Kerns v. Dukes
| Decision Date | 20 January 1998 |
| Docket Number | 1997,No. 338,338 |
| Citation | 707 A.2d 363 |
| Parties | Joseph KERNS, Kathleen Kerns, William M. Torney, Lois A. Torney, Maureen Moyer, John D. Coffman and Martha C. Coffman, individually and as representative plaintiffs on behalf of the certified class, Defendants Below, Appellants, v. Dale DUKES, individually and as Sussex County Government President and Council President, and George J. Collins, individually and as Sussex County Council Member, and William D. Stevenson, individually and as Sussex County Council Member, and George B. Cole, individually and as Sussex County Council Member, and Ralph E. Benson, individually and as Sussex County Member, and Robert L. Stickels, individually and as Sussex County Administrator, and Robert W. Wood, individually and as Sussex County Engineer, and Christophe A. Tulou, individually and as Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control Secretary, and Gerald L. Esposito, individually as a Director of Delaware Department of Natural resources and Environmental Control, and Edwin H. Clark, individually and as then Secretary of Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, Plaintiffs Below, Appellees. . Submitted: |
| Court | Supreme Court of Delaware |
Upon Certification of Question of Law from the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Question Answered.
Court Below: United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Docket No. 96-7751.
Francis J. Trzuskowski, James F. Kipp, Francis J. Schanne (argued), and F.L. Peter Stone, Trzuskowski, Kipp, Kelleher & Pearce, P.A., Wilmington, for Appellants.
Dennis L. Schrader (argued) and Veronica O. Faust, Wilson, Halbrook & Bayard, Georgetown and Carl Schnee, and Patricia A. Pyles McGonigle, Prickett, Jones, Elliott, Kristol & Schnee, Wilmington, for Appellees Dale R. Dukes, George J. Collins, William D. Stevenson, Sr., George B. Cole, Ralph E. Benson, Robert L. Stickels, and Robert W. Wood.
Keith A. Trostle, Deputy Attorney General, Department of Justice, Wilmington, for Appellees Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control and Secretary Christophe A. Tulou.
Kevin P. Maloney, Deputy Attorney General, Department of Justice, Wilmington, for Appellees Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control and Director Gerald P. Esposito.
David L. Ormond, Jr., Deputy Attorney General, Department of Justice, Wilmington, for Appellees Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control and Secretary Edwin H. Clark.
Before VEASEY, C.J., WALSH and BERGER, JJ.
This matter originated through the filing of a civil action in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. Plaintiffs in that action are Sussex County, Delaware, property owners (the "Property Owners"), who challenged the decision to create a new sewer district, in which they are included, and the actions taken to implement that decision by defendants, the members and officials of the Sussex County Council (the "County") and officials of the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control ("DNREC"). The District Court dismissed the action on jurisdictional grounds, and the Property Owners appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (the "Third Circuit").
By order dated July 31, 1997, the Third Circuit certified the following question of law to this Court:
To what extent does the jurisdiction of Delaware's courts (whether taken singly or in combination) encompass plaintiffs' claims, and to what extent are Delaware's courts able to provide such relief as those claims, if sustained, would entail?
For the purpose of this certification, the Third Circuit assumes that the Property Owners' suit is the sort of challenge to the processes of state and local taxation that federal comity doctrines and the Tax Injunction Act were designed to preclude from the jurisdiction of federal district courts. 1
We conclude, in answer to the certified question, that the Court of Chancery would have jurisdiction over a state action based on the Property Owners' claims and could provide full relief on those claims, if sustained.
The Property Owners' suit was brought as a purported class action, with the class estimated at 7,000 Sussex County property owners. They assert standing to pursue their claims as taxpayers. The Property Owners contend that they are being compelled to discontinue reliance on their own septic systems, and to join and to pay the costs of, and fees for, the expanded sewer system. In the complaint, the Property Owners allege: (i) violation of their procedural due process rights, under the 14th Amendment and 42 U.S.C. § 1983, by the County's failure to hold a vote on expansion of the sewer district; (ii) violation of their substantive due process rights, under the 14th Amendment and 42 U.S.C. § 1983, by actions taken by the County and DNREC, which were not based on any rationally supportable public health concern and which impinge upon their use and enjoyment of their real property though financial charge and legal encumbrances thereon; and (iii) failure by DNREC to undertake environmental and cost reviews federally mandated in the Clean Water Act (the "CWA"), see 33 U.S.C. § 1251, et seq. 2 The Property Owners' counsel summarized their claims as
[f]irst, that they were arbitrarily denied the right to vote on a new district. Second, they were arbitrarily denied an environmental process which we believe to be fixed and vested. And third, that the sewer district that was built is not legitimately or rationally related to an existing health menace....
