New Port Largo, Inc. v. Monroe County
| Decision Date | 17 March 1993 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 90-5091,90-5327,s. 90-5091 |
| Citation | 985 F.2d 1488 |
| Parties | NEW PORT LARGO, INC., a Florida corporation, Charles H. Netter and Stuart D. Marr, Plaintiffs-Appellants, New Port Largo, etc., Plaintiff, v. MONROE COUNTY, a political subdivision of the State of Florida, Kenneth Sorensen, Board Member of County Commissioners, Monroe Planning & Zoning, Donald Schloesser, Commissioners Board, Alison Fahrer, Commissioners Board, Curt Blair, Commissioners Board, and George Dolezal, Commissioners Board, Defendants-Appellees, Wilhelmenia Harvey, et al., Defendants. NEW PORT LARGO, INC., Charles H. Netter and Stuart D. Marr, Plaintiffs-Appellees, New Port Largo, etc., Plaintiffs, v. MONROE COUNTY, a political subdivision of the State of Florida, Defendant-Appellant, Kenneth Sorensen, etc., et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Coffey, Aragon, Martin, Burlington & Serota, P.A., Miami, FL, Jeffrey B. Crockett, Maurice J. Kutner, Michael R. Seward, Law Office of Michael R. Seward, Miami, FL, for plaintiffs-appellants in No. 90-5091.
Alan G. Greer, Floyd, Pearson, Richman, Greer, Weil, Zack & Brumbaugh, P.A., Miami, FL, for Monroe Cty., Fahrer, Sorenson, Blair, Dolenzal & Schloesser.
Randy Ludacer, Key West, FL, for Monroe County.
Randy Ludacer, Co. Atty., Key West, FL, Robert L. Floyd, Alan G. Greer, Floyd, Pearson, Richman, Greer, Weil, Zack & Brumbaugh, P.A., Miami, FL, for defendant-appellant in No. 90-5327.
Jeffrey B. Crockett, Coffey, Aragon, Martin, Burlington & Serota, P.A., Michael R. Seward, Law Office of Michael R. Seward, Miami, FL, for plaintiffs-appellees in No. 90-5327.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Before TJOFLAT, Chief Judge, EDMONDSON, Circuit Judge, and DYER, Senior Circuit Judge.
The principal issue presented by these consolidated appeals is whether the district court erred in granting appellee's motion for summary judgment by applying the wrong tolling doctrine to appellant New Port Largo, Inc.'s (NPL) temporary regulatory takings claims, thereby holding the claims barred by the applicable statute of limitations. NPL sold the subject property two years after the enactment of the allegedly infringing regulation. The district court, observing that the regulation could cause NPL no injury thereafter, held that the applicable statute of limitations ran from the date NPL sold the property. NPL contends that the statute of limitations was tolled until the state court, in passing on the validity of the regulation, declared the regulation invalid. Based on Corn v. City of Lauderdale Lakes, 904 F.2d 585 (11th Cir.1990) (Corn III ), 1 we conclude that the district court erred. Accordingly, we vacate the district court's judgment and remand the case for further proceedings. 2
In August 1968, the State of Florida sold a parcel of submerged land located on Key Largo's Atlantic coast to a private trust. 3 In December 1972, after the private trust filled in and prepared the land for residential construction, the Monroe County Planning and Zoning Department (the Zoning Department) zoned the property for residential duplex use (RU-2).
In September 1979, NPL purchased the property from the private trust. In November 1979, appellee Monroe County (the County) filed an application with the Zoning Department to rezone the property from RU-2 to private airport use (PA). On January 24, 1980, the Zoning Department held a hearing on the proposed rezoning and subsequently approved the County's application. NPL appealed the Zoning Department's decision to the Monroe County Board of Commissioners (the Commission). On September 11, 1980, the Commission affirmed the Zoning Department's decision.
