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Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit · 2002 · Civil Procedure

Civil ProcedureConstitutional LawPropertyRes JudicataRipenessTakingsres judicataclaim preclusion

Facts

The Agency’s 1987 Regional Plan used the Individual Parcel Evaluation System (IPES) to score parcels and allowed only owners with scores above the IPES Line to apply for one of 300 annual development permits. The Plan also established objective criteria for lowering the IPES Line over time, including a countywide vacant lot equation, and by 1990 the relevant calculations and each plaintiff’s parcel score were known. The same association had previously amended complaints in 1991 and 1992 to challenge the 1987 Plan’s effect on SEZ lots, lots below the IPES line, and the Agency’s failure to lower the line in a timely manner, but those claims were dismissed as time-barred and that dismissal was affirmed. In 2000, the association and member property owners filed new suits alleging that the Agency’s 1999 decisions to keep the IPES Line in place, the SEZ restrictions, the mitigation scheme for owners within 10% of the line, and differing California/Nevada treatment were unconstitutional.

Issue

Whether the plaintiffs’ 2000 claims challenging the 1987 Plan and its implementation were barred by res judicata because they arose from the same transactional nucleus of facts as the earlier litigation, and whether the 10% plaintiffs’ as-applied challenges to the mitigation program were ripe. The court also had to determine whether the 1999 Board decisions created new claims or merely reflected nondiscretionary application of the 1987 Plan.

Rule

Res judicata applies when there is (1) an identity of claims, meaning the two suits arise from the same transactional nucleus of facts and include claims that were or could have been brought earlier, (2) a final judgment on the merits, and (3) privity between the parties. A dismissal on statute-of-limitations grounds is a final judgment on the merits. As-applied regulatory takings claims are not ripe unless the plaintiff has obtained a final decision applying the challenged regulation to the particular property, or shows that seeking such a decision would be futile.

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In 2016, the Riverbend Landowners Association sued the Front Range Watershed Board in federal court in Denver, alleging that a 2012 habitat-protection plan unlawfully barred building on members’ low-scoring lots. That suit was dismissed as untimely. In 2022, the association and several additional members filed a new § 1983 action alleging that the board’s 2021 annual vote to keep the same buildability cutoff in place constituted a new taking because the members still could not build.

Are the 2022 claims most likely barred by claim preclusion?

Explanation. Claim preclusion applies when there is identity of claims, a final judgment on the merits, and privity. Identity of claims turns on whether both suits arise from the same transactional nucleus of facts, including claims that were or could have been brought earlier. A plaintiff cannot avoid preclusion by relabeling a challenge to an old regulatory structure as a challenge to a later nondiscretionary implementation decision. Here, the annual vote simply continued criteria fixed by the 2012 plan, so the later suit repackages the same injury rather than presenting a genuinely new factual nucleus. (Derived from Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (2002).)