N & M Prop. v. West Warwick ex rel. Moore

• Decision Date: 27 February 2009
• Docket Number: No. 2008-17-Appeal.,2008-17-Appeal.
• Parties: N & M PROPERTIES, LLC v. TOWN OF WEST WARWICK By and Through its Finance Director, Malcolm MOORE.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

964 A.2d 1141

N & M PROPERTIES, LLC v. TOWN OF WEST WARWICK By and Through its Finance Director, Malcolm MOORE.

No. 2008-17-Appeal.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

February 27, 2009.

Jeffrey S. Brenner, Esq., Providence, for Plaintiff.

Timothy A. Williamson, Esq., Coventry, for Defendant.

Present: GOLDBERG, Acting C.J., FLAHERTY, SUTTELL, ROBINSON, JJ., and WILLIAMS, C.J. (ret.).

OPINION

Chief Justice WILLIAMS (ret.), for the Court.

This matter comes to us on the appeal of the plaintiff, N & M Properties, LLC (plaintiff), from the motion justice's dismissal of the plaintiff's complaint. After conducting a hearing, the motion justice determined that the plaintiff had failed to demonstrate a distinct, personal legal interest in the property at issue and thus lacked the requisite standing to bring suit against the Town of West Warwick (town or defendant) under the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act (UDJA), G.L. 1956 chapter 30 of title 9. It is because the motion justice denied and dismissed the action below that the plaintiff is before us today.

This case came before the Supreme Court for oral argument on January 27, 2009, pursuant to an order directing the parties to appear and show cause why the issues raised in this appeal should not summarily be decided. After hearing the arguments of counsel and examining the record and memoranda filed by the parties, we are of the opinion that this appeal may be decided at this time without further argument or briefing. For the reasons hereinafter set forth, we affirm the judgment of the Superior Court.

I Facts and Travel

The plaintiff is the owner of real property located at 1237 Main Street, West Warwick, Rhode Island (Main Street property). In 1990, plaintiff entered into a lease agreement with the State of Rhode Island, pursuant to which the state would use the Main Street property as a Motor Vehicle Registry (Registry) for the state's Division of Motor Vehicles. The most recent lease agreement between plaintiff and the state was effective for a term of five years, running from January 1, 2002 until December 31, 2006. Pursuant to the terms of the lease, the state retained the right to extend the lease for an additional five-year term upon its expiration. If extended, that new lease would commence on January 1, 2007. The lease that began on January 1, 2002, expired on December 31, 2006, but the state did not exercise its option to renew the lease for another five-year term. Instead, the state continued to operate the Registry on the Main Street property and remained a holdover tenant on a month-to-month basis. Notably, at oral argument, the parties concurred that after the filing of this appeal, the state closed the registries in both West Warwick and Westerly for budgetary reasons.

The underlying dispute concerns the relationship between the Main Street property and two nearby municipal parking lots. Since 1969, the town has owned two parcels of real property in West Warwick, both located in close proximity to the Main Street property; those two parcels have been used as municipal parking lots to provide parking in the vicinity of the parcels. According to plaintiff, patrons of the Registry historically have parked in these municipal parking lots when going to the Registry.

In May 2006, at West Warwick's annual financial meeting, the town authorized the sale of the municipal parking lots. Two months later, on July 17, 2006, the town passed Ordinance No. 2006-14, creating the Arctic Design Control District, which was intended to revitalize the neighborhood known as Arctic Village in West Warwick. That same day, the West Warwick Planning Board heard an application for a comprehensive permit from The Women's Development Corporation and WildBerry Apartments, Inc. (developer), in which the developer proposed to build low- and moderate-income housing in Arctic Village. On August 7, 2006, the planning board approved this application, and the next week the West Warwick Town Council voted to sell the municipal parking lots to the developer. Upon completion of this project, the available parking in the municipal parking lots was projected to decrease from approximately one hundred spaces to about forty spaces. At around the same time, the town also decided to designate fifty-nine additional parking spaces on the street, which could be used by patrons of the Registry.

Because of this sale of the parcels to the developer, plaintiff filed the underlying declaratory-judgment action against the town on October 2, 2006, pursuant to the UDJA. The plaintiff asked the Superior Court to declare that the town unlawfully, impermissibly, and without authority agreed to sell the municipal parking lots to the developer because such residential development was inconsistent with the West Warwick Comprehensive Community Plan (comprehensive plan).

