Patel
Patel v. City of San Bernardino
Opinion
Lead Opinion
Browning, J.
Pravin D. Patel and twenty other named plaintiffs sued the city of San Bernardino, California for damages stemming from the city’s enforcement of an unlawful tax. The district court dismissed the complaint for lack of jurisdiction. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand.
I.
The plaintiffs are owners and operators of hotels in the city of San Bernardino. The city imposed a “transient occupancy tax” on certain hotel guests, and the plaintiffs were required to collect this tax from their customers and remit it to the city. In 1991, the plaintiffs filed a complaint in state court for declaratory and injunctive relief under state law, asserting that the tax was unconstitutionally vague on its face. In 1997, the California Court of Appeal agreed and held that the tax violated the Due Process Clause of the federal constitution. See City of San Bernardino Hotel/Motel Ass’n v. City of San Bernardino, 59 Cal.App.4th 237 , 69 Cal.Rptr.2d 97, 101-04 (1997). However, the court denied injunctive relief and noted that the city could amend the tax ordinance to cure its infirmities. Id. at 104. That decision became final on February 9, 1998, shortly after the California Supreme Court…
Dissenting Opinion
Rawlinson, J.
Dissenting:
I respectfully dissent from that portion of the opinion concluding that the lack of injunctive relief in the state court proceeding resulted in an inadequate remedy. Our holding today is in disharmony with our ruling in Ashton v. Cory, 780 F.2d 816, 820 (9th Cir.1986). In Ashton , we concluded that “for a state remedy to be adequate ..., it need not be the best remedy available, nor need it even be equal to ... that available in federal court.” (citation omitted).
The majority acknowledges that the hotel owners prevailed on their claim that the transient occupancy tax violated the due process clause of the United States Constitution. Under the rationale of Ashton , lack of the arguably better relief of an injunction did not render the state remedy inadequate for purposes of the Tax Injunction Act. Therefore, I would affirm the judgment of the district court.