required Agripost to operate its facility in accordance with the plot use plan to be devised by Agripost and approved by the County's Zoning Director. Another required Agripost to comply with all "conditions and requirements"of Dade County's Department of Environmental Resource Management ("DERM"),5 which included specific requirements for the storage of waste products, and that the facility not cause a nuisance.6
Agripost's facility began operating in the fall of 1989, and soon thereafter, area residents began complaining that finely ground waste particles were emanating from the plant and that a vile stench covered the area. According to officials from an adjacent elementary school, a "black, thick glue-like mold" was covering nearly every surface of the school, and students and teachers alike were developing various illnesses.
In October 1990, DERM informed Agripost that its facility was creating a nuisance; DERM alleged both that noxious odors were emanating from the plant, and that Agripost was storing waste products in a manner contrary to the conditions of its permit and in a location other than that prescribed by the plot use plan. The County's Building and Zoning Department ("B&Z") then initiated procedures to revoke Agripost's unusual use zoning permit; B&Z issued zoning violation notices that alleged that Agripost had breached the conditions of its permit, and requested a hearing before the Zoning Appeals Board ("ZAB") to determine whether the permit should be revoked. After a hearing on January 16, 1991, the ZAB concluded that Agripost had failed to comply with the conditions of its unusual use permit, and therefore revoked it. The Board affirmed the ZAB's decision.
Having exhausted its administrative remedies, Agripost appealed the Board's decision to a three-judge panel of the appellate division of the Dade County Circuit Court (the "Circuit Court"). After reviewing the administrative record, the court concluded that Agripost had failed to comply with the conditions of its permit; the court therefore affirmed the revocation of Agripost's permit. The Florida District Court of Appeal thereafter denied Agripost's petition for certiorari review. See Agri-Dade, Ltd. v. Metropolitan Dade County, 605 So. 2d 1272 (Fla. 3d DCA 1992).
On September 29, 1994, Agripost brought the present lawsuit against Dade County in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Agripost claimed that by revoking the permit, the Board, and therefore Dade County, deprived it of all economically viable use of its leasehold interest, of its facility, and of its rights under the Agreement. Because the County had not provided just compensation, Agripost contended, the permit revocation constituted a taking in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
In response, Dade County, citing the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, which reserves to the United States Supreme Court the authority to review final decisions from a state's highest court, moved the district court to dismiss Agripost's takings claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. According to the County, the Circuit Court decided Agripost's takings claim in affirming the revocation of Agripost's permit. The County moved alternatively for summary judgment on the grounds of res judicata and collateral estoppel. It contended that (1) res judicata barred the takings claim because the claim was either litigated or should have been litigated in the Circuit Court proceeding, and (2) collateral estoppel barred the takings claim because a factual issue essential to the takings claim was resolved against Agripost in the Circuit Court.7
The district court, on its own initiative and over Dade County's objection, dismissed as unripe Agripost's takings claim, because Agripost had failed to pursue the inverse-condemnation remedy that Florida provided to property owners who, like Agripost, alleged that an administrative decision rendered their property worthless. In the district court's view, the Supreme Court's decision in Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank, 473 U.S. 172, 194-97, 105 S. Ct. 3108, 3120-22, 87 L. Ed. 2d 126 (1985), required Agripost to pursue that remedy before it could make a Fifth Amendment takings claim.8
In deciding that Agripost's takings claim was not ripe, the district court addressed the questions whether it should dismiss the claim for want of subject matter jurisdiction under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine or, instead, entertain the claim on the merits and reject it on grounds of res judicata and collateral estoppel. Citing an exception to the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, the court concluded without elaboration that that doctrine did not apply because Agripost "did not have a reasonable opportunity to raise [its claim for compensation] before the Circuit Court." Similarly, the district court stated that res judicata and collateral estoppel did not apply because Agripost's appeal of the permit revocation to the Circuit Court did not include a separate cause of action for inverse condemnation.9
Although Dade County prevailed in the district court, it is Dade County, not Agripost, that now appeals the district court's judgment. Dade County asks that we affirm the district court's dismissal of Agripost's takings claim, but that we do so on grounds that the district court rejected - namely, that the claim is barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. We conclude that the district court correctly determined that Agripost's takings claim was unripe. We therefore affirm its dismissal of the claim.
