Rondigo, LLC v. Twp. of Richmond
| Decision Date | 27 March 2012 |
| Docket Number | No. 08-cv-10432,08-cv-10432 |
| Parties | RONDIGO, LLC, et al., Plaintiffs, v. TOWNSHIP OF RICHMOND, MICHIGAN, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan |
Hon. Gerald E. Rosen
This case involves a dispute pitting two farmers and their company ("Plaintiffs") against a group of neighbors and local government officials ("Defendants") who oppose a proposed composting business on Plaintiffs' land. After encountering various forms of resistance from local officials, neighbors, and a non-profit coalition of neighbors, Plaintiffs filed this suit alleging a variety of claims. All government actors have been dismissed from this suit; the only remaining Defendants are private citizens and an organization formed by Plaintiffs' neighbors. The remaining Defendants moved for dismissal or summary judgment on October 16, 2009. The Court referred the motion to Magistrate Judge Mark Randon on November 6, 2009. The Magistrate Judge issued his report and recommendation on February 6, 2012, recommending dismissal of allremaining claims. Plaintiffs timely objected. Having reviewed the report and recommendation, Plaintiffs' objections, and the record as a whole, the Court finds that the legal arguments are sufficiently addressed and that oral argument would not assist in the resolution of this matter. Accordingly, the Court will decide this matter "on the briefs." See L.R. 7.1(f)(2).
Plaintiffs Dolores Michaels, Renee Michaels, and Rondigo, LLC operate a seventy acre farm in Richmond Township, Michigan. In addition to tending crops, Plaintiffs wish to use their farm for composting activities: accepting organic waste for a fee and applying the compost as fertilizer to their own fields. Defendants are a series of individuals and entities, both private and governmental, who have at one point or another objected to Plaintiffs' farming activities or subjected Plaintiffs' business to litigation, negative publicity, or regulatory scrutiny. Defendants' conduct includes inspections by regulatory authorities, lobbying of public officials, and a lawsuit that was dismissed for lack of standing. Four Township Citizens' Coalition v. Rondigo, LLC, No. 275471, 2008 WL 2357667 (Mich. Ct. App. June 10, 2008).
This lawsuit is the culmination of the parties' quarrel. Plaintiffs' amended complaint, filed on February 5, 2008, alleges the following claims arising out of Defendants' conduct: a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the unconstitutionality of a local ordinance, federal conspiracy claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3), knowing failure to prevent violation of Plaintiffs' rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1986, mail and wire fraudconspiracies, and defamation. The governmental defendants in this case were previously dismissed as a result of a motion to dismiss and an interlocutory appeal. See Rondigo, LLC v. Township of Richmond, 641 F.3d 673 (6th Cir. 2011). The only remaining Defendants are private homeowners and The Four Township Citizens' Coalition, Inc. ("FTCC"), a group established by homeowners to oppose Plaintiffs' composting activities.
The remaining Defendants moved for dismissal or summary judgment, and the Court referred their motion to Magistrate Judge Randon. The Magistrate Judge recommended that the Court dismiss all of Plaintiffs' claims based on Noerr-Pennington immunity, a doctrine that protects the exercise of First Amendment rights against certain kinds of civil suit. Plaintiffs timely objected to the Magistrate Judge's report and recommendation. For the reasons explained below, the Court will accept the Magistrate Judge's report and recommendation on alternate grounds and will dismiss Plaintiffs' remaining claims.
When a party properly objects to the report and recommendation of a Magistrate Judge, the pertinent rule requires the Court to conduct a de novo review. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1); Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b)(3). Id. Here, the Magistrate Judge recommended that the Court dismiss Plaintiffs' remaining claims under the Noerr-Pennington doctrine. Plaintiffs timely objected.
The Noerr-Pennington doctrine -- named for the two Supreme Court cases from which it originated1 -- originally protected parties from antitrust liability for organizing to exercise their First Amendment right to "petition the Government for a redress of grievances." U.S. Const. amend. I; Knology, Inc. v. Insight Comms. Co., 393 F.3d 656, 658 (6th Cir. 2004). In Noerr, a group of railroad companies lobbied for legislation that would impede the ability of trucking companies to compete for freight business. Eastern R. R. Presidents Conference v. Noerr Motor Freight, Inc., 365 U.S. 127, 129 (1961). The trucking companies sued under the Sherman Act, but the Supreme Court held that "the Sherman Act does not prohibit . . . persons from associating . . . in an attempt to persuade the legislature or the executive to take particular action with respect to a law that would produce a restraint or a monopoly." Id. at 136-37.
