City of Monterey v. Del Monte Dunes at Monterey, Ltd.

Summary

The Court affirmed the judgment sustaining Del Monte Dunes’ jury verdict against Monterey. Justice Kennedy’s opinion held that Dolan’s rough-proportionality test did not apply to the denial of development at issue, that the city could not challenge instructions it had effectively proposed, and that a § 1983 action seeking legal relief carries a Seventh Amendment jury right. Both deprivation of all economically viable use and the narrow, fact-bound relationship between this particular permit denial and the city’s stated purposes were properly submitted to the jury. The Court did not decide the jury’s role in ordinary inverse condemnation or broad challenges to zoning policy. Justice Scalia joined all but Part IV-A-2 and separately argued that the jury right follows from § 1983’s character as a tort remedy, without separately classifying the underlying constitutional claim. Kennedy’s additional historical analogy between this uncompensated taking and property torts in Part IV-A-2 received only four votes. Justice Souter, joined by Justices O’Connor, Ginsburg, and Breyer, concurred in Parts I and II but dissented from recognizing a constitutional jury right; he would analogize the claim to direct condemnation and remand for the judge’s own findings, potentially treating the verdict as advisory.