The plaintiff subsequently filed a motion for summary judgment. The defendant objected to this motion, contending that plaintiff lacked standing to bring the instant action because plaintiff did not have an injury distinct from the general public. The defendant asked the Superior Court to deny plaintiff's motion for summary judgment and dismiss the complaint. To counter defendant's argument that plaintiff lacked standing, plaintiff argued at the hearing on its motion for summary judgment that it was unable to secure a new long-term lease with the state for the Registry to operate on the Main Street property because of the uncertainty surrounding the number of available parking spaces. The plaintiff also argued that the sale at issue significantly diminished the number of parking spaces that Registry customers could use.

After hearing the arguments of both parties, the motion justice denied plaintiff's motion for summary judgment and issued a written decision. The motion justice explained that plaintiff had failed to demonstrate injury in fact—namely, that plaintiff lacked a distinct personal legal interest in preserving the municipal parking lots. She also noted that plaintiff had never been guaranteed any parking spaces in either lot.

After the motion justice dismissed plaintiff's complaint, plaintiff filed a motion for reconsideration. In its motion, plaintiff alleged that it had endured a specific harm as demonstrated by newly discovered meeting minutes from the State Properties Committee, in which the state had expressed concerns about the decreased municipal parking in the vicinity of the Registry. The minutes also indicated that the Division of Motor Vehicles' ultimate goal was to consolidate all Division of Motor Vehicle branches at the Pastore Complex in Cranston over the subsequent three to four years. The motion justice denied plaintiff's motion for reconsideration, explaining that even in light of this supplementary information, plaintiff still had not demonstrated a particularized harm. Final judgment was entered on June 12, 2007, and plaintiff timely appealed to this Court.

II Analysis

On appeal, plaintiff contends that the motion justice erred in ruling that plaintiff had failed to demonstrate that it had standing to bring a claim under the UDJA. The plaintiff argues that it indeed suffered an individualized, concrete, and articulable injury when the town decreased the nearby municipal parking. The plaintiff asserts that it has demonstrated an injury in fact: the state refused to renew its lease with plaintiff for the five-year option period because of parking concerns resulting from the sale of the municipal parking lots.

A Standard of Review

"When reviewing an appeal based on an alleged error of law, this Court employs a de novo review to determine whether the [motion] justice committed legal error." State v. Jennings, 944 A.2d 171, 173 (R.I.2008). See also Bowen v. Mollis, 945 A.2d 314, 316 (R.I.2008). Our review is de novo because "this Court is in the best position to decide the merits of a given question of law." Lett v. Providence Journal Co., 798 A.2d 355, 363 (R.I.2002) (quoting Votolato v. Merandi, 747 A.2d 455, 460 (R.I.2000)).

B Standing

The UDJA vests the Superior Court with the "power to declare rights, status, and other legal relations whether or not further relief is or could be claimed." Section 9-30-1. The threshold determination when confronted with a claim under the UDJA is whether the Superior Court is presented with an actual case or controversy. Bowen, 945 A.2d at 317. Without making this initial determination, the court does not have jurisdiction to entertain the claim. Id.¹

For a claim to be justiciable, two elemental components must be present: (1) a plaintiff with the requisite standing and (2) "some legal hypothesis which will entitle the plaintiff to real and articulable relief." Bowen, 945 A.2d at 317 (quoting McKenna v. Williams, 874 A.2d 217, 226 (R.I.2005)). We laid out our principles for the standing requirement in Rhode Island Ophthalmological Society, in which we adopted the principles employed by the United States Supreme Court. Rhode Island Ophthalmological Society v. Cannon, 113 R.I. 16, 26, 317 A.2d 124, 129 (1974) ("It is our belief that standing can now be determined by our adoption of the first of the [Association of Data Processing Service Organizations, Inc. v. Camp, 397 U.S. 150, 153-54, 90 S.Ct. 827, 25 L.Ed.2d 184 (1970)] criteria. The question is whether the person whose standing is challenged has alleged an injury in fact resulting from the challenged statute. If he has, he satisfies the requirement of standing."). Our subsequent case law has elucidated these rules further.

To determine whether a plaintiff has standing to sue, the court must focus "on the party who is advancing the claim rather than on the issue the party seeks to have adjudicated." Bowen, 945 A.2d at 317. The standing inquiry is satisfied when a plaintiff has suffered "some injury in fact, economic or otherwise." Id.; Meyer v. City of Newport, 844 A.2d 148, 151 (R.I.2004). We have defined injury in...