Ramsgate Court Townhouse Association, et al. v. West Chester Borough

Ramsgate Court Townhome Association and other

property owners1 (referred to collectively as "Ramsgate")

appeal from the district court's order dismissing their

complaint against West Chester Borough for failure to state

a claim upon which relief can be granted. Ramsgate's

putative class action challenged the Borough's trash

collection ordinance under the Equal Protection Clause of

the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States
Constitution and under the Uniformity Clause of the

Pennsylvania Constitution. The district court concluded

that the ordinance is rationally related to a legitimate

government purpose and therefore does not violate the

Equal Protection Clause, and it declined to exercise

supplemental jurisdiction over the state law claim. 2 We will

affirm the judgment.

The district court dismissed the complaint in response to

the Borough's motion under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). Our

review is de novo, but we use the same test as the district

court in deciding whether the complaint should be

dismissed for failure to state a claim upon which relief can

be granted. After accepting the complaint's well-pleaded

allegations as true and viewing them in the light most

favorable to Ramsgate, if Ramsgate is not entitled to relief,

then the complaint should be dismissed. Maio v. Aetna,

Inc., 221 F.3d 472, 481-82 (3d Cir. 2000).

The Borough provides waste removal services to all

residential property owners except those whose property

requires more than the equivalent of six thirty-gallon

containers of rubbish per week. The Borough does not

provide services to multi-unit condominiums and

apartments or to mixed-use commercial and apartment

buildings. The owners of these excluded residential

properties make up the class. Members of the class are

assessed real estate taxes on the same basis as other
residential property owners in the Borough, but they

receive no waste removal services from the Borough.

Rather, they are required to pay for private waste removal

services at significant cost. In other words, because they

produce in the aggregate more than six containers of

rubbish per week, multi-unit condominiums and

apartments must arrange and pay for their own waste

removal. In contrast, single-unit residences can have up to

six containers collected each week at no additional cost.

By its terms, the complaint challenges the Borough's

waste removal policy. It alleges that the class members are
denied equal protection in violation of the Fourteenth

Amendment because they do not receive the same waste

removal services provided to other residential properties.

The complaint assumes that the Borough's waste removal

ordinance is enforced as written. For our purposes,

therefore, the Borough's policy is synonymous with its

waste removal ordinance. The ordinance states in relevant

part:

Garbage, rubbish and refuse shall be collected once

each week from all properties having six (6) thirty-

gallon cans (or their equivalent) or fewer. Those

properties requiring more than the equivalent of six (6)

thirty-gallon cans for the disposal of rubbish will be

required to employ a private collector.

West Chester Code S 62-4.B.

The Borough filed a motion to dismiss under Fed. R. Civ.

P. 12(b)(6), which the district court granted. The district

court applied the rational basis test to Ramsgate's Equal

Protection challenge, recognizing that it was free to consider

a conceivable governmental purpose even if the legislative

body had not articulated one. The district court concluded

that the Borough has compelling health and safety reasons

for requiring weekly removal of trash, and that it would be

justified in taking into account economic considerations in

deciding how it allocated its waste collection resources. The

court concluded that the Borough made a rational decision

to require residential property owners whose residents

produce in the aggregate large amounts of waste to contract

with and pay private waste haulers, and that it did not

engage in invidious discrimination.

On appeal, Ramsgate argues that a higher level of

scrutiny should be applied to its equal protection challenge,

although it never articulates exactly what test it advocates

or why the rational basis test is inapplicable. It frames the

question broadly, as "whether a municipality can selectively
provide basic municipal services to a segment of its

residential property owners while denying those very same

services to other residential property owners without

violating the Constitution."

The district court correctly concluded that Ramsgate's

equal protection challenge to the Borough's ordinance is

subject to the rational basis standard. The ordinance does

not draw a distinction based on a suspect classification,

nor does it implicate a fundamental right. See Beauclerc

Lakes Condo. Ass'n v. City of Jacksonville, 115 F.3d 934,

935 (11th Cir. 1997) (ordinance that excludes waste

collection services for condominiums but provides service to

all other residential properties does not draw a distinction

based on a suspect classification, and there is no

fundamental right to no-fee waste collection; therefore,

rational basis test applies).

