Panel Upholds City Ordinance Under Rational Basis Review; Seaside Property Owners Can't Build Docks

Kentner v. City of Sanibel, No. 13-13893, from SDFla

Circuit Judge Martin joined by Senior Circuit Judge Fay and Senior District Judge Duffy (D.S.C.)

Summary:  The plaintiffs were property owners along a water-way in Florida who challenged a municipal ordinance preventing them from building a boat dock or pier on their properties.  The district court granted the City’s motion to dismiss, finding that the plaintiffs’ claimed riparian rights in the waterside property were determined by state law, and could not form the basis of a substantive due process violation. 

On appeal, the plaintiffs argued that Lingle v. Chevron U.S.A., Inc., 544 U.S. 528 (2005), created a new constitutional test applying to substantive due process rights in state-created property interests. The panel found that this argument went beyond the holding of Lingle, as the holding of that case was focused on a violation of the Takings Clause, not the Due Process Clause. The Eleventh Circuit has previously recognized property rights-based substantive due process claims based on legislative acts, see Lewis v. Brown, 409 F.3d 1271, 1273 (11th Cir. 2005), and Lingle did not impact such cases.

The panel also determined that the plaintiffs did not state any substantive due process claim under existing law.  There is generally no substantive due process protection for state-created property rights, because they are created by state law, rather than by the Constitution.  One exception under Eleventh Circuit precedent is where state-created property rights are infringed by a legislative act—in such cases, the Due Process Clause protects the property owner from arbitrary or irrational government action.  The panel concluded that the challenged ordinance fell under this exception, but that it satisfied rational basis review because it ostensibly sought to protect sea-grasses and to preserve aesthetic beauty.