Ripeness, Abstention and the Atlantic Yards Eminent Domain Motion: Exposing a Common Government Ploy

Abstract

The complaint in the famous Atlantic Yards eminent domain matter - Goldstein v. Pataki. The recently filed motion to dismiss is on file with the case in the Federal District Court. For this reason, the motion to dismiss is not more completely cited in this essay.

The motion is discussed here because it involves two grounds - ripeness and abstention - which are frequently used to defeat eminent domain actions. The government typically attempts to assert that government acts in the eminent domain process both are and are not facts. With respect to ripeness, the acts are not characterized as facts, because that allows the government to argue that no right to sue has yet arisen. However, in the abstention context the same government acts - state acts - are characterized as facts, so that, ostensibly, abstention can be invoked to deny the matter a hearing in the Federal Court. In short, the government tries to have it both ways with respect to the factual status of government acts. We shall see where this trips up the government in this case, with respect to abstention.

The point of the government is to prevent a factual inquiry into the facts underlying the eminent domain use. Eminent domain actions characteristically fail to have a government purpose, that is, they do not maintain important facts, which, according to the Supreme Court, is in fact government purpose. This doctrine holds both in the Lochner era (in Euclid v. Ambler from 1926), and in the case which established the scrutiny regime, West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1937).

However, in defeating the Atlantic Yards motion to defend - and in all such motions for summary judgments - we need not reach the underlying purpose of the motion, since it involves misstating the doctrines of both ripeness and abstention. Apparently, as readers will see from the cases cited in the Atlantic Yards motion, both courts and attorneys have been sloppy enough with respect to these doctrines that cases have been improperly dismissed.

At the same time, two 1996 cases - Romer v. Evans and U.S. v. Virginia - make it clear that is what is required to reveal the true nature of the doctrines, and apply them correctly, is the understanding that both these doctrines - along with all other government policies - must have a government purpose, that is, that there must in FACT be a government purpose for finding a case is not ripe, or that abstention applies to dismiss it from the Federal Courts.

Once we apply government purpose to these two doctrines, it becomes clear that - unless the Federal Judge in the case, Nicholas Garaufis, is not completely silly - the case should not be dismissed.

There is, unfortunately, evidence that the attitude of the Judge is silly and ill-informed. In the initial hearing, he had the impertinence to ask the plaintiffs why the plaintiffs were in a hurry. He asked the plaintiffs if they didn't feel outnumbered by the number of opposing counsel. These contemptuous comments bespeak a judge who is not prepared to apply the law.

Keywords: atlantic, standing, constitution, ripeness, comity, abstention, procedure, eminent, right, liberty, property, government, lawsuit

JEL Classification: K11, K30