Neighbors and Neighbors Association, Inc. v. Hardemon et al

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
Case No. 25-cv-22659-ALTMAN
NEIGHBORS AND NEIGHBORS
ASSOCIATION, INC.,
Plaintiff,
v.
MIAMI-DADE COUNTY,
Defendant.
___________________________________/
ORDER
In July 2026, we granted in part and denied in part the Motion to Dismiss the Amended
Complaint (the “MTD”) [ECF No. 43]. See MTD Order [ECF No. 51]. The Defendant—Miami-Dade
County1—now asks, “under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b),” that we reconsider two aspects
of our MTD Order, contending that the “claims against the County for First Amendment Retaliation
(Count II) and Fourteenth Amendment equal protection violation (Count V) should not have been
allowed to survive[.]” Motion for Reconsideration (the “Motion”) [ECF No. 60] at 1, 5; see also
Amended Complaint (the “AC”) [ECF No. 42]. After careful review, we DENY the Motion.
T HE L AW
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b) provides that “any order or other decision, however
designated, that adjudicates fewer than all the claims or the rights and liabilities of fewer than all the
parties . . . may be revised at any time before the entry of a judgment adjudicating all the claims and
1 Both the Complaint [ECF No. 1] and the Amended Complaint [ECF No. 42] named two
Defendants: the County and Keon Hardemon. Our most recent MTD Order—like our original Order
Granting the MTD [ECF No. 39]—found that legislative immunity shields Hardemon from the
Plaintiff’s claims. So, the County is now the sole Defendant in the action.
Case 1:25-cv-22659-RKA Document 73 Entered on FLSD Docket 10/13/2026 Page 1 of 15

2
all the parties’ rights and liabilities.” FED . R. C IV . P. 54(b). “While Rule 54(b) doesn’t specify a standard
by which courts must evaluate a motion for reconsideration, the Eleventh Circuit has suggested that
‘Rule 54(b) takes after Rule 60(b).’” ZAGG Inc. v. DVG Trade LLC, 2026 WL 799303, at *1 (S.D. Fla.
Mar. 23, 2026) (Altman, J.) (quoting Herman v. Hartford Life & Accident Ins. Co., 508 F. App’x 923, 927
n.1 (11th Cir. 2013)). “Relief from judgment under Rule 60(b)(6)—and thus reconsideration under
Rule 54(b)—is an extraordinary remedy” that “requires showing extraordinary circumstances.” Ibid.
(cleaned up). “The only grounds for granting a motion for reconsideration are newly-discovered
evidence or manifest errors of law or fact.” Smith v. Ocwen Fin., 488 F. App’x 426, 428 (11th Cir. 2012).
“A motion for reconsideration cannot be used to relitigate old matters, raise arguments, or present
evidence that could have been raised prior to the entry of judgment.” Ibid.
A NALYSIS
The Motion advances three arguments. As to our finding that the AC’s “allegations suffice to
sustain a claim of Monell liability,” MTD Order at 10, the Defendant argues in the main that the AC
“cannot plausibly allege that the County ratified an unconstitutional decision by Commissioner
Hardemon when no claims against Commissioner Hardemon remain due to legislative immunity,”
Motion at 2–3. In the alternative, the Defendant insists that “the Court should still reconsider its
finding that the [AC] plausibly alleged that the County ratified the unconstitutional basis (or motive)
for that decision.” Motion at 2. And as to our finding that the Plaintiff’s procedural-due-process claim
“do[es] enough to survive the MTD,” MTD Order at 14, the Defendant contends that we “relied on
cases dealing with adjudicative or administrative action when this case deals with legislative action—a
distinction that makes a legal difference,” Motion at 3. We reject those challenges in turn.
I. 	The
Monell Challenge
The AC asserts two Monell claims—under the First Amendment (Count II) and the Fourteenth
Amendment (Count V)—against the Defendant. See AC ¶¶ 97–107, 124–130; see also Monell v. Dep’t of
Case 1:25-cv-22659-RKA Document 73 Entered on FLSD Docket 10/13/2026 Page 2 of 15

