Londono v. City of Gainesville

• Decision Date: 14 August 1985
• Docket Number: No. 83-3749,83-3749
• Parties: Jack H. LONDONO, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CITY OF GAINESVILLE, a political subdivision of the State of Florida, Defendant-Appellant. Non-Argument Calendar.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1223

768 F.2d 1223

Jack H. LONDONO, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CITY OF GAINESVILLE, a political subdivision of the State of Florida, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 83-3749.

Non-Argument Calendar.

United States Court of Appeals Eleventh Circuit.

Aug. 14, 1985.

J.T. Frankenberger, City Atty., Charles L. Hauck, Gainesville, Fla., for defendant-appellant.

Charles Carter, Richard T. Jones, Gainesville, Fla., for plaintiff-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

Before TJOFLAT, HILL and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.

TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge:

Jack H. Londono brought this action in the district court, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 (1982), claiming that the City of Gainesville, Florida deprived him of the effective use of his property without due process of law when it rezoned his property. After the district court granted the City's motion for summary judgment (for reasons not relevant to this appeal) but before a final judgment could be entered, Londono's lawyer advised the court that the case had been settled. The city attorney, in turn, advised the court that the case had not been settled. Instead of determining whether a settlement had mooted the parties' controversy and the case should be dismissed for want of a "case or controversy," the court decided to permit Londono to seek the specific performance of his alleged settlement agreement and treated his complaint as if it had been amended to state a claim for such relief. The court thereafter convened a hearing on the settlement issue. It concluded that the parties had reached a settlement agreement and enjoined the City to perform its obligations thereunder. The City appeals, asking us to find as a matter of law that there was no settlement and to instruct the district court to enter final judgment in accordance with its order granting the City's motion for summary judgment.

The district court's dispositive injunctive order is ambiguous in several important respects; consequently, we are unable to determine whether the court erred in concluding that the parties settled their case. We therefore vacate the court's injunction and remand the case for further findings of fact and conclusions of law on this issue.

I.

Jack H. Londono purchased one and one-half acres of land in Gainesville, Florida for $200,000 in March 1979 for the purpose of building a sixty-unit apartment complex. At that time, the parcel was zoned R-3, which permitted the construction of forty-three units per acre. Londono submitted a site plan for the apartment complex to the City of Gainesville Plan Board. In July 1979, while the Board had Londono's site plan under consideration, the City of Gainesville declared a moratorium on real estate development in the area in which Londono's tract was located. In October 1979, the City rezoned Londono's property R-1, thereby reducing the permissible density of multifamily development to a maximum of eight units per acre.

Londono objected to this downzoning and sued the City in state circuit court to block the change. On July 11, 1980 the circuit court concluded that the City had acted arbitrarily in rezoning Londono's property R-1 and ordered the City to zone it "consistent with present land use and zoning" within the area. The court retained jurisdiction of the case to review the City's compliance with its order.

On July 16, 1980, Londono brought this suit, alleging that the City's downzoning of his property to R-1 denied him the effective use of his property in violation of the fourteenth amendment due process clause. He sought to recover as damages the profits he would have obtained had he constructed the sixy-unit apartment complex outlined in the site plan he submitted to the City's Plan Board and the expense of litigating his claims in the state and federal courts. Following some discovery, both parties moved for summary judgment.

After these motions were argued and while the court had them under submission, Londono entered into settlement negotiations with three members of the City Commission, Commissioners Collier, Goldstein, and Junior, who also was the mayor, and they eventually agreed to the following course of action. Londono would offer to dismiss his lawsuits against the City (i.e., the state circuit court suit and the instant case), and Collier, Goldstein, and Junior would urge the City Commission to approve the City's purchase of Londono's one and one-half acre tract for $380,000. The City would pay this price by giving Londono at closing, $80,000, in cash, and a promissory note, secured by a second mortgage on the property, for $150,000, payable in two annual installments of $75,000 with interest at twelve percent per annum, and assuming the $150,000 balance Londono owed on an existing first mortgage on the property. On April 1, 1983, Londono's lawyer wrote the city attorney, offering to dismiss Londono's suits against the City if it would purchase Londono's one and one-half acre tract on the foregoing terms. He advised the city attorney that Londono's offer would be deemed withdrawn unless the City Commission unconditionally accepted it at its April 4 meeting.

