Club Madonna, Inc. v. City of Miami Beach

• Citation: 924 F.3d 1370
• Decision Date: 24 May 2019
• Docket Number: No. 17-13934,17-13934
• Parties: CLUB MADONNA, INC., a Florida corporation d.b.a. Club Madonna, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. CITY OF MIAMI BEACH, a Florida municipal corporation, Defendant - Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

924 F.3d 1370

CLUB MADONNA, INC., a Florida corporation d.b.a. Club Madonna, Plaintiff - Appellant,
v.
CITY OF MIAMI BEACH, a Florida municipal corporation, Defendant - Appellee.

No. 17-13934

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

May 24, 2019

924 F.3d 1374

Daniel R. Aaronson, Benjamin Aaronson Edinger & Patanzo, PA, Fort Lauderdale, FL, Gary Scott Edinger, Gary S. Edinger, PA, Gainesville, FL, Benedict P. Kuehne, Kuehne Davis Law, PA, Rachel Ann Oostendorp, Carlton Fields, PA, Miami, FL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Richard J. Ovelmen, Enrique Daniel Arana, Jason Patrick Kairalla, Carlton Fields, PA, Aleksandr Boksner, Donald Mark Papy, Robert F. Rosenwald, City Attorney's Office of Miami Beach, Miami, FL, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, and ROSENBAUM and DUBINA, Circuit Judges.

ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judge:

People often say that timing is everything. Hitting a home run? Timing.¹ Comedy? Timing.² Winemaking? Timing.³ Relationships? Timing.⁴ Politics? Timing.⁵

And of course, timing is also important when it comes to Article III

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justiciability. File before the facts underpinning the claim have been sufficiently developed, and a court must dismiss the claim because it is not ripe for the court’s review. But wait until the claim has been resolved and the court can offer no further relief, and a court must dismiss the claim because it is moot. Yet if a well-pleaded claim falls in the sweet spot between ripeness and mootness and is otherwise justiciable, it states a "case or controversy" that the court must entertain.

Here, Appellant Club Madonna, Inc. (the "Club"), a fully-nude strip club in the City of Miami Beach (the "City"), filed several claims against the City, challenging administrative action it had taken against the Club, the laws authorizing that action, and ordinances the City later enacted that regulate the fully nude strip-club business. The district court dismissed all sixteen of the Club’s claims, six because they did not state a claim and ten because they were not yet ripe for the court’s review.

The Club appealed the district court’s dismissal as it pertains to all but Counts I, II, and part of Count VI. We agree that Counts III through VI failed to state claims. We also agree that one of the remaining claims was not ripe. And we affirm the district court’s dismissal of one more of those claims because the Club lacks standing to pursue it. But we conclude that the eight remaining appealed claims were ripe for the district court’s review and therefore reverse and remand to the district court for further proceedings.

I.

The catalyst for this case arose out of events occurring on January 6, 2014. On that date, police executed a search warrant at the Club. The affidavit supporting the warrant application described a police investigation into the disappearance of a 13-year-old girl. Among other information, it asserted that the girl had been trafficked by various people, including a woman who herself danced at the Club and who forced the girl to dance, fully nude, at the Club on several occasions. According to the affidavit, the Club did not require the girl to provide it with identification to verify her age, and the girl did not offer the Club any identification before performing. The affidavit further attested that the woman and her cohorts coerced the girl to turn over to them any money she earned working at the Club, under threat and actions of physical abuse.

On January 10, 2014, the City’s city manager found, based on the search warrant, that the conditions at the Club constituted an emergency and immediately suspended the Club’s business license.⁶ The City scheduled a hearing on that suspension, to be held before a special master on February 5, 2014. Before the hearing, though, the Club and the City reached a compromise under which the Club agreed to institute measures to ensure that similar events would not happen again, and the City agreed to return the Club’s business license.

