## 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

1. 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.
2. Whether the petition presented a sufficiently important federal question—beyond the parties’ land-use conflict—to justify Supreme Court review.
3. 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.


Brief in Opposition to Certiorari in Eichenlaub v. Township of Indiana, 2007 WL 2115672 (2007)