United States District Court, D. New Hampshire
Bel-Air Nursing and Rehab Center, Inc.
v.
Town of Goffstown, New Hampshire & Goffstown Zoning Board of Adjustment
MEMORANDUM ORDER
JOSEPH
N. LAPLANTE UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Plaintiff
Bel-Air Nursing and Rehab Center, Inc. claims that the Town
of Goffstown and its Zoning Board of Adjustment[1]violated its
federal constitutional rights to due process and equal
protection when it denied Bel-Air's application for a
permit or variance to place a sign on its property. Both
denials were upheld by the New Hampshire Superior Court. The
State Supreme Court affirmed the variance ruling; Bel-Air did
not appeal the permit ruling. Invoking Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6),
Goffstown argues that plaintiffs' claims are barred in
whole or in part by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine,
[2] res
judicata and collateral estoppel, and that Bel-Air's
Amended Complaint fails to state a claim for constitutional
violations. After reviewing the parties' submissions and
the relevant state court decisions, and conducting oral
argument, the court finds that the factual and legal
allegations Bel-Air levies in this case were conclusively
resolved against it in the state court and are thus barred by
res judicata or collateral estoppel. Alternatively, the
allegations in the Amended Complaint fail to establish either
a due process or equal protection violation.[3] Goffstown's
motion to dismiss is therefore granted.
I.
Applicable legal standard
To
state a claim for relief and withstand a motion to dismiss,
the plaintiff must plead “factual content that allows
the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant
is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Martinez v.
Petrenko, 792 F.3d 173, 179 (1st Cir. 2015). In ruling
on such a motion, the court accepts as true all well-pleaded
facts set forth in the complaint and draws all reasonable
inferences in the plaintiff's favor. See, e.g.,
Martino v. Forward Air, Inc., 609 F.3d 1, 2 (1st Cir.
2010).
The
court “may consider not only the complaint but also
facts extractable from documentation annexed to or
incorporated by reference in the complaint and matters
susceptible to judicial notice.” Rederford v. U.S.
Airways, Inc., 589 F.3d 30, 35 (1st Cir. 2009) (internal
quotations omitted). The court “need not, however,
credit bald assertions, subjective characterizations,
optimistic predictions, or problematic suppositions, ”
and “[e]mpirically unverifiable conclusions, not
logically compelled, or at least supported, by the stated
facts, deserve no deference.” Sea Shore Corp. v.
Sullivan, 158 F.3d 51, 54 (1st Cir. 1998) (internal
quotations omitted). In addition to relating the allegations
in the Amended Complaint, the court also culls background
facts from the judicial findings during the parties'
prior proceedings. See Kowalski v. Gagne, 914 F.2d
299, 305 (1st Cir. 1990) (“It is well-accepted that
federal courts may take judicial notice of proceedings in
other courts if those proceedings have relevance to the
matters at hand.”)
Guided
by these standards, the court turns first to Bel-Air's
allegations and the prior proceedings.
II.
Factual background
A. The
first application
Plaintiff
operates a nursing home in Goffstown. The property is zoned
for commercial uses, but is surrounded by residentially-zoned
lots. In 2013, Bel-Air sought to erect a new,
internally-illuminated sign on its property to replace two
older signs.[4] The new sign would be roughly the same
height as one of the old ones, but would have a programmable
LED display instead of illumination from external lights at
its base, as the former signs had utilized.
The
relevant Goffstown zoning ordinance prohibits
internally-illuminated signs within 250 feet of a residential
district boundary, a demarcation that encompassed
Bel-Air's property; Bel-Air proposed to erect the sign
within 60 feet of the boundary.[5] Accordingly, Bel-Air applied for
a variance.
The ZBA
held three hearings on the variance application. One abutter
spoke in favor of the sign, while several expressed concern
that the sign would reflect a commercial nature out of touch
with the residential character of the neighborhood. Bel-Air
asserted that the proposed sign would be less intrusive than
its existing signs, and that no variance would be necessary
for it to construct significantly larger versions of its
existing, externally-illuminated signs.