At the April 4 Commission meeting, Commissioner Collier presented Londono's offer to the Commission and moved that it accept the offer "in principal" and authorize the city attorney to consult with Londono's attorney and prepare a formal agreement. Following debate, Mayor Junior, who was presiding, restated Collier's motion as calling for the city attorney to negotiate an agreement on the terms Londono's lawyer had proposed and to submit the agreement to the Commission for approval. The motion passed unanimously.

On April 5, the district court, apparently unaware of the parties' settlement negotiations and the Commission's action the preceding evening, entered a memorandum order granting the City's motion for summary judgment and directed the city attorney to prepare a final judgment. The next day Londono's attorney informed the court by telephone that the parties had settled the case on April 4. A day or so later, after he received the court's April 5 order, the city attorney telephoned the district court's chambers seeking information as to the form of the final judgment he should prepare. He spoke with a law clerk who told him that Londono's lawyer had advised the court that the case had been settled. The city attorney stated that there had been no settlement and that he would prepare a final judgment as the court had directed. When the final judgment was submitted, the court refused to enter it. Instead, the court instructed Londono's attorney to move the court to enforce the settlement agreement the attorney contended the parties had made.

On May 26, Londono moved the court to declare that the parties had settled the case on the terms set forth in his lawyer's April 1 letter to the city attorney and to enforce that settlement. Londono contended that the letter constituted an offer and that the City, at the April 4 Commission meeting, had unconditionally accepted it. The court held an evidentiary hearing on the motion and concluded that the parties had reached a binding, enforceable settlement agreement; the Commission's action, at its April 4 meeting, amounted to an acceptance of Londono's settlement offer. The court instructed Londono's attorney to prepare findings of fact and conclusions of law to that effect and to incorporate them in a final judgment. Counsel did so, and the court signed the document counsel presented. In its judgment, the court rescinded its April 5 order granting the City's motion for summary judgment and directed the City to purchase Londono's property in accordance with the terms of his attorney's April 1 letter offer.

The City appeals. ¹ It contends that the record of the April 4 Commission meeting indicates as a matter of fact and of law that the City did not enter into a binding, enforceable settlement agreement with Londono; ² accordingly, the district court's conclusion that the parties settled the case must be set aside. The City also contends that it is entitled to judgment in accordance with the court's April 5 order granting its motion for summary judgment.

Before we address the City's contentions, we must place in proper context the district court's initial treatment of Londono's claim that the case had been settled. When Londono's attorney advised the court on April 6 that the parties had settled, he stated in effect that their controversy had been mooted. See Lamonica v. S.L.E., Inc. (In re S.L.E., Inc.), 674 F.2d 359, 364 (5th Cir.1982); I.T.T. Rayonier Inc. v. United States, 651 F.2d 343, 345 (5th Cir.1981). If counsel's statement to the court was true, and parties did not wish their settlement to be incorporated into a consent judgment or decree, the court should have dismissed the case without prejudice for want of a case or controversy, see North Carolina v. Rice, 404 U.S. 244, 245-46, 92 S.Ct. 402, 404, 30 L.Ed.2d 413 (1971), or, if the parties so stipulated, dismissed it with prejudice. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 41(a)(1)(ii). The truth of counsel's representation to the court, and thus the existence of a case or controversy, was placed in doubt, however, when the city attorney informed the court that the case had not been settled and that the City should be granted a summary final judgment pursuant to the court's April 5 order.

At this juncture, the court should have proceeded to determine whether it still had a live controversy before it in the form of Londono's section 1983 civil rights action. ³ It was only in this context that the court had any authority to determine whether the parties had settled. Had they reached a settlement enforceable under Florida law, there could be no section 1983 controversy; had they not reached such a settlement, that controversy remained live. Absent an independent jurisdictional base, the court had no authority sua sponte to transform...