As relief, the Property Owners request, "for themselves and all other members of the class," that:
A. The rights of the class members to have an election on the establishment of the "West Rehoboth Expansion of the Dewey Beach Sanitary Sewer District" be adjudicated and declared, and that the prior unlawfully decreed Sewer District be declared void ab initio;
B. The defendants and each of them be temporarily and permanently restrained and enjoined from requiring members of the class to connect to the unlawfully created sewer district and from charging or assessing said members of the class for the costs of creating, constructing, maintaining and operating said sewer district (and any debt thereon), unless and until such time as the sewer district is lawfully created by election and compliance with 9 Del.C. ch. 65, after proper environmental and cost review, and from any further construction of said sewer district, or creation of new debt thereon, without further order of the Court;
C. The defendants be Ordered to notify all persons, within the said sewer district, of their right to refuse to connect and/or disconnect and the right to receive a refund, if exercising said right, of any capitalization fees previously paid and/or any quarterly rates or other fees and costs paid regarding said sewer district;
D. The plaintiffs be awarded attorneys' fees and other applicable costs or fees pursuant to 42 U.S.C. section 1988;
E. The plaintiff class be awarded money damages incident to the equitable relief requested and such monies placed in trust. Such monies shall be sufficient to compensate the plaintiff class members for any liability and costs incurred on the new sewer district, including but not limited to costs of connections, fees previously paid by plaintiffs to the defendants plus interest, and to pay for any debt created from the construction of the sewer district; and
F. Plaintiffs have such other legal and equitable relief as the Court may deem appropriate, including costs and expenses.
(Complaint at 19-20 (emphasis in original).) In sum, the Property Owners seek declaratory relief, injunctive relief, money damages, and counsel fees.
The County and DNREC moved, on various grounds, to dismiss all or part of the suit, or, in the alternative, to stay the suit pending state court resolution of state law questions. The United States District Court for the District of Delaware dismissed the suit for lack of jurisdiction based on the Tax Injunction Act. 3 Kerns v. Dukes, D.Del., 944 F.Supp. 1214, 1219-22 (1996). The District Court concluded, in part, that allowing the Property Owners to pursue their claim in federal court would result in "substantial federal court interference in [Sussex] County's revenue collecting ability." Id. at 1222.
The Property Owners appealed the dismissal to the Third Circuit, where the appeal is now pending. To address fully the Property Owners' claims on appeal, the Third Circuit must determine the federal question of whether a "plain, speedy and efficient" 4 remedy is available for the Property Owners in Delaware's courts. Specifically, the Third Circuit seeks guidance from this Court as to the following:
We seek, that is, to ascertain the degree to which plaintiffs are able to pursue in the courts of Delaware those claims that they have chiefly pressed in the federal district court: We seek also to ascertain to what degree the requested relief--including a declaratory judgment, injunctive relief, and money damages--may be obtained in the courts of Delaware.
The Third Circuit certified its question to this Court out of concern for what it sees as "potential tension" between the decision of the Court of Chancery in Delaware Bankers Association v. Division of Revenue of the Department of Finance, Del.Ch., 298 A.2d 352 (1972), and the Superior Court's holding in Tatten Partners v. New Castle County Board of Assessment Review, Del.Super., 642 A.2d 1251 (1993).
This Court must...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Kerns v. Dukes
...relief, where there is otherwise a basis for equitable jurisdiction. The requests for an award of money damages Kerns v. Dukes, 707 A.2d 363, 367-68 (Del.1998) (footnotes and citations omitted). With respect to the Property Owners' claim that they were arbitrarily denied an environmental re......
-
Froebel v. Meyer
... ... See, e.g., Kerns v. Dukes, 707 A.2d 363, 368-69 (Del.1998) (finding state court jurisdiction over CWA citizen suit against members of Delaware Department of Natural ... ...
-
Scion Breckenridge Managing Member, LLC v. Asb Allegiance Real Estate Fund, Ebref Holding Co.
...presented this argument to the Vice Chancellor. See Plaintiffs' Opening Posttrial Brief on Reformation at 44, 48 (citing Kerns v. Dukes, 707 A.2d 363, 369 (Del.1998); Shepherd v. Mazzetti, 545 A.2d 621, 624 (Del.1988); Wilmington Med. Ctr., Inc. v. Severns, 433 A.2d 1047, 1049–50 (Del.1981)......
- State v. Macomber