BLUMENKRON V. MULTNOMAH COUNTY, No. 21-35987 (9th Cir. 2024)
Annotate this CaseIn the case involving Katherine Blumenkron, David Blumenkron, and Springville Investors, LLC, versus Multnomah County, the Metro Regional Government, and members of the Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission, the plaintiffs challenged the designation of their land in Multnomah County, Oregon, as "rural reserves" under the Oregon Land Reserves Statute. They claimed that the statute and regulations facially violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the federal constitution, and that the defendants’ rural reserve designations violated their federal procedural due process, substantive due process, and equal protection rights. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of plaintiffs’ facial and as-applied constitutional challenges to the designation, concluding that the requirements for Burford abstention (a doctrine that allows federal courts to refrain from deciding a case in deference to state courts) were met for each of the as-applied claims. The court also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by abstaining from exercising jurisdiction over the claims in their entirety, including plaintiffs’ claims for damages. The court concluded that plaintiffs had abandoned their facial constitutional claims on appeal and therefore affirmed the district court’s dismissal of these claims for failure to state a claim as a matter of law.
Court Description: Burford Abstention The panel affirmed the district court’s dismissal of plaintiffs’ facial and as-applied constitutional challenges to the designation of certain land in Multnomah County, Oregon, as “rural reserves” under the Oregon Land Reserves Statute. Plaintiffs alleged, in part, that the Land Reserves Statute and regulations facially violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the federal constitution and that defendants’ rural reserve designations violated plaintiffs’ federal procedural due process, substantive due process, and equal protection rights (the “as-applied claims”). The district court dismissed plaintiffs’ facial constitutional claims for failure to state a claim and abstained from exercising jurisdiction over plaintiffs’ as-applied constitutional claims under Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U.S.
315 (1943), because exercising federal jurisdiction would interfere with Oregon’s authority to manage its own land use scheme.
Burford abstention is designed to protect complex state administrative processes from undue federal interference. Application of Burford abstention requires: (1) that the state has chosen to concentrate suits challenging the involved agency’s actions in a particular court; (2) that the federal issues cannot be separated easily from complicated state law issues over which the state courts might have special competence; and (3) that federal review might disrupt state efforts to establish a coherent policy.
The panel held that the Burford abstention requirements were met for each of the as-applied claims. First, the Oregon legislature concentrated review of reserve designation orders by the Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission in a state court forum, and the state court review was, in all material respects, identical to the state court review of administrative orders deemed adequate in Alabama Public Service Commission v. Southern Railway Co., 341 U.S. 341 (1951). Second, plaintiffs’ constitutional claims were inextricably intertwined with complex state law issues regarding the proper interpretation and application of the Land Reserves Statute’s urban and rural designation factors, as well as the statutorily prescribed, intergovernmental process for making such designations. Third, a change in the rural designation for plaintiffs’ land would disrupt the State’s attempt to ensure uniformity in the treatment of an essentially local problem. Having determined that the requirements for Burford abstention were met for each of plaintiffs’ as-applied claims, the panel next concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion by abstaining from exercising jurisdiction over the claims in their entirety, including plaintiffs’ claims for damages, which were incidental to the equitable claims for declaratory and injunctive relief.
Finally, the panel concluded that plaintiffs had abandoned their facial constitutional claims on appeal and therefore affirmed the district court’s dismissal of plaintiffs’ facial constitutional claims for failure to state a claim as a matter of law.
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