Santini v. Connecticut Hazardous Waste

• Decision Date: 28 August 2003
• Docket Number: Docket No. 02-9150.
• Parties: Evandro S. SANTINI and Santini Homes, Inc., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CONNECTICUT HAZARDOUS WASTE MANAGEMENT SERVICE, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

342 F.3d 118

Evandro S. SANTINI and Santini Homes, Inc., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CONNECTICUT HAZARDOUS WASTE MANAGEMENT SERVICE, Defendant-Appellee.

Docket No. 02-9150.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued: June 16, 2003.

Decided: August 28, 2003.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Timothy S. Hollister (Patrick M. Fahey, on the brief), Shipman & Goodwin LLP, Hartford, CT, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Robert D. Snook, Assistant Attorney General, for Richard Blumenthal, Attorney General of the State of Connecticut, Hartford, CT, for Defendant-Appellee.

Mark A. Chertok, Sive, Paget & Riesel, P.C., New York, NY (Duane Desiderio and Mary Lynn Pickel, National Association of Home Builders, Washington, D.C., Michael M. Berger, Berger & Norton, Los Angeles, CA, and William H. Ethier, HBA of Connecticut, Inc., West Hartford, CT, of counsel), filed a brief for Amici Curiae National Association of Home Builders and Home Builders Association of Connecticut, Inc. in support of plaintiffs-appellants.

Before: NEWMAN, WINTER, and B.D. PARKER, JR., Circuit Judges.

B.D. PARKER, JR., Circuit Judge.

In this appeal, Evandro S. Santini and his real estate development firm, Santini Homes, Inc., challenge a judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (Warren W. Eginton, Judge) in favor of the Connecticut Hazardous Waste Management Service (the "Service"). After unsuccessfully pursuing a state-law takings claim in the Connecticut courts, Santini sued in federal court, alleging that the Service's announcement that his property was one of three sites under consideration for the location of a low-level radioactive waste disposal facility constituted a taking without just compensation in violation of the Fifth Amendment.¹ The District Court dismissed Santini's complaint on three grounds: the Rooker-Feldman doctrine,² collateral estoppel, and the merits of the takings claim.

Because Santini did not raise, and could not have raised, his federal takings claim in the state court action, we conclude that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine and res judicata do not apply. Moreover, we recognize an exception to the applicability of collateral estoppel for plaintiffs who litigate state-law takings claims in state court solely to comply with the ripeness requirement of Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank, 473 U.S. 172, 105 S.Ct. 3108, 87 L.Ed.2d 126 (1985), as Santini did. We hold that litigants who pursue inverse condemnation actions in state court in order to comply with Williamson County may reserve their federal takings claims for later resolution in federal court. Because we announce this reservation rule for the first time, we apply the requirement prospectively only and deem Santini to have reserved his federal claim, rendering collateral estoppel inapplicable. But because we believe that the Service is entitled to summary judgment on the merits of Santini's takings claim, we affirm the judgment of the District Court.

BACKGROUND

The material facts are undisputed. Santini develops residential real estate in the area surrounding Hartford, Connecticut. In 1985, he purchased, for $147,500, a 20.3-acre parcel of land in Ellington, Connecticut. Santini obtained approval from the Ellington Planning and Zoning Commission to subdivide the parcel, to be known as Ellridge Estates, into sixteen lots. Beginning in 1985, Santini built an access road to the development, installed storm drainage and sewer systems, and, in all, spent approximately $500,000 developing infrastructure.

In 1988, Santini purchased, for $1,075,000, a 54.6-acre parcel (the "Pinney Street property") adjacent to the Ellridge Estates parcel, intending to develop the two parcels into a unified 75-acre residential village consisting of approximately 100 homes. Santini began building model homes in 1987, constructing houses on four lots of the Ellridge Estates parcel. He also made other investments in the properties, including completing engineering studies and preliminary layouts for the Pinney Street property and borrowing funds for the construction of its infrastructure. Because of a recession in the real estate market, construction proceeded slowly until 1991. When market conditions improved, Santini renewed his efforts to sell homes in Ellridge Estates: he lowered prices, established a mortgage program customized to the development, and began advertising aggressively. By June 1991, he had identified likely buyers for two of the homes, spent $5 million in acquiring and developing the Ellington properties, and borrowed $4.7 million that was earmarked for further construction on the Pinney Street property.