Following these events, the City passed two ordinances regulating nude dance establishments, City of Miami Beach Ordinance Nos. 2015-3917 and 2015-3926 (collectively, the "Ordinance"). The Ordinance

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remains in effect and contains three sections.

First, Section 18-913 requires nude dance establishments such as the Club to check the age and work eligibility of "any worker or performer" by requiring that they "provide proof of an original, lawfully issued state or federal photo identification, and one additional form of identification." The owner or manager of the establishment must also "[v]erify the accuracy" of the documents by making a "sworn statement ... confirming that the individual performer is at least 18 years of age." In the same sworn statement, the owner or manager must "[c]onfirm" that the worker is "performing of her or his own accord, and is not being forced or intimidated into performing or working." Code of the City of Miami Beach § 18-913. Section 18-913 also requires the business to keep a log of workers as they enter and exit the premises and to make all of the required documentation available "for inspection by the city upon demand." Id.

Next, under Section 18-914, nude dance establishments must "[p]rovide direct monetary or non-monetary compensation to any worker or performer" and "maintain documentary proof" that the compensation "was directly received by the worker or performer." Code of the City of Miami Beach § 18-914. As with Section 18-913, Section 18-914 requires the business to maintain records of its compliance, and the City enjoys "a right to request and inspect the records for any and all workers or performers." Id.

Finally, Section 18-915 describes the penalties for failure to comply with the requirements of Sections 18-913 and 18-914. For a first, second, and third offense within specified time periods, a business shall be fined $ 5,000, $ 10,000, and $ 20,000, respectively. For a second offense within three years, the City will shut down the business for three months. And a third offense allows the City to exercise its discretion to close the business for up to a year. Code of the City of Miami Beach § 18-915. An establishment charged with violating the ordinance has a right to an administrative hearing and may appeal the decision to "a court of competent jurisdiction." Id.

So far, the City has not alleged that the Club has fallen short of compliance with the Ordinance.

II.

Displeased with the City’s activities after the execution of the search warrant, the Club filed a complaint against the City. The complaint contains multiple and varied constitutional-law claims that might inspire a law-school professor writing a final exam. We catalogue them below.

Counts I through VI all concern the City’s actions in response to the execution of the search warrant and challenge laws existing at that time, before the enactment of the new Ordinance. More specifically, Count I presented a facial challenge to the ordinances that authorized the City to close the Club on an emergency basis and asserts that they impose an unlawful prior restraint under the First Amendment; Count II lodges the same argument, only as applied to the Club. And Count III alleges that these ordinances are facially unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause. Count IV contests the facial constitutionality of the City’s post-deprivation procedures in particular under the Due Process Clause; Count V makes the same argument as applied to the Club. Count VI asserts that the City’s use of the local laws to suspend its business license violated the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause because, according to the complaint,

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the City acted in bad faith and for retaliatory reasons.

Counts VII through XVI concern the legality of the Ordinance enacted in the wake of the police investigation. Count VII contends that the Ordinance imposes an unconstitutional burden on the Club’s First Amendment rights. Count VIII alleges that the Ordinance is an unconstitutional tax on speech. Count IX challenges the Ordinance as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Count X argues that the Ordinance is unconstitutionally vague. Count XI posits that the Ordinance violates the Contract Clause. Count XII takes issue with the penalty provision, claiming it violates the Eighth Amendment. Counts XIII, XIV, and XV allege that the Ordinance is preempted by state and federal laws. And finally, Count XVI contends that the inspection provision of the Ordinance violates the Fourth Amendment.

In response to the Club’s complaint, the City moved to dismiss the case. To support its motion, the City attached the search warrant (complete with the supporting search-warrant affidavit) that prompted its actions, the order suspending the Club’s business license, and the order offering to reinstate the Club’s business license under a negotiated compromise.

As for its legal argument, the City asserted that the complaint should be dismissed because the Club lacked standing to bring any of its claims. Besides that, the...