Courts have since expanded Noerr-Pennington immunity to other contexts as well. See, e.g., BE & K Constr. Co. v. NLRB, 536 U.S. 516 (2002) (). "Noerr-Pennington immunity from antitrust laws extends to petitioning the courts as well." Baltimore Scrap Corp. v. David J. Joseph Co.,237 F. 3d 394, 399 (4th Cir. 2001) (citing California Motor Trans. Co. v. Trucking Unlimited, 404 U.S. 508, 510-11 (1972)). The doctrine has also grown to shield individuals from liability under § 1983 "for actions taken when petitioning authorities to take official action, even where the petitioning activity has the intent or effect of depriving another of property interests, except under 'very limited circumstances.'" Knology, 393 F.3d at 658 (quoting Eaton v. Newport Bd. of Ed., 975 F.2d 292, 298 (6th Cir. 1992)). Dismissal is appropriate when Noerr-Pennington immunity applies.
Noerr-Pennington immunity is not without limit, however. The doctrine is subject to a limited exception referred to as the sham exception. It as opposed to "one who genuinely seeks to achieve his governmental result, but does so through improper means." City of Columbia v. Omni Outdoor Advertising, Inc., 499 U.S. 365, 380 (1991) (quotations omitted) (emphasis original). An example of sham conduct is "filing . . . frivolous objections to the license application of a competitor, with no expectation of achieving denial of the license but simply in order to impose expense and delay." Id. The sham exception thus turns on whether a Noerr-Pennington defendant engaged in objectively baseless activity in order to vex and harass the opposing party.
The Supreme Court has articulated a two-part test for determining when the sham exception applies:
First, the lawsuit must be objectively baseless in the sense that no reasonable litigant could realistically expect success on the merits. If an objective litigant could conclude that the suit is reasonably calculated to elicit a favorable outcome, the suit is immunized under Noerr, and an antitrust claim premised on the sham exception must fail. Only if challenged litigation is objectively meritless may a court examine the litigant's subjective motivation. Under this second part of our definition of sham, the court should focus on whether the baseless lawsuit conceals an attempt to interfere directly with the business relationships of a competitor, through the use of the governmental process -- as opposed to the outcome of that process -- as an anticompetitive weapon. This two-tiered process requires the plaintiff to disprove the challenged lawsuit's legal viability before the court will entertain evidence of the suit's economic viability.
Prof. Real Estate Investors, Inc. v. Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., 508 U.S. 49, 60-61 (1993) (quotations and footnote omitted) (emphasis original). Evidence of anticompetitive intent does not render otherwise legitimate activity a sham without more. Id. at 59. "[N]either Noerr immunity nor its sham exception turns on subjective intent alone." Id. Rather, a party claiming that the sham exception applies must also demonstrate that the petitioning conduct had no merit, i.e., that it was objectively baseless. Id.; Huron Valley Hosp., Inc. v. City of Pontiac, 650 F. Supp. 1325, 1341 (E.D. Mich. 1986)
Relying entirely on the Noerr-Pennington doctrine, the Magistrate Judge recommended the complete dismissal of Plaintiffs' remaining claims. Specifically, the Magistrate Judge determined that Plaintiffs' complaint lacked both "a contention that the [Defendants] had some sort of ulterior motive (i.e., merely to harass Plaintiffs)" and"allegations sufficient to establish an inference that [Defendants'] lawsuit was objectively baseless." Having analyzed Plaintiffs' claim, the Court holds that the Magistrate Judge's report and recommendation reaches the correct outcome regarding some of Plaintiffs' claims. However, the Magistrate Judge's report and recommendation does not completely address all the issues presented by Defendants' motion.
First, the report and recommendation only analyzes the Noerr-Pennington doctrine with regard to the...
To continue reading
Request your trial