The Service is a quasi-public governmental agency established pursuant to Connecticut General Statutes § 22a-163 et seq. and charged with siting a low-level radioactive waste disposal facility. The Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act of 1980, 42 U.S.C. § 2021b et seq., required the states to make adequate provision for the disposal of low-level radioactive waste generated within their borders by entering into regional compacts, and it imposed financial penalties on those states that failed to do so. In 1986, with few states complying with the Act, Congress passed the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2021b et seq., which required the states by the end of 1992 to dispose of their domestically generated radioactive waste either in-state or through compacts with other states. In order to comply with the federal requirements, Connecticut entered into a regional compact and enacted legislation directing the Service to locate a disposal facility within the state. See Conn. Gen.Stat. § 22a-163c (1995).

The Service developed a plan which first required it to locate sites that were likely to be suitable. Of these, the Service would then identify those sites that would actually be suitable. The list of potential sites would be winnowed to eight, with the Service's Board of Directors selecting three of the eight as finalists. Once three finalists were identified, on-site examinations would be conducted and one site would be selected as the preferred site. The preferred site would then be monitored for at least twelve months, in accordance with federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission ("NRC") regulations. See Santini v. Conn. Hazardous Waste Mgmt. Serv., 251 Conn. 121, 125-26 & n. 6, 739 A.2d 680 (1999). The Service never got beyond the identification of three finalist sites.

On June 10, 1991, after secret deliberations, the Service announced that it had identified three sites. (The Service later identified five other back-up sites.) Two were located in Ellington, and the third was located in a neighboring town. One of the Ellington sites included the undeveloped portion of Santini's Ellridge Estates and the entirety of his Pinney Street property. Santini did not know, prior to the Service's June 10 announcement, that his property was under consideration. On June 30, 1991, the three potential sites, including Santini's property, were depicted in the Hartford Courant below the international symbol for radioactivity and the headline, "Nuclear waste: Where should it go?" The Hartford Courant, June 30, 1991 at H5. In late 1991, the Service eliminated one of the three sites from consideration, leaving Santini's property as one of two finalists.

After vocal public opposition in and around Ellington to the Service's siting plan, the Connecticut legislature passed, and the Governor signed into law, Public Act 92-45, which directed the Service to develop a new plan for locating a disposal facility. Public Act 92-45, which took effect May 5, 1992, effectively overruled the Service's June 10, 1991 siting announcement. Ultimately, neither Santini's property nor any other Connecticut site was selected as the preferred site, a necessary prerequisite to the state's exercise of its eminent domain power to take private property such as Santini's for the construction of a disposal facility.³

Notwithstanding the enactment of Public Act 92-45, however, Santini's property remained economically idle until mid-1993, and he continued to incur additional carrying costs, including interest on debt and property taxes, until 1994. In 1994 Santini sued the Service in Connecticut Superior Court, alleging that its June 10, 1991 siting announcement — naming his property one of three finalists — constituted a temporary taking of his property without just compensation in violation of Article I, § 11 of the Connecticut Constitution. Santini's complaint alleged that the Service's siting announcement had: (1) prevented him from selling the homes and lots in Ellridge Estates; (2) prevented him from completing development of Ellridge Estates and the Pinney Street property; (3) denied him any economic return on his investments in the two parcels; (4) caused him to incur additional costs and incidental damages; and (5) left him with no alternative use of his property. Santini brought only a state-law takings claim because he believed that, under the Supreme Court's decision in Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank, 473 U.S. 172, 105 S.Ct. 3108, 87 L.Ed.2d 126 (1985), a federal takings claim would not be ripe until he had sought, and been denied, just compensation in a state-law inverse condemnation action.⁴

The Superior Court held an eight-day bench trial in early 1998. In addition to fact witnesses, Santini and the Service both presented expert appraisal testimony concerning the economic impact of the siting announcement on Santini's property. Santini's appraiser, Edward Heberger, testified that Santini's damages as a result of the June 10, 1991 siting announcement were $890,000 for the Ellridge Estates property and $65,000 for the Pinney Street property, for a total loss of $955,000. Heberger's appraisal was based on his conclusion that the siting announcement had paralyzed Santini's...