On October 10, 1980, NPL filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in state circuit court alleging that the rezoning violated Florida law. NPL claimed that the County had not complied with the procedural requirements of its Major Development Project Ordinance, an ordinance that applies to rezonings which, as here, concern parcels of land greater than five acres. On September 9, 1982, during the pendency of its certiorari petition, NPL sold the property in question, conveying one-half undivided interests in fee simple both to TFW, Inc., a Florida corporation, and to a land trust administered by the First National Bank of South Miami. Neither of these purchasers intervened in the certiorari proceeding brought by NPL. In August 1985, NPL amended its petition to include a claim that the County had deprived NPL of its property "without offering compensation ... in violation of the constitutions and laws of the United States and of the State of Florida." NPL also claimed that the rezoning did not comply with the dimensional requirements and safety regulations for a private airport. NPL asked the court to declare the rezoning invalid, to return the property to its RU-2 zone classification, and to provide any further relief the court deemed appropriate.
On January 2, 1986, the state court granted NPL's petition to invalidate the rezoning ordinance. The court found that the County's rezoning of the property to PA violated the dimensional requirements of a private airport zone, the County had not complied with the procedures of its Major Development Project Ordinance, and the rezoning "would deprive [NPL] of any reasonable use" of its property. Accordingly, the court declared invalid and quashed the County's rezoning of the subject property. Because the court found that the County had acted in good faith in pursuing the rezoning, however, it did not award damages to NPL. 4 Neither party sought appellate review of the court's decision.
On July 7, 1987, NPL brought this action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, seeking, among other forms of relief, just compensation for the alleged temporary regulatory "taking" of its property 5 both under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1988), and directly under the Fifth Amendment as made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment. 6 NPL alleged that the taking occurred when the County rezoned the property to a PA zone classification. The County filed a motion to dismiss all counts of the complaint asserting that NPL's takings claims were barred by res judicata and by the statute of limitations. See New Port Largo, Inc. v. Monroe County, 706 F.Supp. 1507, 1511 (S.D.Fla.1988).
On November 21, 1988, the district court found that the state court had not rendered a final adjudication on NPL's takings claims, and therefore rejected the County's res judicata defense. Id. at 1512-13 & n. 3; see Corn III, 904 F.2d at 587 (). In considering the County's statute of limitations argument, the district court reasoned that all just compensation claims should be treated similarly, regardless of whether the claims allege a complete taking or a temporary regulatory taking. New Port Largo, 706 F.Supp. at 1516-17. The court opined that in all actions to rectify the government's taking of private property, the applicable "statute of limitations runs from the time of [the government's] appropriation." Id. at 1516. The court suggested that the statute of limitations can be tolled only if the government continues to violate the law by new acts of appropriation. 7 Id. at 1517.
Utilizing this "continuing wrong" tolling doctrine, the court initially held that the last act of appropriation by the County occurred on April 9, 1985, when the state district court of appeal finally quieted title to the subject property in NPL. 8 Id. at 1518. After holding that the applicable statute of limitations in takings actions runs for four years, 9 here until April 9, 1989, the district court found that NPL's filing of its takings claims on July 7, 1987, fell well within the statutory period. Id.
On July 17, 1989, the County filed a motion for summary judgment seeking reconsideration of the court's determination that the last act of appropriation occurred on April 9, 1985, and arguing anew that NPL's regulatory takings claims were barred by the statute of limitations. Utilizing the district court's tolling doctrine, the County contended that NPL's sale of the subject property on September 9, 1982, precluded any tolling of the statute of limitations beyond that date by additional wrongful acts of appropriation by the County. As viewed by the County, NPL's action accrued on September 9, 1982, and the appropriate statute of limitations for NPL's action ran out four years later, on September 9, 1986, almost a year prior to the filing of NPL's claims in district court on July 7, 1987. The county concluded that NPL's claims were time-barred. The district court, adopting the County's argument, granted the County's motion for summary judgment on December 22, 1989. 10 NPL appealed, No. 90-5091, and the County cross-appealed the district court's denial of attorneys' fees, No. 90-5327.
Our review of the applicable statute of limitations doctrine is a question of law subject to de novo review. Atlantic Land & Improvement Co. v. United States, 790 F.2d 853, 857 (11th Cir.1986). The determination of the accrual date of a federal regulatory takings claim depends on the occurrence of two events. First, state judicial authorities must make a final determination on the status of the subject property affected by the zoning ordinance. Corn III, 904 F.2d at 588 (); Norco Constr., Inc. v. King County, 801 F.2d 1143, 1145 (9th Cir.1986) (). But cf. Williamson County Regional...
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