## Facts

- Brian Skiles owned multiple residential rental properties in Reading, Pennsylvania, and a downtown bar/restaurant operating as “Daddy’s Night Club.”
- City officials pursued a downtown redevelopment initiative and, according to Skiles, sought to reduce rental and boarding properties.
- Skiles alleged City officials misrepresented to prospective purchasers that certain properties were zoned single-family despite prior multi-family approvals.
- He further alleged that the City re-designated certain properties as single-family without notice and otherwise acted to deter transactions involving his properties.
- Skiles alleged City enforcement actions against his nightclub (including inspections, citations, and a temporary closure pending correction of violations) were selective and motivated by hostility toward the club’s gay clientele and by redevelopment goals.
- Skiles sued the City and individual officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, asserting constitutional violations, including a Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process claim.
- The district court dismissed the amended complaint with prejudice under Rule 12(b)(6), concluding the alleged conduct did not meet the conscience-shocking standard for substantive due process in the land-use context.
- Skiles appealed only the dismissal of the substantive due process claim.

## Issues

1. Whether allegations of rezoning/reclassification, misstatements about zoning status, and targeted zoning/health enforcement stated a Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process claim by plausibly alleging conscience-shocking conduct.
2. Whether the district court erred by treating the dispute as a land-use matter and applying the “shocks the conscience” standard as the governing substantive due process test.

## Decision

- The Third Circuit affirmed the Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal with prejudice.
- The court held the alleged conduct, even if true, did not rise to the level of conscience-shocking executive action required for a substantive due process violation in the land-use setting.
- The court rejected the argument that the district court imposed an improper heightened standard; the “shocks the conscience” requirement was the substantive constitutional standard applicable to the claim.

## Legal Principles

- Substantive due process bars only the most egregious executive conduct; liability requires behavior that “shocks the conscience.”
- In zoning, permitting, and code-enforcement disputes, ordinary allegations of arbitrariness, unfairness, selective enforcement, or political motivation generally do not satisfy the conscience-shocking threshold.
- Characterizing a claim as a land-use dispute does not create a heightened pleading rule; it identifies the substantive due process standard governing the asserted constitutional violation.
- When the facts alleged cannot satisfy the governing constitutional standard, dismissal with prejudice may be appropriate based on futility of amendment.

## Conclusion

The Third Circuit treated the case as a local land-use and regulatory enforcement dispute and held that the alleged rezoning actions, zoning representations, and enforcement measures—including the temporary nightclub closure—did not plausibly constitute conscience-shocking conduct; therefore, no substantive due process claim was stated and dismissal with prejudice was affirmed.


Skiles v. City of Reading, 449 F. App’x 153 (3d Cir. 2011)