Opinion
No. 99-1149
October 19, 1999
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
This cause is before the Court on Defendants' Motion to Dismiss (d/e 5).
I. BRIEF BACKGROUND
In their complaint, Plaintiffs alleges that a liquor license for their bar/restaurant was not renewed by Defendant Dave Tebben (Tebben) on May 1, 1998. Plaintiffs allege that this non-renewal was performed in retaliation for Plaintiffs' support for Tebben's opponent during the 1995 mayoral election in the City of Pekin, Illinois. Plaintiffs also allege that the non-renewal violated Plaintiffs' equal protection rights. Defendants have moved to dismiss both counts of the complaint, arguing that theRooker-Feldman doctrine defeats subject matter jurisdiction in this Court and, alternatively, that Plaintiffs fail to state a claim because the right to a liquor license does not rise to the level of a fundamental right.
II. STANDARDS
In ruling on a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, the Court must accept all well-pleaded factual allegations as true and must draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff. See Ezekiel v. Michel, 66 F.3d 894 (7th Cir. 1995) (citing Rueth v. United States Environmental Protection Agency, 13 F.3d 227, 229 (7th Cir. 1993).
In determining whether to dismiss a complaint for failure to state a claim, the Court similarly must read all allegations in the complaint in favor of Plaintiff. See Hishon v. King Spalding, 467 U.S. 69, 73 (1984). Dismissal is appropriate only if Plaintiff can prove no set of facts consistent with the allegations in the complaint that would entitle him to relief.See Porter v. DiBlasio, 93 F.3d 301, 305 (7th Cir. 1996).
III. SUBJECT MATTER JURISDICTION
It is clear that the inferior federal courts may not sit in review of the final decisions of state court judgments. See Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923); District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983). Thus, "[a] defendant who has lost in state court and sues in federal court does not assert injury at the hands of his adversary; he asserts injury at the hands of the court, and the second suit therefore is an effort to obtain collateral review. It must be dismissed not on the basis of preclusion but for lack of jurisdiction." Homola v. McNamara, 59 F.3d 647, 650 (7th Cir. 1995). The Court should determine if the federal suit is an attack on the state court judgment or, instead, stems from a source other than the state court judgment. See Gerry v. Geils, 82 F.3d 1362, 1365-66 (7th Cir. 1996).
Thus, actions other than state court judgments may be subject to attack in a federal civil rights suit. The parties have not adequately addressed this point, but it is clear that a federal court action may entertain a suit following adverse state administrative actions (unlike state court judgments) and that the subsequent federal action is not barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. See Van Harken v. City of Chicago, 103 F.3d 1346, 1348-49 (7th Cir. 1997), cert. denied 520 U.S. 1241 (1997); See also United States v. Illinois Pollution Control Board, 17 F. Supp.2d 800, 806 (N.D. Ill., 1998) (citing Van Harken). In Van Harken, plaintiffs received and paid parking tickets pursuant to an administrative proceeding. The Court noted that the United States Supreme Court had rejected any requirement that a § 1983 plaintiff exhaust his state court proceedings in Patsy v. Board of Regents, 457 U.S. 496 (1982), and the Court further emphasized that "[i]f the Rooker-Feldman doctrine is to be extended to administrative judgments, it will have to be done by the Court that created it." Van Harken at 1349.
It is especially puzzling that Plaintiffs have not mentioned the Van Harken case in their arguments to the Court.
In this case, Defendants themselves characterize the denial of the liquor license as allowing for administrative review by the Illinois Liquor Control Commission. Defendants, however, place far too great an emphasis on the availability of an appeal of the denial of the license to the state court, as if the availability of the appeals process somehow implicated Rooker-Feldman concerns in the same way that an actual state court judgment would implicate those same concerns. As the above authorities make clear, the fact that the liquor license was denied as part of an administrative proceeding does not preclude plaintiff from asserting a denial of his constitutional rights in federal court. The motion to dismiss on this ground should therefore be denied.
IV. EQUAL PROTECTION CLAIM
Defendants also claim that Plaintiffs have not stated a claim because there is no constitutional right to a liquor license. Defendants agree that because Plaintiffs' complaint supposedly asserts "merely" the denial of a liquor license the complaint must be dismissed.
Defendants correctly note that an unadorned, generic denial of a liquor license does not rise to the level of a federal Constitutional violation. See Brown v. City of Lake Geneva, 919 F.2d 1299 (7th Cir. 1990). However, Defendants fail to note that more is alleged in this case than a mere denial of the license.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has noted that a claim may be stated under the equal protection clause when the power of government is brought to bear on an individual based solely on a decision-maker's "malignant animosity" toward the plaintiff or on the decision-maker's campaign of vindictiveness against the individual. See Esmail v. Macrane, 53 F.3d 176, 179 (7th Cir. 1995). This element of vindictiveness or malice distinguishes such a claim from a generic claim that a plaintiff was merely treated differently from other similarly situated persons. Id.
Defendants do not mention the Esmail decision, and have made no attempt to distinguish it from the cases cited in their brief.
Here, Plaintiffs have alleged that Tebben was motivated by shear (sic) malice in the denial or non-renewal of the liquor license. They have further alleged that the denial of the liquor license was not an exercise of prosecutorial discretion but rather was based on a personal desire to cause harm to Plaintiffs. Whether or not Plaintiffs will be able ultimately to prove this allegation is irrelevant at the motion to dismiss stage. Plaintiffs have met their burden at this stage of the proceedings.
Therefore, it is my recommendation that Defendants' motion to dismiss (d/e 5) be DENIED in its entirety.
The parties are advised that any objection to this Report and Recommendation must be filed in writing with the Clerk of the Court within ten working days after being served with a copy of this Report and Recommendation. See 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1). Failure to file a timely objection will constitute a waiver of objections on appeal. Video Views, Inc. v. Studio 21, Ltd., 797 F.2d 538, 539 (7th Cir. 1986). See also CDIL LR 72.2.