The Eleventh Circuit on Due Process Claims

Substantive due process challenges to local land use regulations have at least three notable features:  (1) they can routinely be filed in federal court (rather than state court) in the first instance (unlike most regulatory taking claims); (2) they involve allegations that government acted in an arbitrary and unreasonable fashion (rather than allegations that government acted in a legitimate but economically burdensome fashion, as in a  regulatory takings case), and (3) they almost always fail (given the high hurdle the Supreme Court has erected for invalidation of economic regulation under the Due Process Clause).   Two recent decisions from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit provide some additional, useful guidance on litigating due process challenges to local land use regulations. Read On …