Facts
- Members of the Eichenlaub family and their related business interests owned two parcels of land in the Township of Indiana, Pennsylvania.
- The Eichenlaubs sought township approvals to use one parcel for residential purposes and to use the other parcel partly in connection with their landscaping business.
- The township initially refused the Eichenlaubs’ application, and the parties went through repeated rounds of township requirements and revised plans submitted by the Eichenlaubs.
- As disputes continued, the Eichenlaubs publicly criticized township officials and the township’s handling of their land-use requests, describing the township’s actions as arbitrary and aimed at limiting lawful use of their property.
- After the public criticism, the Eichenlaubs alleged that the township retaliated in multiple ways, including increasing their property-tax bill roughly tenfold and taking steps that prevented utility companies from providing service to their property, along with other actions they claimed impeded development.
- The Eichenlaubs sued the township and officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging constitutional violations tied to the township’s land-use decisions and enforcement actions.
- The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that, to state a substantive due process claim based on executive land-use administration, the challenged conduct must meet the “shocks the conscience” standard and that the township’s alleged conduct did not satisfy that threshold.
- The Eichenlaubs petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari, and the township filed a brief opposing review (the filing cited at 2007 WL 2115672).
Issues
- Whether the Supreme Court should grant certiorari to review the Third Circuit’s application of the “shocks the conscience” test to a substantive due process challenge arising from a zoning and permitting dispute.
- Whether the petition presented a sufficiently important federal question—beyond the parties’ land-use conflict—to justify Supreme Court review.
- Whether any asserted disagreement among lower courts about substantive due process standards in land-use cases warranted certiorari.
Decision
- The respondents filed a Brief in Opposition to Certiorari arguing that review should be denied and that the Third Circuit’s disposition reflected settled substantive due process limits in land-use disputes.
- The Supreme Court denied certiorari, leaving the Third Circuit’s judgment in place.
Legal Principles
- Substantive due process challenges to executive action require conduct so egregious that it “shocks the conscience”; ordinary disputes over zoning, permitting, and code enforcement generally do not meet that standard.
- Federal courts do not act as super zoning boards; § 1983 does not convert routine local land-use disagreements into constitutional tort claims.
- Certiorari is generally inappropriate where a petition seeks review of a fact-specific application of established doctrine, rather than resolution of a genuine conflict among courts or an important recurring federal question.
Conclusion
The Brief in Opposition to Certiorari in Eichenlaub v. Township of Indiana argued that the petition asked the Supreme Court to revisit a fact-bound land-use conflict in which the Third Circuit applied the settled “shocks the conscience” test to reject a substantive due process claim, and the Court denied certiorari, leaving the Third Circuit’s approach intact.