In reviewing an ordinance that does not burden a

fundamental right or target a suspect class, we are to

uphold its constitutionality if it bears a rational relation to

some legitimate end. Vacco v. Quil, 521 U.S. 793, 799

(1997). We presume such an ordinance is valid, Cleburne v.

Cleburne Living Ctr., 473 U.S. 432, 440 (1985), and in our

review we are not limited to considering only the goal stated

by the legislative body. Delaware River Basin Comm'n v.

Bucks County Water & Sewer Auth., 641 F.2d 1087, 1096

(3d Cir. 1981). We are free to consider any conceivable

legislative purpose so long as it reasonably could have been

entertained by the legislature. Id. at 1097.

The district court recognized that the Borough's limits on

waste removal are based on economic considerations. As

the district court stated, "[t]he challenged classifications

written into the ordinance in issue are based on the

quantity of waste and nothing else. . . . The differences in

the way property owners are treated under the ordinance

are clearly based on economic considerations. Providing

free trash collection costs money." Although the district

court did not ignore the importance of trash removal to a

community's health and safety, it noted that the Borough is

forced to divide its finite budget among various

expenditures. By limiting this service, the Borough is able

to spend its tax dollars elsewhere.

Other courts have considered similar legislative objectives

where a municipality has provided a higher level of waste

collection services to one group of taxpayers than to

another. See Beauclerc Lakes, 115 F.3d at 935 (legislature could assume that multi-unit condominium association has

greater bargaining power with private waste removal

services than do individual homeowners); Goldstein v. City

of Chicago, 504 F.2d 989, 992 (7th Cir. 1974) (same);
Szczurek v. City of Park Ridge, 422 N.E.2d 907, 911, 914

(Ill. App. Ct. 1981) (same). We are persuaded that the

district court's conclusion is correct. Because of the

presumption of constitutionality and the legitimate

economic rationale for the ordinance, the ordinance

survives equal protection scrutiny.

On appeal, Ramsgate raises another issue. It asserts that

the Borough's practice is to exclude all multi-residence

condominiums from its collection services, but that under

the ordinance each separate condominium should be

entitled to its own six-can allotment because each

condominium is a "property." See S 62-4.B ("Garbage . . .

shall be collected once each week from all properties having

six (6) thirty-gallon cans. . . .").3 However, as Ramsgate

acknowledges in its brief, it is arguing that "the Borough is

simply violating its own policy in its application[of the

ordinance] to [the class]." That is not a federal

constitutional challenge, and thus is not within the scope of

this appeal. This argument would be more appropriately

brought in state court, should Ramsgate choose to pursue

its cause of action following this disposition.

Finally, Ramsgate argues that the district court erred by

refusing Ramsgate's request for leave to amend its

complaint. We review for abuse of discretion, Lake v.

Arnold, 232 F.3d 360, 373 (3d Cir. 2000), and we find

none. The Borough responded to plaintiffs' complaint by

filing a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, which Ramsgate then

opposed. Ramsgate concluded its brief in opposition to the

motion to dismiss with this sentence: "However, in the

event that the Court concludes that the Complaint fails to


state claims upon which relief may be granted, Plaintiffs

and the Waste Removal Class respectfully request that they

be granted leave to amend the Complaint." That is the only

mention of amending Ramsgate ever made before the

district court. Ramsgate never filed a motion to amend, nor

did it provide the district court with a proposed amended

complaint. As a consequence, the court had nothing upon

which to exercise its discretion. See Lake, 232 F.3d at 374.

As another circuit has held:

[Plaintiff 's] single sentence, lacking a statement for the

grounds for amendment and dangling at the end of her

memorandum, did not rise to the level of a motion for

leave to amend. Because a motion for leave to amend

was never properly before it, the district court did not

abuse its discretion in failing to address [plaintiff 's]
request for leave to cure deficiencies in her pleadings.

Calderon v. Kansas Dep't of Soc. & Rehab. Servs. , 181 F.3d

1180, 1187 (10th Cir. 1999). The district court committed

no abuse of discretion.

* * *

Click the case caption above for the full text of the Court's opinion.

We will affirm the district court judgment.

Unknown

Unknown

None