In
December 2013, the ZBA denied Bel-Air's application,
finding that it had not established that enforcement of the
ordinance would result in an “unnecessary hardship,
” as required by N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. §
674:33 I(b)(5).[6]
After
the ZBA denied its petition for rehearing, Bel-Air appealed
to the New Hampshire Superior Court. See N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann.
§ 677:4. In addition to arguing that the ZBA incorrectly
decided the hardship issue, Bel-Air asserted that the ZBA
decision should be reversed due to an alleged conflict of
interest wherein one board member owned a sign company that
competed with the sign company that Bel-Air engaged to
construct its proposed sign. Bel-Air also argued that the ZBA
decision violated its constitutional rights to equal
protection and due process because other businesses on
commercial lots in Goffstown were allowed to install
internally-illuminated signs.[7]
The
Superior Court rejected all of Bel-Air's arguments and
affirmed the ZBA's decision.[8] First, the Court found no
conflict of interest, as Bel-Air failed to demonstrate how
the board member's company would benefit from denying the
variance. The Court also noted that Bel-Air was not generally
prohibited from constructing any sign and that it had later
received approval for a different sign designed by the same
contractor hired to construct the proposed
sign.[9]
The
Superior Court next rejected Bel-Air's argument that the
ZBA erred in finding that it failed to establish an
unnecessary hardship, as required by state law. The Court
noted that the stated purpose of the Goffstown ordinance was
related to aesthetics, and that Bel-Air had claimed that
there was no evidence before the ZBA that the proposed sign
would have a negative aesthetic impact. As the Court noted,
however, several abutters testified as to the proposed
sign's negative aesthetic impact, and such an impact is
enough, even standing alone, to support the ZBA's
decision.[10] Accordingly, the Court found that there
was a “fair and substantial relationship” between
the ordinance and its application to Bel-Air, as required by
N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 674:33(I)(5)(A)(i).[11]
The
Superior Court also rejected Bel-Air's constitutional due
process and equal protection claims, finding that Bel-Air was
not similarly situated to other businesses that it claimed
received favorable treatment. The putative comparators, the
Court observed, were in a “heavily
commercialized” area, while Bel-Air is the sole
commercial entity located in an area “characterized by
its rural appearance.”[12]
The New
Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed the variance denial,
summarily rejecting Bel-Air's arguments that the trial
court erred by: 1) failing to find a conflict of interest; 2)
failing to grant a new trial based on new evidence of a
conflict; 3) finding no unnecessary hardship; and 4) finding
that application of the ordinance did not violate
Bel-Air's substantive due process or equal protection
rights.[13]
B. The
second application
While
its variance case was pending before the state Supreme Court,
Bel-Air submitted an application for a sign permit to
Goffstown Planning and Zoning Administrator Brian
Rose.[14] The application proposed an electronic
message center reader board comprised of LEDs, which Bel-Air
described as similar to a
“Lite-Brite.”[15] Although the application
described the sign as externally-illuminated, Rose disagreed,
and denied the application. Bel-Air appealed to the
ZBA.[16]
Before
the ZBA, Bel-Air argued that the sign was
externally-illuminated -- and thus allowed by the ordinance
-- because the LEDs are located on the exterior surface of
the sign. It also suggested that because each LED was
surrounded by a metallic sheath, it complied with the
ordinance's requirement of “shielded white
light.” The ZBA rejected Bel-Air's characterization
of the sign as externally-illuminated, upheld Rose's
decision, and subsequently denied Bel-Air's motion for
reconsideration.[17]
Bel-Air
also appealed this ZBA decision to the New Hampshire Superior
Court. It argued (1) that the ZBA incorrectly determined that
the sign was not externally illuminated (2) that the
