Deniz v. Municipality of Guaynabo

• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit
• Writing for the Court: Selya
• Citation: Deniz v. Municipality of Guaynabo, 285 F.3d 142 (1st Cir. 2002)
• Decision Date: 08 April 2002
• Docket Number: No. 01-2021.,No. 01-2020.,01-2020.,01-2021.
• Parties: Calixto DENIZ, a/k/a Calixto Deniz Marquez, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. MUNICIPALITY OF GUAYNABO, et al., Defendants, Appellees. Calixto Deniz, a/k/a Calixto Deniz Marquez, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. Municipality of Guaynabo, et al., Defendants, Appellants.

285 F.3d 142

Calixto DENIZ, a/k/a Calixto Deniz Marquez, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. MUNICIPALITY OF GUAYNABO, et al., Defendants, Appellees.

Calixto Deniz, a/k/a Calixto Deniz Marquez, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. Municipality of Guaynabo, et al., Defendants, Appellants.

No. 01-2020.

No. 01-2021.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard March 6, 2002.

April 8, 2002.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Ana L. Toledo Dávila for plaintiff.

Pablo Landrau-Pirazzi, with whom Aldarondo & López Bras was on brief, for defendants.

Before SELYA, Circuit Judge, COFFIN, Senior Circuit Judge, and LIPEZ, Circuit Judge.

SELYA, Circuit Judge.

These appeals grow out of an action brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In that action, plaintiff-appellant Calixto Déniz Márquez accuses the Municipality of Guaynabo (the Municipality) of confiscating his property without just compensation. The district court held that the plaintiff's takings claims were unripe and dismissed the action. Déniz Márquez v. Municipality of Guaynabo, 140 F.Supp.2d 135, 140 (D.P.R.2001). The plaintiff appeals. We affirm.

I. Background

Since the district court disposed of this matter on a Rule 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss, without taking evidence, we accept as true all well-pleaded factual averments in the plaintiff's amended complaint and indulge all reasonable inferences therefrom in his favor. Valentin v. Hosp. Bella Vista, 254 F.3d 358, 365 (1st Cir.2001).

The plaintiff is a real estate developer who owns two adjoining parcels of real estate (the Property) in Guaynabo. One parcel contains a three-story office building. The abutting (unimproved) parcel serves as a parking lot for that building.

In or around February of 1999, the plaintiff signed a conditional agreement to sell the Property for $625,000. Before the closing date, the would-be buyer visited the municipal offices and learned that the Municipality intended to take the Property by eminent domain. He promptly withdrew his offer. A second potential purchaser backed out for much the same reason.

The plaintiff was perplexed because he had heard nothing from the Municipality concerning an expropriation of the Property. On March 31, 1999, he inquired whether the Municipality intended to proceed with a condemnation action. Almost two months later, Aurialis Lozada, the director of Guaynabo's legal division, responded to his letter. She informed the plaintiff that the mayor of Guaynabo, Héctor O'Neill, intended to take the Property by eminent domain. Presumably to facilitate this plan, Lozada forbade the plaintiff from renewing any of the office building leases. Word of the putative taking spread, and tenants began to quit the premises like rats deserting a sinking ship.

Despite several subsequent conversations between the plaintiff and Lozada, the Municipality neither designated the Property for public use nor commenced eminent domain proceedings. During this hiatus, the plaintiff's income stream dried up, his mortgage went into default, and the mortgagee began to threaten foreclosure. Left in a bureaucratic limbo and concerned about his financial plight, the plaintiff brought suit in Puerto Rico's federal district court. His operative pleading (the amended complaint) named the Municipality, O'Neill, and Lozada as defendants. It alleged violations of section 1983 and the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The gist of the case was the averment that the defendants' conduct amounted to a de facto taking that unconstitutionally deprived the plaintiff of the beneficial use of the Property without just compensation. For good measure, the plaintiff added a due process claim, as well as supplemental claims under local law.

The suit provoked two motions to dismiss. The first, based upon ripeness considerations, asserted that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1). The second, more substantively oriented, asserted that the amended complaint failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6).

For reasons that are not immediately apparent, the district court first addressed the Rule 12(b)(6) motion and found it wanting. Déniz Márquez, 140 F.Supp.2d at 138-39. The court determined, however, that the Rule 12(b)(1) motion was dispositive because the plaintiff had an obligation to pursue the inverse condemnation remedy available under Puerto Rico law before prosecuting his takings claims under section 1983. Id. at 139-40. Accordingly, the court dismissed the plaintiff's federal claims as unripe and dismissed the remaining (supplemental) claims without prejudice. Id. at 140. The plaintiff appealed, and the defendants cross-appealed from the denial of their Rule 12(b)(6) motion.