3
Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 691 (1978). Our MTD Order rejected the Plaintiff’s attempt to press a final-
policymaking theory of Monell liability for those counts. See MTD Order at 9 (“We previously rejected
the Plaintiff’s final-policymaking approach . . . . In this latest iteration, our Plaintiff recycles that
theory—along with the same allegations. That . . . argument falters for the same reasons we’ve already
outlined.”). But it found that the Plaintiff’s ratification-based theory of Monell sufficed. See id. at 10.
The Defendant now challenges that finding on two grounds. Neither prevails.
a. 	The Immunity Argument
The Defendant opens by arguing that the “Plaintiff should not have been allowed to proceed
on derivative Monell claims against the County when the underlying decision the County allegedly
ratified (i.e., Hardemon’s refusal to platform the resolution for an extension vote) was held insufficient
to establish a constitutional claim.” Motion at 6 (cleaned up). To that end, the Defendant explains
that, “[i]n the Eleventh Circuit, it is well-established that when there is no underlying constitutional
violation, a plaintiff’s municipality (Monell) claim fails as a matter of law, even at the motion to dismiss
stage.” Ibid. So, as the Defendant sees it, “the Court’s dismissal of the claims against Commissioner
Hardemon . . . should also doom Plaintiff’s derivative Monell claims against the County because, if
there is no unconstitutional action by Commissioner Hardemon, then the Amended Complaint is left
without any unconstitutional acts for the County to ratify.” Id. at 7.
We disagree. The proposition on which the Defendant relies—as the cases the Defendant cites
made clear—establishes only that “[t]here can be no . . . supervisory liability when there is no
underlying constitutional violation.” Knight through Kerr v. Miami-Dade Cnty., 856 F.3d 795, 821 (11th
Cir. 2017); see also City of Los Angeles v. Heller, 475 U.S. 796, 799 (1986) (“If a person has suffered no
constitutional injury at the hands of the individual police officer, the fact that the departmental
regulations might have authorized the use of constitutionally excessive force is quite beside the point.”
(cleaned up)). From that uncontroversial proposition, however, the Defendant tries to extract a novel
Case 1:25-cv-22659-RKA Document 73 Entered on FLSD Docket 10/13/2026 Page 3 of 15

4
rule: A Monell claim isn’t viable, the Defendant insists, when a separate claim against an officer fails
not on the merits but because of immunity. We see no basis for that rule, which overlooks (among other
things) that “Monell . . . and its progeny do not require that a jury must first find an individual
defendant liable before imposing liability on local government.” Anderson v. City of Atlanta, 778 F.2d
678, 686 (11th Cir. 1985).
The Second Circuit’s decision in Askins v. Doe No. 1, 727 F.3d 248 (2d Cir. 2013), is instructive.
In that case, a plaintiff sued police officers and New York City itself. Having found that the claims
against the officers were “either time-barred or barred by the doctrine of qualified immunity,” the
district court found that “no Monell claim lies against the City” because “it cannot be said that any
allegedly illegal City policy caused [the] [p]laintiff a constitutional remediable injury[.]” Askins v. City of
New York, 2012 WL 12884363, at *9 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 14, 2012). On appeal, the Second Circuit vacated
the district court’s Monell holding, explaining that it “reflects a misunderstanding of the relationship
between the liability of individual actors and municipal liability for purposes of Monell.” Askins, 727
F.3d at 253.
The Second Circuit began with a simple proposition: Plaintiffs needn’t “obtain a judgment
against . . . individual tortfeasors in order to establish the liability of [a] municipality”—and indeed
“need not sue the individual tortfeasors at all[.]” Ibid. So, the panel continued, “the entitlement
of . . . individual municipal actors to qualified immunity . . . is . . . irrelevant to the liability of [a]
municipality.” Id. at 254. And while Askins recognized that a “failure to secure a judgment
against . . . individual actors would, indeed, preclude a judgment against [a] municipality if the ruling
in favor of the individual defendants resulted from the plaintiff’s failure to show that they committed
the alleged tort,” it concluded that an individual’s immunity “has no bearing on the liability of
municipalities.” Id. at 253–54; see also id. at 254 (“To rule, as the district court did, that the City of New
York escapes liability for the tortious conduct of its police officers because the individual officers are
Case 1:25-cv-22659-RKA Document 73 Entered on FLSD Docket 10/13/2026 Page 4 of 15