As a threshold matter, we must determine whether Dade County has standing to appeal the district court's judgment. Because the district court dismissed Agripost's suit, the County was the prevailing party below. Ordinarily, the prevailing party does not have standing to appeal because it is assumed that the judgment has caused that party no injury. See Deposit Guar. Nat'l Bank v. Roper, 445 U.S. 326, 333, 100 S. Ct. 1166, 1171, 63 L. Ed. 2d 427 (1980); Ashley v. Boehringer Ingelheim Pharms. (In re DES Litigation), 7 F.3d 20, 23 (2d Cir. 1993). An exception to this rule exists, however, when the prevailing party is prejudiced by the collateral estoppel effect of the district court's order. In such a case, the litigant has been aggrieved by the judgment and has standing to appeal. See Ashley, 7 F.3d at 23.
This exception applies in the present case. Here, although the district court ultimately dismissed Agripost's takings claim, it first considered - and rejected - Dade County's res judicata and collateral estoppel defenses. Unless it is set aside, the court's ruling regarding those defenses will have a preclusive effect in pending litigation that is likely to prejudice Dade County. Following the district court's ruling that Agripost's takings claim had not been litigated in the Circuit Court and therefore was unripe, Agripost brought a takings claim in state court.10 Because the district court rejected the County's collateral estoppel and res judicata defenses, the County will be precluded from raising those same defenses in the state court proceeding.11 In other words, the County would be precluded from arguing that Agripost had already raised and lost its takings claim. Thus, Dade County has standing to appeal the district court's judgment.12
Before we address the County's alternative arguments that the district court should have either (1) dismissed Agripost's takings claim for...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
West v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.
...Kizzire v. Baptist Health Sys., Inc., 441 F.3d 1306, 1308 (11th Cir. 2006) (res judicata); Agripost, Inc. v. Miami-Dade Cnty., ex rel. Manager, 195 F.3d 1225, 1229 n.7 (11th Cir. 1999) (collateral estoppel); and 28 U.S.C. § 1738); see also N.A.A.C.P. v. Hunt, 891 F.2d 1555, 1560 (11th Cir. ......
-
Dow Jones & Co., Inc. v. Kaye
...(S.D.Fla.1998). See Johnson v. De Grandy, 512 U.S. 997, 1006, 114 S.Ct. 2647, 129 L.Ed.2d 775 (1994); Agripost, Inc. v. Miami-Dade County, 195 F.3d 1225, 1229 n. 7 (11th Cir.1999); Roe v. State of Alabama, 43 F.3d 574, 580 (11th Cir.1995); Valenti v. Mitchell, 962 F.2d 288, 297 (3d Cir. 199......
-
Neumont v. Monroe County, Florida
...may provide a process for obtaining just compensation, issues of material fact remain as to whether that process is inadequate pursuant to Agripost 11 and its Defendant had the burden of proof on this point, and defendant met its burden with its single factual statement: "None of the plaint......
-
Ray v. Judicial Corr. Servs., Inc.
...raise a Takings Clause claim until the regulatory decision denying the property interest is final. Agripost, Inc. v. Miami–Dade Cty., ex rel. Manager , 195 F.3d 1225, 1233 (11th Cir. 1999).Here, by and large, Plaintiffs' § 1983 claims do not challenge the probation orders or sentences impos......
-
Appellate Practice and Procedure - William M. Droze and Jeri N. Sute
...1358 (11th Cir. 1999). 105. Id. at 1360. 106. Id. at 1366. 107. Id. 108. 169 F.3d 677 (11th Cir. 1999). 109. Id. at 680. 110. Id. 111. 195 F.3d 1225 (11th Cir. 1999). 112. Id. at 1225. 113. Id. 114. Id. 115. Id. 116. American Iron & Steel Inst. v. OSHA, 182 F.3d 1261, 1274 n.10 (11th Cir. 1......