II. The Plaintiff's Appeal

We review de novo the district court's dismissal of the plaintiff's federal claims as unripe. Ernst & Young v. Depositors Econ. Prot. Corp., 45 F.3d 530, 534 (1st Cir.1995). We begin our inquiry by framing the issue and then proceed to discuss the plaintiff's contentions.

A. Setting the Stage

42 U.S.C. § 1983 provides in pertinent part that "[e]very person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage ... subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States ... to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured." This statute "supplies a private right of action against a person who, under color of state law, deprives another of rights secured by the Constitution or by federal law." Evans v. Avery, 100 F.3d 1033, 1036 (1st Cir.1996). For section 1983 purposes, Puerto Rico is deemed equivalent to a state. See Martínez v. Colón, 54 F.3d 980, 984 (1st Cir.1995).

The plaintiff centers his primary section 1983 claim on the allegation that the defendants unlawfully deprived him of his rights in the Property without just compensation. Their conduct, he alleges, constituted a de facto confiscation and thereby violated the Takings Clause. See U.S. Const. amend. V (prohibiting the taking of private property for public use without just compensation).

The initial hurdle is easily cleared: the defendants are alleged to have acted under color of Puerto Rico law, and the Takings Clause applies unreservedly to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Tenoco Oil Co. v. Dep't of Consumer Affairs, 876 F.2d 1013, 1017 n. 9 (1st Cir.1989). Once past this point, however, insurmountable obstacles loom. Chief among them is the question of ripeness.

That question arises out of the plaintiff's decision to pursue his takings claims directly in federal court. The Supreme Court has explained that:

The Fifth Amendment does not proscribe the taking of property; it proscribes taking without just compensation. Nor does the Fifth Amendment require that just compensation be paid in advance of, or contemporaneously with, the taking; all that is required is that a "reasonable, certain, and adequate provision for obtaining compensation" exist at the time of the taking.

Williamson County Reg'l Planning Comm'n v. Hamilton Bank, 473 U.S. 172, 194, 105 S.Ct. 3108, 87 L.Ed.2d 126 (1985) (citations omitted). Thus, a takings claim ordinarily is considered unripe if the claimant comes directly to a federal court without first seeking compensation through state procedures. Id. at 194-95, 105 S.Ct. 3108.

To be sure, this rule — like most rules — admits of exceptions. One such exception is that a claimant in a takings case may be excused for failing to seek recourse from the state courts if all potential state remedies are "unavailable or inadequate." Id. at 196-97, 105 S.Ct. 3108. But this exception is narrowly construed, and the claimant must carry the heavy burden of showing unavailability or inadequacy. Gilbert v. City of Cambridge, 932 F.2d 51, 65 (1st Cir.1991). In this operose endeavor, doubts are to be resolved in favor of exhaustion. Thus, if it is unclear whether a particular state-law remedy pertains, the claimant must attempt to exploit it — and his federal takings claim will not be deemed ripe unless and until he has pursued, and exhausted, that course. Id.

This exception lies at the heart of the plaintiff's appeal. The dispositive question here is whether the plaintiff has made a sufficient showing that Puerto Rico law affords him no remedy for the alleged taking. We turn next to that question.

B. Availability of the Inverse Condemnation Remedy

The remedy of inverse condemnation serves as a "protection for [landowners] to force the State to comply with the constitutional provisions guaranteeing that no person shall be deprived of his property without due process of law and without having received compensation." Culebras Enters. Corp. v. Rivera Rios, 813 F.2d 506, 513 (1st Cir.1987) (discussing Puerto Rico law). Although the remedy is not memorialized in Puerto Rico's Civil Code, the case law makes clear that inverse condemnation is generally available under Puerto Rico law. See Ochoa Realty Corp. v. Faria, 815 F.2d 812, 817 (1st Cir.1987); Culebras, 813 F.2d at 513-14; Aner Inv. Corp. v. Junta de Planificacíon, 99 TSPR 65, 1999 WL 258587, at *2 (P.R.1999); Culebra Enters. Corp. v. Estado Libre Asociado, 143 P.R. Dec. 935, 1997 WL 870831, at *4 (P.R. 1997).

The plaintiff does not challenge the generic availability of an inverse condemnation remedy under Puerto Rico law, but, rather, contends that he is precluded from invoking that remedy. He makes three main points in support of his claim that the inverse condemnation remedy is unavailable to him.

First, he suggests that the inverse condemnation remedy does not extend to a de facto taking.¹ The case law is sparse, but the authorities tend toward the view that the remedy applies to de facto takings. See Aner Inv. Corp., 99 TSPR 65, 1999 WL 258587, at *2 (explaining that Puerto Rico's inverse condemnation remedy applies not only to physical occupation and regulatory taking...