## Facts

- Del Monte Dunes owned a 37.6-acre oceanfront parcel in Monterey, California, zoned for multifamily residential use.
- Over several years, the City denied five successive development applications for the parcel, each time imposing more stringent conditions.
- Del Monte Dunes concluded the City would not allow any economically viable development and sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
- The suit alleged a regulatory taking and related constitutional violations arising from repeated denials without compensation or an adequate post-deprivation remedy.
- The district court tried the case to a jury and instructed that liability could be found if the jury concluded either (a) the City denied all economically viable use or (b) the final denial did not substantially advance a legitimate public purpose.
- The jury returned a verdict for Del Monte Dunes and awarded damages; the City prevailed on a separate due process claim.
- The Ninth Circuit affirmed, including the determination that the case was properly submitted to a jury; the City sought Supreme Court review.

## Issues

1. Whether the Seventh Amendment permits a jury trial on liability and damages in a § 1983 action seeking money damages for an alleged regulatory taking in these circumstances.
2. Whether the case was improperly submitted to the jury because the liability standard was erroneous, including references to Dolan’s “rough proportionality” and the “substantially advances” formulation.
3. Whether allowing a jury to assess whether a land-use denial substantially advanced legitimate public purposes improperly intrudes on municipal land-use decisionmaking.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment for Del Monte Dunes.
- The Court held that the § 1983 action for compensation, as tried, sought legal relief (money damages) for an alleged past wrong and was properly decided by a jury on disputed questions of liability and damages.
- The Court treated Dolan’s “rough proportionality” standard as inapposite and, in any event, irrelevant because the jury instructions did not require proportionality findings.
- The Court rejected the City’s characterization of the decision as authorizing broad interference with land-use regulation, construing the affirmance as tied to the specific record of repeated denials and escalating demands.

## Legal Principles

- When a § 1983 claim is framed as an action at law seeking money damages for an alleged constitutional violation, the Seventh Amendment may require a jury determination of disputed factual questions bearing on liability and damages.
- A regulatory-takings claim based on repeated permit denials does not, without more, trigger Dolan’s “rough proportionality” test, which concerns exactions imposed as conditions for permit approval.
- Appellate discussion of inapplicable doctrinal tests does not warrant reversal where the actual jury instructions and verdict rest on other properly submitted factual determinations.
- Fact-specific review of an unusually extreme land-use permitting record does not itself establish a general rule for routine zoning or planning disputes.

## Conclusion

The Court upheld a jury verdict awarding damages under § 1983 based on a municipality’s repeated denials of development proposals and held that, on the instructions given, submission of the regulatory-takings theory to a jury was proper, while Dolan’s rough-proportionality standard did not govern the case.


City of Monterey v. Del Monte Dunes at Monterey, Ltd., 526 U.S. 687 (1999)