Ruiz v. New Garden Tp.

• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit
• Writing for the Court: McKee
• Citation: Ruiz v. New Garden Tp., 376 F.3d 203 (3rd Cir. 2004)
• Decision Date: 26 July 2004
• Docket Number: No. 02-4434.,02-4434.
• Parties: Guilermina RUIZ; Rodolfo Villagomez; Antonio Lopez; Antonio Ortiz; Rafael Luna; Angelica Sanchez; Jose J. Padron; and J. Guadalupe Lopez v. NEW GARDEN TOWNSHIP; Robert N. Taylor, III; Willard H. Smedley; Patrick J. Kenney; Norman S. Nunn; Frank J. Zagorskie; The Zoning Hearing Board of New Garden Township; David Carlin; Angelo Zunino; James Diluzio, Appellants Dante DiUblado; Lucy M. DiUblado, (Intervenors in D.C.).

376 F.3d 203

Guilermina RUIZ; Rodolfo Villagomez; Antonio Lopez; Antonio Ortiz; Rafael Luna; Angelica Sanchez; Jose J. Padron; and J. Guadalupe Lopez v. NEW GARDEN TOWNSHIP; Robert N. Taylor, III; Willard H. Smedley; Patrick J. Kenney; Norman S. Nunn; Frank J. Zagorskie; The Zoning Hearing Board of New Garden Township; David Carlin; Angelo Zunino; James Diluzio, Appellants Dante DiUblado; Lucy M. DiUblado, (Intervenors in D.C.).

No. 02-4434.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued December 15, 2003.

Filed July 26, 2004.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Anita B. Brody, J Arthur W. Lefco, (Argued), James W. Gicking, Marshall, Dennehey, Warner, Coleman & Goggin, Philadelphia, PA, for Appellants.

Robert F. Salvin, (Argued), Community Impact Legal Services, Inc., Chester, PA, for Appellees.

Before ROTH, McKEE, and ROSENN, Circuit Judges.

McKEE, Circuit Judge.

We are asked to review an order of the district court enjoining New Garden Township and its employees ("the Township") from enforcing a zoning enforcement notice that would have resulted in the eviction of plaintiff tenants.¹ The plaintiffs requested the injunction pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 arguing that the Township had violated their Fourteenth Amendment right to procedural due process in failing to notify them of a zoning hearing into whether their landlord was violating certain zoning ordinances by allowing mobile homes on property not zoned for residential use. We agree that plaintiffs have not established a procedural due process violation, and we will therefore reverse.

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Since the 1990s, plaintiffs Guillermina Ruiz, Rodolfo Villagomez, Antonio Lopez, Antonio Ortiz, Rafael Luna, Angelica Sanchez, Jose J. Padron and J. Guadalupe Lopez have been tenants in mobile homes located at 320 Ellicott Road in New Garden Township, Pennsylvania. Since 1989, that property has been designated as a C-I-2 Limited Commercial Industrial District.²

The plaintiffs paid rent in the amount of $500 to $600 per month pursuant to oral leases with Dante and Lucy DiUbaldo.³ It is uncontested that DiUbaldo agreed that at least one of the tenants could remain on the property for up to three years and that DiUbaldo would decide how long the tenant would have to vacate the property if he decided to leave.

On June 22, 2000, the Township issued an enforcement notice citing DiUbaldo for violations of the township's zoning ordinance. The violation resulted from the presence of the plaintiffs' mobile homes on the property located at 320 Ellicott Road. The zoning notice was issued because the light industrial zoning designation of that property did not allow the property to be used as a trailer park.⁴ The notice required DiUbaldo to begin removing the mobile homes within 10 days and to complete the process within 45 days. The notice also informed him that he could appeal the enforcement action to the New Garden Township Zoning Hearing Board ("ZHB").

DiUbaldo did appeal, and hearings were held on November 15 and December 13, 2000, before the ZHB. None of the tenants participated in that appeal although notice of the hearings was apparently posted on the Ellicott Road property. The ZHB denied DiUbaldo's appeal on January 22, 2001, but it altered the terms of the aforementioned enforcement order. DiUbaldo was ordered to give the tenants notice to quit the property by March 1, 2001 and he was ordered to remove the mobile homes by July 2001.⁵

As instructed, DiUbaldo served the notices to quit on the tenants around March 1, 2001. Plaintiff Lopez testified that this was when he first learned that the Township was enforcing the zoning ordinance and the effect it would have on him. Plaintiff Luna testified that he did not learn of the situation until after the hearing. Despite the notice to quit, the tenants failed to vacate the property by July 2001, and DiUbaldo thereafter initiated eviction proceedings against them. As a result of those proceedings, a local magistrate eventually ordered the plaintiffs' eviction.