distinction between internal and external illumination is
unconstitutionally vague (3) that a ZBA member had a conflict
of interest; and (4) that the ZBA decision violated its equal
protection rights because, on the same day it denied
Bel-Air's appeal of the permit denial, it granted a
variance to St. Anselm College, allowing it to install an
internally-lighted sign.[18]
The
Superior Court rejected all of Bel-Air's
arguments.[19]First, the Court found that the sign is
not externally illuminated because the light is emitted from
the sign, rather than cast onto it.[20] The Court next rejected
Bel-Air's void-for-vagueness argument, relying on the New
Hampshire Supreme Court's decision in Asselin, supra,
which rejected a vagueness attack on a similar zoning
ordinance, holding that “[a] person of ordinary
intelligence reading the ordinance could understand that it
proscribes all methods of sign illumination that cast light
from within the sign out through the faces of the
sign.”[21] The Court also rejected Bel-Air's
argument that technological changes after Asselin was decided
in 1993 warranted a different result, observing that the
“fundamental distinction between internal and external
illumination” remained unchanged, and that
“regardless of the technology used, light is either
cast onto the sign or away from or by the
sign.”[22]
The
Superior Court also rejected the conflict of interest charge,
noting that there was no record evidence that the board
member in question or her company would benefit from the
denial of Bel-Air's permit, and observing that Bel-Air
already had a functional sign manufactured by one of her
competitors and that the ZBA decision did not prevent Bel-Air
from using the competitor to create a legally-compliant
sign.[23] Next, the Court rejected Bel-Air's
equal protection argument, finding that Bel-Air was not
similarly situated to St. Anselm, as the latter sought a
variance -- implicitly acknowledging the non-compliance of
its sign -- whereas Bel-Air sought a permit, arguing that its
proposed sign was compliant.[24] Finally, the Court rejected
Bel-Air's claim that the distinction between internal and
external illumination violated Bel-Air's equal protection
rights, as towns are permitted to make decisions based on
aesthetic concerns.[25]Bel-Air did not appeal the Superior
Court's permit decision.
III.
Legal analysis
Bel-Air's
Amended Complaint sets forth four counts: 1) violation of its
equal protection rights under the 14th Amendment; 2)
violation of its right to due process under the 5th and 14th
Amendments; 3) a civil rights claim under 42 U.S.C. §
1983 for the above constitutional rights violations; and 4) a
claim for permanent injunctive relief.
The
court first notes that 42 U.S.C. § 1983 is not a
separate cause of action, but is instead a statutory vehicle
through which a plaintiff can assert a violation of a federal
right. See Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S. 266, 271
(1994) (“Section 1983 ‘is not itself a source of
substantive rights, ' but merely provides ‘a method
for vindicating federal rights elsewhere
conferred.'” (quoting Baker v. McCollan,
443 U.S. 137, 144, n. 3 (1979)); see also, Goldblatt v.
Geiger, 867 F.Supp.2d 201, 203 (D.N.H. 2012) (citing
Cruz-Erazo v. Rivera-Montanez, 212 F.3d 617, 620
(1st Cir. 2000)). Accordingly, Count 3 must be dismissed, but
this makes no practical or substantive difference to the
plaintiff, as the court will construe Counts 1 and 2 as
though they were properly brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983.
Similarly,
count 4 of the Amended Complaint requests injunctive relief.
As this request is not a separate cause of action, the Court
will treat that count as a prayer for relief and dismiss
Count 4. See Isaacs v. Trustees of Dartmouth
College, 2017 DNH 230; see also Diamond Phoenix
Corp. v. Small, No. 05-79-P-H, 2005 WL 1530264, at *4
(D. Me. June 28, 2005) (noting that “[i]njunctive
relief is just that, relief; it is not a separate cause of
action”). With those matters resolved, the court turns
to Bel-Air's constitutional claims.
A.
Equal protection
Bel-Air's
equal protection claim is based on the allegation that the
ZBA approved internally-illuminated sign applications
submitted by St. Anselm College “and other ...