Parkridge 6, LLC v. United States Department of Transportation

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 10-1443
PARKRIDGE 6, LLC; DULLES CORRIDOR USERS GROUP,
Plaintiffs – Appellants,
v.
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION; RAY LAHOOD,
Secretary of Transportation; PETER M. ROGOFF,
Administrator, Federal Transit Administration; VICTOR M.
MENDEZ, Administrator of FHWA; ROBERTO FONSECA-MARTINEZ,
Division Administrator of FHWA, Virginia Division; SEAN T.
CONNAUGHTON, Secretary of Transportation; JAMES BENNETT,
President and CEO Metropolitan Washington Airports
Authority,
Defendants – Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of Virginia, at Alexandria. Leonie M. Brinkema,
District Judge. (1:09-cv-01312-LMB-IDD)
Submitted: February 23, 2011 Decided: March 21, 2011
Before MOTZ, KING, and SHEDD, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Christopher W. Walker, CHRISTOPHER W. WALKER PC, Reston,
Virginia, for Appellants. Neil H. MacBride, United States
Attorney, Robin Perrin Meier, Assistant United States Attorney,
Richmond, Virginia; Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, II, Attorney General
of Virginia, Charles E. James, II, Chief Deputy Attorney
General, E. Duncan Getchell, Jr., Solicitor General, Stephen R.
McCullough, Senior Appellate Counsel, Jo Anne P. Maxwell, Senior
Assistant Attorney General, Richmond, Virginia; Edward J. Fuhr,
Eric H. Feiler, HUNTON & WILLIAMS LLP, Richmond, Virginia;
Philip Sunderland, METROPOLITAN WASHINGTON AIRPORTS AUTHORITY,
Washington, D.C., for Appellees.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:
Appellants Parkridge 6, LLC (“Parkridge”) and the
Dulles Corridor Users Group (“Users Group”) filed this lawsuit
against the United States Department of Transportation
(“USDOT”), Ray LaHood, in his official capacity as United States
Secretary of Transportation, Peter M. Rogoff, in his official
capacity as administrator of the Federal Transit Administration
(“FTA”), Victor Mendez, in his official capacity as
administrator of the Federal Highway Administration (“FHWA”),
and Roberto Fonseca-Martinez, in his official capacity as
administrator of the Virginia division of the FHWA
(collectively, “Federal Defendants”). The complaint also named
Pierce R. Homer, in his official capacity as Secretary of
Transportation of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and James
Bennett, in his official capacity as president and chief
executive officer of the Metropolitan Washington Airports
Authority (“MWAA”). The lawsuit challenged plans, currently
underway, to expand Metrorail access to Washington Dulles
International Airport (the “Project”).
Finding the complaint fatally flawed, the district
court dismissed the suit with prejudice. The court concluded
that Appellants lacked standing to bring suit, that many of
their claims were barred by sovereign immunity, and that others
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failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. We
affirm.
We review de novo the district court’s order granting
a Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss. Philips v. Pitt
Cnty. Mem’l Hosp., 572 F.3d 176, 179-80 (4th Cir. 2009). A
district court’s dismissal for lack of standing and for the
existence of sovereign immunity are questions of law that this
court also reviews de novo. See S.C. Wildlife Fed’n v.
Limehouse, 549 F.3d 324, 332 (4th Cir. 2008); McBurney v.
Cuccinelli, 616 F.3d 393, 398 (4th Cir. 2010).
Appellants argue that alternatives to the Project,
which they claim could establish faster travel speeds and
obviate the need for collecting tolls, were not considered.
They maintain that failure to select an alternative to the
Project has subjected them to economic damages in the form of
tolls and taxes that they would not otherwise have been required
to pay. Appellants also cite “impaired access to National
Airport and less than optimum access to Dulles Airport” as a
basis for standing.
Our jurisdiction is circumscribed by the standing
requirement of Article III of the U.S. Constitution, which
limits judicial review to “cases” and “controversies.” Lujan v.
Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 559-60 (1992). The
doctrine of standing has both constitutional and prudential
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components. Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 751 (1984). A party
satisfies the constitutional component of standing if:
(1) [the party] has suffered an “injury in fact” that
is (a) concrete and particularized and (b) actual or
imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical; (2) the
injury is fairly traceable to the challenged action of
the defendant; and (3) it is likely, as opposed to
merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed
by a favorable decision.
Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Servs. (TOC), Inc.,
528 U.S. 167, 180-81 (2000). The prudential component of
standing encompasses three additional constraints: first,
generalized grievances shared by all or a large class of
citizens do not warrant judicial review; second, a plaintiff
must generally assert his own legal rights and may only assert
rights of third-parties in specialized circumstances; and third,
the grievance must fall within the zone of interests the statute
or constitutional guarantee protects or regulates. Bishop v.
Bartlett, 575 F.3d 419, 423 (4th Cir. 2009).
We find that, with the exception of Count Eight,
Appellants cannot establish standing to bring suit on any of the
counts in the complaint. The injuries Appellants identify fall
squarely within the prudential limitation on standing that
courts refrain from exercising jurisdiction over a “‘generalized
grievance’ shared in substantially equal measure by all or a
large class of citizens.” Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 500
(1975). Appellants’ complaint is introduced and styled as a
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“suggestion for a new approach to some of the most vexing
transportation issues in the Washington, DC Metro area.”
Whether or not the taxes and tolls associated with the Project
are unnecessary, as the Appellants maintain, is not a
particularized legal injury but a policy question of broad
applicability. We therefore find that these claims are “more
appropriately addressed in the representative branches.” Elk
Grove Unified Sch. Dist. v. Newdow, 542 U.S. 1, 12 (2004).
Count Eight alleges a violation of Virginia’s Freedom
of Information Act (“FOIA”). Appellants have standing as to
this count because they need only show that they sought and were
denied specific records. See Pub. Citizen v. U.S. Dep’t of
Justice, 491 U.S. 440, 449-50 (1989). This count is directed
against the Commonwealth of Virginia and the MWAA. The claim
fails as to Virginia because sovereign immunity does not permit
federal courts to hear a suit against state officials on the
basis of state law. See Pennhurst State Sch. & Hosp. v.
Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 106 (1984); see also id. at 100 n.9
(noting a state does not waive sovereign immunity in federal
court by consenting to suit in its own courts). The claim fails
against the MWAA because Virginia’s FOIA 1 only reaches Virginia
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Appellants assert for the first time on appeal that if
Virginia’s FOIA does not apply to the MWAA, then the federal
FOIA must. However, we decline to address this argument as it
(Continued)
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public bodies. See Va. Code Ann. §§ 2.2-3701 - 3704 (2008
& Supp. 2010). The MWAA is “a political subdivision constituted
to operate and improve the Metropolitan airports,” and it exists
“independent of Virginia and its local governments, the District
of Columbia, and the United States Government.” 49 U.S.C.
§ 49106(a)(2)-(3) (2006). As such, it is not subject to
Virginia’s FOIA.
Because the complaint must be dismissed in its
entirety for the reasons discussed above, we decline to reach
Appellants’ other arguments. 2
Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment.
We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the
court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
was not presented to the district court. Muth v. United States,
1 F.3d 246, 250 (4th Cir. 1993).
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We note that the Appellants identified as an issue, but
failed to offer argument on, the district court’s authority to
dismiss the complaint with prejudice. Appellants have therefore
abandoned this issue. See United States v. Al-Hamdi, 356 F.3d
564, 571 n.8 (4th Cir. 2004) (“It is a well settled rule that
contentions not raised in the argument section of the opening
brief are abandoned.”).
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