The tenants then filed this action in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania seeking to enjoin the ZHB's order requiring DiUbaldo to serve them with notices to quit. They argued that, given their property interest, they were entitled to notice of the proceedings before the ZHB. They claimed that the Township's failure to notify them of those hearings violated their right to procedural due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.⁶ As we noted at the outset, the district court agreed and granted a permanent injunction. This appeal followed.

II. JURISDICTION AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

The district court's final order granting a permanent injunction is appealable under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Ameristeel Corp. v. Int'l Bhd. of Teamsters, 267 F.3d 264, 267 (3d Cir.2001). We have jurisdiction over the section 1983 claim under 28 U.S.C. § 1331, and we have supplemental jurisdiction over concomitant state law issues under 28 U.S.C. § 1367. "We review a district court's decision to grant or deny a permanent injunction under an abuse of discretion standard. However, because an abuse of discretion exists where the district court's decision rests upon a clearly erroneous finding of fact, an errant conclusion of law, or an improper application of law to fact, we apply plenary review to the District Court's legal conclusions." Ameristeel, 267 F.3d at 267 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).

III. DISCUSSION

In order to satisfy the requirements for a permanent injunction, plaintiffs must establish that they will ultimately succeed on their claim. Shields v. Zuccarini, 254 F.3d 476, 482 (3d Cir.2001). In order to prevail on their section 1983 claim, plaintiffs must establish that persons acting under color of law deprived them of a protected property interest without due process of law. Midnight Sessions et al. v. City of Philadelphia, 945 F.2d 667, 680 (3d Cir.1991).

State law defines property interests for purposes of procedural due process claims. See Bd. of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 577, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972). The parties agree that, under Pennsylvania law, leaseholders have the same right to possession of real estate as an owner during the term of the lease. The district court found that the plaintiffs had a protected property interest in the form of oral month-to-month leases because the conduct between the parties established that the plaintiffs each had a month-to-month lease. However, we hold that, even if plaintiffs did establish a protected interest based upon their leasehold estates, they were nevertheless not denied procedural due process because the procedure utilized by the ZHB was not constitutionally infirm.

"In Pennsylvania, if the landlord and tenant have failed to specify a definite period of time for the lease to continue, the court may imply the type of tenancy indicated by the conduct of the parties." Ronald M. Friedman, Pa. Landlord-Tenant Law and Practice § 1.10 (3d ed.2004). The tenants were required to pay about $500 to $600 monthly, and such monthly rental payments generally support the existence of a month-to-month tenancy. See Restatement (Second) of Property § 1.5 (2003) ("Where the parties enter into a lease of no stated duration and periodic rent is reserved or paid, a periodic tenancy is presumed. The period thus presumed is equal to the interval for which rent is reserved or paid to a maximum periodic tenancy of year to year.").

However, "[t]he presumption that a periodic tenancy is intended may be rebutted by language or circumstances showing a contrary intent." Id. The record here contains unchallenged evidence that the plaintiffs could terminate their leases at any time, and that DiUbaldo would then decide how long tenants had to vacate their premises following such termination. Thus, the landlord or tenant could end the tenancy abruptly at any time even though the rent was calculated and paid monthly. Since the tenancies were "for an uncertain or indeterminate term which is terminable at the volition of either landlord or tenant," plaintiffs arguably had interests analogous to tenancies at will rather than month-to-month tenancies. P.L.E.2d LANDLORD AND TENANT § 74.⁷ Although the tenants paid rent on a monthly basis, there is no evidence that the plaintiffs and DiUbaldo explicitly agreed to month-to-month leases, and the district court does not explain how it concluded that these were month-to-month leases as opposed to tenancies at will.

However, since the Township now agrees that tenants had month-to-month leases, we will proceed as if they did. See Brief at 23 ("as month-to-month tenants, plaintiffs had no legitimate expectation to continued possession of property ...").⁸ Moreover, under Pennsylvania law, any tenancy creates a property interest. Berrios v. City of Lancaster, 798 F.Supp. 1153, 1157 (E.D.Pa.1992) (stating that Pennsylvania law regards any lease as a property interest); see also Ward v. Downtown Dev. Auth., 786 F.2d 1526, 1529 (11th Cir.) (discussing how Florida law makes any tenancy a compensable property interest for purposes of Fifth Amendment public takings).

However, the plaintiffs' property interest here is tenuous at best because any such interest appears to have been created in violation of a zoning ordinance. Cf. Puleo v. Zoning Hearing Board of Schuylkill Township, 722 A.2d 789 (Pa.Commw.1999) (holding that property owners could not retain a structure on their property because they built the structure in violation of a zoning ordinance and another municipal ordinance).⁹

However, given the facts here, we need not decide whether plaintiffs had a cognizable property interest because even if they did, it is clear that they had no reasonable expectation of future occupancy beyond the period which the landlord might agree to in the event of termination.¹⁰ As noted, that...