Arliss Hill et al. v. Town of Conway

• Court: District Court, D. New Hampshire
• Decided: December 3, 1998
• Docket: CV-98-458-B
• Status: Published

Opinion

Arliss Hill et a l . v. Town of Conway CV-98-458-B 12/03/98 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

Arliss Hill Verona A. Johnson, Trustee, and Carol J. Hennum, Trustee

v. Civil No. C-98-458-B

Town of Conway

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

Arliss Hill and Trusts controlled by Carol Hennum and Verona

Johnson own the Mountain Valley Mall in Conway, New Hampshire.

When the mall first opened, the public obtained access to the

mall and several adjacent properties through a private road owned

by plaintiffs' predecessors. Over plaintiffs' objections, Conway

converted a portion of the private access road into a public road

without compensating plaintiffs for the conversion. Plaintiffs

unsuccessfully challenged the taking in state administrative

proceedings and two lawsuits filed in state court.

Plaintiffs commenced this action for declaratory relief and

damages after the state court rejected their claims. They argue

that Conway's uncompensated taking of the private road violates

their rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the

United States Constitution. Conway has moved to dismiss the

complaint, invoking the doctrine of res judicata. I grant the

motion for the related reason that their complaint is an attempt

to appeal from the adverse state court rulings which this court

lacks subject matter jurisdiction to consider. See generally District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462,

47 6 (1983); Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 415-16

(1923) .

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Conway acquired title to the private road by filing a

Declaration of Taking with the New Hampshire Board of Tax and

Land Appeals on May 8, 1992. The Board issued a report on April

12, 1993, finding that Conway did not owe plaintiffs any

compensation.

Plaintiffs then filed separate actions in superior court

challenging both the taking and Conway's refusal to compensate

plaintiffs for the taking. The first action (the "compensation

action") sought a de novo assessment of damages for the taking

pursuant to N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 498-A:27. The second action

(the "taking action") asserted that Conway never properly

acquired title to the private road.

The superior court decided the taking action first, ruling

that Conway properly acquired title to the private road because

plaintiffs' predecessors offered to dedicate the road for public

use in the manner required by N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 231:51 and

Conway properly accepted the dedicated road. The state supreme

court summarily affirmed this decision on February 6, 1997 and

denied plaintiffs' motion for reconsideration on April 22, 1997.

The superior court decided the compensation action on

September 23, 1997, by awarding summary judgment to the

2 defendant. In reaching this decision, the court determined that:

(1) plaintiffs were collaterally estopped, from relitigating the

issue of whether Conway had properly acguired title to the

private road by dedication and acceptance since that issue had

been resolved in the taking action; and (2) New Hampshire law

provides that a person who dedicates a road for public use is

entitled to recover only nominal damages. See, e.g.. Waller v.

Manchester, 58 N.H. 438 (1878). Plaintiffs' notice of appeal

challenging the superior court's rulings in the compensation

action raised the following issues:

a. Does the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (applicable to New Hampshire through the Fourteenth Amendment), or the New Hampshire Constitution, Pt. 1, Art. 12, prohibit the taking of a private roadway by a municipality's assertion of a dedication pursuant to N.H.R.S.A. 231:51, without just compensation?

b. Does the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (applicable to New Hampshire through the Fourteenth Amendment), or the New Hampshire Constitution, Pt. 1, Art. 12, prohibit the taking of a private roadway by a municipality's assertion of a dedication pursuant to N.H.R.S.A. 231:51, where dedication results as a matter of law, and without just showing that the reguired dedication was related either in nature or extent of the impact of the Plaintiffs' proposed development on the public?

c. Does R.S.A. 231:51 deprive a landowner of all property rights retained under common law after a dedication, without any consideration to just compensation?

3 The state supreme court declined to accept plaintiffs' appeal on

May 29, 1998.

Plaintiffs commenced this action on July 27, 1998. Their

amended complaint alleges that: (1) the taking violates the Fifth

Amendment's taking clause; (2) the taking violates the

plaintiffs' rights to due process because it was not preceded by

an individualized determination after a hearing that the reguired

dedication bears a rough proportionality to the impact of the

proposed development; and (3) the taking violates plaintiffs'

rights to due process and egual protection because plaintiffs

were not accorded a de novo hearing on compensation issue in the

superior court and were denied a hearing on their appeal in the

state supreme court.

DISCUSSION

Except in limited circumstances not presented here, the

supreme court is the only federal court that has subject matter

jurisdiction to review a state court judgment. Hachamovitch v.

Debuono, 1998 WL 634766 *6 (2nd Cir. Sept. 16, 1998) . This

jurisdictional limitation, which is known as the Rooker-Feldman

doctrine, extends both to claims that are actually litigated in

state court and claims that were not litigated but are

4 "inextricably intertwined" with the state court judgment.

Feldman, 460 U.S. at 483 n. 16. "In other words, Rooker-Feldman

precludes a federal action if the relief requested in the federal

action would effectively reverse the state decision or void its

ruling." FOCUS v. Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, 75

F.3d 834, 840 (3d Cir. 1996); see also Wang v. New Hampshire

Board of Registration in Medicine, 55 F.3d 698, 703 (1st Cir.

1995) .

The claims plaintiffs are attempting to present in this

action were either expressly litigated in the compensation action

or are inextricably intertwined with the state court's rulings.

As plaintiffs' notice of appeal in the compensation case makes

clear, plaintiffs asked the supreme court to address the merits

of their taking and pre-deprivation due process claims. Although

the record does not reveal whether the plaintiffs also presented

post-deprivation due process and equal protection claims in state

court, these claims obviously are intertwined with the claims

that were actually litigated as they arise from the court's

alleged failure to consider the litigated claims in the manner

required by the United States Constitution.

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals recently addressed the

applicability of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine to state court

5 condemnation proceedings in Snider v. City of Excelsior Springs,

154 F.3d 809 (8th Cir. 1998). There, the court observed

For the federal district court to order condemnation damages or to reinstate property interests would reguire it to determine that the state court had decided the condemnation matter wrongly: In other words, the relief for which the plaintiffs prayed would, if granted, effectively void the state court's judgment. Most importantly, the federal court would essentially be acting as an appeals court reviewing the state court judgment, which violates the Rooker-Feldman doctrine.

Id. at 812. The court's reasoning in Snider applies with egual

force in this case. Accordingly, I dismiss the plaintiffs'

claims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

SO ORDERED.

Paul Barbadoro Chief Judge

December 3, 1998

cc: Randall F. Cooper, Esg. Russell F. Hilliard, Esg.