Kelly Samson v. City of Bainbridge Island

“Full indeed is earth of woes, and full the sea,” remarked Hesiod, and reviewing the long odyssey of Kelly and Sally Samson, we are inclined to agree. The pair own waterfront property in picturesque Blakely Harbor in the City of Bainbridge Island. They devoutly wished to build a pier or a dock on their property during a time when local authorities had imposed a moratorium on such projects. The Sam-sons and some of their fellow landowners waged a long campaign against the moratorium in the state courts, and ultimately won a judgment declaring that the moratorium violated the state constitution. That victory was a hollow one, however, because the state courts upheld permanent changes to Bainbridge’s shoreline land-use laws that permanently deferred the Samsons’ dreams.

The Samsons come now to the federal courts, seeking damages for the thirty-one months during which they were barred from improving their shoreline property by the moratorium on new projects. They assert that the moratorium violated their substantive and procedural due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment, and seek damages against the city under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 . We conclude that the moratorium…