526 U.S. 687, 734 (1999)
The respondent Del Monte Dunes and its predecessor in interest owned a 37.6-acre ocean-front parcel in the city of Monterey that had previously served as an oil-company terminal and tank farm.1 The parcel contained remnants of industrial use, including tank pads, broken concrete, oil-soaked sand, and nonnative ice plant that had spread across roughly 25 percent of the site and threatened the remaining native buckwheat habitat of the endangered Smith's Blue Butterfly.2 The property was zoned for multi-family residential development under the city's general zoning ordinance.3
Between 1981 and 1986 the landowners submitted a series of development proposals that began with 344 units and were successively reduced, at the city's suggestion, to 264 units, then 224 units, and finally 190 units.4 The planning commission denied each application.5 The city council twice overruled the commission and granted a conditional-use permit for 190 units subject to specific conditions.6
After the landowners revised their plans to satisfy those conditions, devoting substantial acreage to public open space, beach access, view corridors, and buckwheat restoration, the planning commission rejected the final proposal in January 1986 and the city council denied it in June 1986 without specifying further measures the landowners could take.7 After five years, five formal decisions, and nineteen site plans, Del Monte Dunes filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the city's actions effected a regulatory taking, violated due process, and denied equal protection.8
The district court initially dismissed the claims as unripe.9 The Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded.10 On remand the district court submitted the takings and equal-protection claims to a jury while reserving the substantive-due-process claim for the court.11 At trial the jury heard evidence of the city's shifting demands, inconsistent positions, and interest in acquiring the parcel for public use.12 The court instructed the jury that it should find for Del Monte Dunes if the city's denial either left the property without any economically viable use or failed to substantially advance a legitimate public purpose.13 The jury returned a general verdict for Del Monte Dunes on the takings claim, a separate verdict on the equal-protection claim, and an award of $1.45 million in damages.14 The district court denied the city's post-verdict motions, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed.15
The Supreme Court granted certiorari to address whether liability issues on the regulatory-takings claim were properly submitted to the jury.16 The Court also addressed whether the court of appeals had applied an erroneous standard permitting reweighing of the city's land-use decision.17 Finally, the Court considered whether the rough-proportionality test of Dolan v. City of Tigard applied to this denial of development.18
Whether the rough-proportionality standard of Dolan v. City of Tigard applies to a city's denial of a development proposal?19
The rough-proportionality test of Dolan applies only to exactions that condition development approval on the dedication of property to public use and does not extend to outright denials of development proposals.20
No. The city's action here was a denial of the final 190-unit development plan after five years of successive reductions and revisions by the landowners.21 The established facts demonstrate that the city council rejected the proposal without imposing any new dedication requirement as a condition of approval.22 Instead, the landowners had already incorporated substantial public open space, beach access, view corridors, and buckwheat habitat restoration into their plan to meet prior conditions imposed by the city.23
The rough-proportionality standard does not apply to this regulatory takings claim based on denial of development.24
Whether a regulatory takings claim brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 was properly submitted to a jury?25
A § 1983 action seeking damages for a regulatory taking without just compensation is an action at law that carries a Seventh Amendment right to jury trial because it sounds in tort and seeks legal relief.26
Yes. Del Monte Dunes sought monetary damages for the city's denial of all economically viable use and for the unconstitutional failure to provide just compensation or an adequate post-deprivation remedy.27 The established facts show that California provided no compensatory remedy for temporary regulatory takings at the time of the final denial, so the § 1983 claim accrued as a suit for damages rather than equitable relief.28 Because the action sounds in tort and requests a legal remedy, the Seventh Amendment preserves the right to jury trial.29
The regulatory takings claim was properly submitted to the jury.30
Related opinions on this issue
Justice Scalia concurred that every § 1983 action for monetary damages must be treated uniformly as a tort claim for Seventh Amendment purposes.31 He emphasized that the statute creates a unique federal remedy whose character is determined by the federal cause of action itself rather than by the particular constitutional violation alleged.32 Because § 1983 actions for damages are analogous to common-law tort actions triable to juries in 1791, the right to jury trial attaches whenever money damages are sought, regardless of whether an alternative inverse-condemnation remedy might exist under state law.33
Joined by O'connor, Ginsburg, And Breyer, Jj.
Justice Souter dissented from the jury-trial holding.34 He maintained that an inverse-condemnation claim under § 1983 is most analogous to a direct eminent-domain proceeding, which historically carried no jury right because the only issue was the amount of compensation.35 He argued that the constitutional source of the claim and the remedy of just compensation align inverse condemnation with direct condemnation, so the Seventh Amendment does not require a jury.36
He rejected both the tort analogy and the broad § 1983 analogy as inconsistent with the established practice in condemnation cases.37
Whether the questions of whether the landowner was denied all economically viable use of its property and whether the city's denial substantially advanced legitimate public purposes were proper for determination by the jury?38
In § 1983 regulatory takings actions, predominantly factual questions such as whether a regulation denies all economically viable use and whether a specific land-use decision substantially advances legitimate public interests are properly submitted to the jury.39
Yes. The established facts reveal a five-year history of nineteen site plans, repeated city suggestions for reduced density, and shifting rationales for denial that culminated in rejection of the final plan without further guidance.40 These circumstances made the economically viable use inquiry and the substantial-advancement inquiry fact-bound questions requiring evaluation of the specific denial in light of the entire record.41 The jury instructions confined the second question to whether the city's particular decision bore a reasonable relationship to its proffered justifications, a determination that precedent treats as appropriate for the jury in actions at law.42
Both liability questions were properly submitted to the jury.43
Whether the Court of Appeals adopted an erroneous legal standard that permitted the jury to reweigh the reasonableness of the city's land-use decision?44
A jury may decide whether a city's specific denial of a development proposal substantially advances legitimate public purposes when the instructions limit the inquiry to that particular decision, the city proposed the instructions, and the claim challenges neither general zoning ordinances nor routine regulatory policy.45
No. The jury was instructed only to determine whether the city's denial of the 190-unit proposal substantially advanced a legitimate public purpose. It was not asked to evaluate the reasonableness of the city's general zoning laws or policies.46 The established facts confirm that Del Monte Dunes expressly disclaimed any challenge to the city's authority to regulate land use and focused instead on the inconsistent application of shifting demands to this parcel.47 Because the city itself proposed the essence of the instructions, the verdict rested on evidence of the tortuous process and the city's interest in public acquisition.
Therefore the Court of Appeals did not adopt an erroneous standard permitting improper reweighing.48
The Court of Appeals did not adopt an erroneous legal standard.49