Ochoa Realty Corp. v. Faria, Civ. No. 84-2681CC.

• Decision Date: 17 April 1986
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 84-2681CC.
• Parties: OCHOA REALTY CORPORATION, Plaintiff, v. Rafael A. FARIA, Luis E. Landrau, Luis F. Quiñones, Dario Hernandez-Torres, John Doe and Richard Roe, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico

634 F. Supp. 723

OCHOA REALTY CORPORATION, Plaintiff, v. Rafael A. FARIA, Luis E. Landrau, Luis F. Quiñones, Dario Hernandez-Torres, John Doe and Richard Roe, et al., Defendants.

Civ. No. 84-2681CC.

United States District Court, D. Puerto Rico.

April 17, 1986.

Wallace González-Oliver and Jorge R. Jiménez, Hato Rey, P.R., Robert E. Schneider, Jr., Santurce, P.R., Juan E. Rodríguez-Díaz, Hato Rey, P.R., for plaintiff.

Alvaro R. Calderón, Hato Rey, P.R., Héctor Rivera-Cruz, Secretary of Justice, Jorge E.E. Pérez-Díaz, Director, Federal Litigation Div., Doris D. Hernández-Díaz, Atty., Dept. of Justice, Com. Puerto Rico, San Juan, P.R., for defendant.

OPINION AND ORDER

CEREZO, District Judge.

This is an action filed under 42 U.S.C. Sections 1983-1985 against several officers of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico for alleged deprivation of plaintiff's constitutional rights. Defendants are the former Secretary of the Department of Transportation and Public Works of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the present Secretary of that government agency, the Executive Director of the Puerto Rico Highway Authority and the Executive Director of the Puerto Rico Land Administration. It is alleged in the complaint that defendants by designing and locating on plaintiff's property the so-called Ramal-Este Highway and Agua-Guagua projects, eight and ten years prior to the filing of the complaint, have destroyed its value and rendered it useless "as a result of the fragmentation and mutilation that such property would undergo if the designs should materialize." It is alleged that in 1969 and 1970 plaintiff was unable to sell its property at a very profitable price because of the existence of these plans and that efforts to lot it were also unsuccessful when the defendants refused to approve plaintiff's lotting plans. Plaintiff requests that this Court issue an injunction against the defendants ordering them to declassify and restore plaintiff's property to its original state and condition. As a second cause of action it asks for damages in the amount of $18,000,000.00.

On March 27, 1985 the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, through the Secretary of Transportation and Public Works filed a petition with the Superior Court of Puerto Rico, San Juan Part, seeking condemnation of some, but not all, of plaintiff's property pursuant to 22 LPRA sections 6, et seq., 3 LPRA section 413a, 9 LPRA sections 2001-2004(n) and 32 LPRA section 2901, et seq. The sum of $1,023,151.00 was deposited with the court as compensation for the properties condemned. Those proceedings were removed to this court, but were later remanded to the Superior Court for lack of jurisdiction on removal. Defendants Rafael A. Faria and Luis E. Landrau, Secretary of Transportation and Public Works and Executive Director of the Puerto Rico Highway Authority, respectively, have moved to dismiss this action on the grounds that it has become moot by the filing of the condemnation proceedings. A previous motion to dismiss was filed by these defendants claiming the sovereign's immunity under the Eleventh Amendment of the United States Constitution, alleging that the complaint fails to state a cause of action in that it does not allege specific acts of the defendants amounting to a constitutional deprivation and contending that the cause of action alleged is one for the inverse condemnation of plaintiff's property, improperly brought before this court. See Pamel Corp. v. Puerto Rico Highway Authority, 621 F.2d 33 (1st Cir.1980); Citadel Corp. v. Puerto Rico Highway Authority, 695 F.2d 31, 33-34 (1st Cir.1982). For the reasons that follow defendants Faria and Landrau's motions to dismiss are GRANTED.

In Pamel, 621 F.2d 35-36, the Court of Appeals recognized a cause of action for arbitrary and oppressive zoning but limited the federal remedy to the voiding of the offending restriction. The Court stated:

A zoning regulation that exceeds the permissible bounds of the police power does not in reality confiscate the property, but regulates with oppressive or arbitrary severity. "Absent factors of government displacement of private ownership, occupation or management, there is no `taking' within the meaning of the constitutional limitations." Fred F. French Inv. Co., Inc. v. City of New York, supra, 39 N.Y.2d 587 at 595, 385 N.Y.S.2d 5 at 10, 350 N.E.2d 381 at 386 (citation omitted). A court does not declare that an offensive zoning regulation has taken the property, but that the government cannot impose the restriction without formally paying for it.

Federal enforcement of the inverse condemnation remedy would be a singularly inappropriate intrusion into the states' traditional domains of property law and land use policy. The federal constitutional right can be secured to the individual without forcing the state to purchase his property. Voiding the offending restriction will make the owner whole. See Note, Inverse Condemnation: Its Availability in Challenging the Validity of a Zoning Ordinance, 26 Stan.L.Rev. 1439, 1452 (1974). Moreover, once the constitutional line has been drawn, the state or local authority administering the complex structure of land use controls should be free to decide whether the expected benefits from the restriction are worth the cost of the required compensation. Id. at 1450-51.

In this case, however, the local government has already filed condemnation proceedings to acquire plaintiff's property. Assuming that plaintiff adequately stated a cause of action based on oppressive zoning regulations, the federal remedy would, therefore, be unnecessary and meaningless. Furthermore, it would be just as improper to require the local government not to expropriate plaintiff's property as it would be to require it to do so. The first cause of action for injunctive relief is, therefore, MOOT. This conclusion is not affected by the fact that the condemnation proceedings are limited to part and not to all of plaintiff's property since severance damages are recoverable in Puerto Rico, see Commonwealth of Puerto Rico v. Fonalledas, 84 PRR 552 (1962) and plaintiff does not state nor specify that the remainder of its property is subject to zoning restrictions.

As to the second cause of action for damages, defendants Faria and Landrau contend that it is in reality one for inverse condemnation improperly filed in federal court and, in any event, moot as well since the filing of the condemnation proceedings in the Commonwealth courts. They further allege that this is an action for damages against the sovereign and, as such, barred by the Eleventh Amendment. Plaintiff's reply to these contentions is that it does not seek inverse condemnation of its property, that the damages sought do not equal the value of the property and that it does not seek an award against the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico or any of its instrumentalities.

The nature of the damages sought by plaintiff, however, is unclear. It appears from the allegations of the complaint that it seeks to be compensated for loss of business, interests, property taxes and administrative and legal expenses incurred by reason of the allegedly unconstitutional conduct. On the other hand, the nature of plaintiff's business is not specified and it appears that plaintiff's principal concern is not having been able to sell the property...