Save Our Valley v. Sound Transit
Opinion
Lead Opinion
Gould, J.
Opinion by Judge GOULD; Dissent by Judge BERZON.
OPINION
Save Our Valley, a community group, challenges the Central Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority’s plan to build a light-rail line through the Rainier Valley south of Seattle, Washington. Save Our Valley argues that the project will have the effect of discriminating against Rainier Valley residents based on race in violation of a Department of Transportation regulation. The primary question before us is whether that Department of Transportation regulation creates an individual federal right that can be enforced under the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1983 . Because we conclude that the regulation does not create such a right, we affirm the district court’s summary judgment.
I
The Central Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority (“Sound Transit”) is charged with building a light-rail line to connect the Northgate area in north Seattle with Sea-Tac Airport in Sea-Tac, Washington. The preferred twenty-one— mile route is proposed to pass through several Seattle neighborhoods, including south Seattle’s Rainier Valley, a neighborhood populated predominantly by minority residents. The 4.6-mile segment through Rainier Valley is…
Dissenting Opinion
Berzon, J.
dissenting in part.
I
I write separately to clarify two critical issues that the majority has utterly confused: the distinction between rights and rights of action, and the consequence of its assumption that the regulation here is valid. The majority’s confusion on the first issue taints its entire opinion and causes it to conclude, incorrectly, that regulations may never create rights enforceable under 42 U.S.C. '§ 1983. Its confusion on the second issue leads it to conduct the wrong analysis regarding whether the particular regulation here creates a right to be free of disparate impact discrimination. In the end, however, I conclude that under the last relevant Supreme Court opinion, Gonzaga Univ. v. Doe, 536 U.S. 273 , 122 S.Ct. 2268 , 153 L.Ed.2d 309 (2002), there is simply no escaping the conclusion that the majority’s bottom line is correct: The disparate impact regulation — although in my view indubitably a valid legislative regulation — does not create a “right” within the meaning of § 1983, so no cause of action lies under that statute.
A
The central issue in this appeal is whether the DOT regulation creates a right, enforceable in a private action under § 1983, to be…