5
entitled to qualified immunity would effectively extend the defense of qualified immunity to
municipalities, contravening the Supreme Court’s holding[s].”).
The Defendant’s argument suffers from the same misconception Askins rejected. In holding
that legislative immunity protected Hardemon, we found only that the Plaintiff’s claims against
Hardemon cannot proceed—but passed no judgment on the merits of those claims. See Mitchell v.
Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 527–28 (1985) (“[A] claim of immunity is conceptually distinct from the merits
of the plaintiff’s claim that his rights have been violated.”). Contrary to the Defendant’s framing, we
never found that the Plaintiff failed to allege an underlying constitutional injury.
The Defendant invokes two out-of-Circuit district-court cases—one from the Eastern District
of Pennsylvania, another from the District of Maryland—that (in its view) support the Monell theory
it presses today. See Motion at 8 (“Other courts that have faced similar circumstances, particularly after
dismissing substantive constitutional violation claims on legislative immunity grounds, have dismissed
the derivative Monell claims.”); see also Snyder v. Kraus, 2010 WL 3419890, at *2 (E.D. Pa. Aug. 27, 2010);
Grimes v. Miller, 448 F. Supp. 2d 664, 675 (D. Md. 2006). To the extent those cases support the
Defendant’s theory, however, they provide cold comfort against the overwhelming weight of authority
from circuit courts of appeals we’ve cited here. See, e.g., Mervilus v. Union Cnty., 73 F.4th 185, 196 (3d Cir.
2023) (“Where it is possible for the Monell defendant to cause constitutional harm without any
individual defendant violating the plaintiff’s rights, it is not inconsistent for a jury to find only the
Monell defendant liable.”); Stucker v. Louisville Metro Gov’t, 2024 WL 2135407, at *5–6 (6th Cir. May 13,
2024) (“Our sister circuits have expressly and widely held that a municipality may be liable for
constitutional violations even absent a successful claim against an offending officer if the outcome is
not inconsistent with Monell’s holding.”); Thomas v. Cook Cnty. Sheriff’s Dep’t, 604 F.3d 293, 305 (7th
Cir. 2010) (“[A] municipality can be held liable under Monell, even when its officers are not, unless
such a finding would create an inconsistent verdict.”); Gibson v. Cnty. of Washoe, 290 F.3d 1175, 1186 (9th
Case 1:25-cv-22659-RKA Document 73 Entered on FLSD Docket 10/13/2026 Page 5 of 15

6
Cir. 2002) (“[A] municipality may be liable if an individual officer is exonerated on the basis of the
defense of qualified immunity, because even if an officer is entitled to immunity a constitutional
violation might still have occurred.”). We therefore join the chorus of appellate cases that have
declined to countenance this distortion of Monell.
b. 	The Motive Argument
We turn next to the Defendant’s back-up argument. Even if the AC “overcame the hurdle of
alleging 	that 	the 	County 	ratified 	Commissioner 	Hardemon’s 	unconstitutional 	decision,” 	the
Defendant says, the AC nonetheless “failed to allege that the County ratified the unconstitutional basis
for such decision.” Motion at 9. So, in the Defendant’s view, our MTD Order “held that a legislative
body’s knowledge of an allegedly unlawful motive by one of its members was enough to establish
ratification of that motive by the full legislative body,” despite the fact that “knowledge is not enough.”
Ibid. In other words, the Defendant maintains, our MTD Order never actually held that “the Board of
County 	Commissioners, 	the 	final 	policymaker, 	ratified 	the 	allegedly 	unconstitutional 	basis 	for
Commissioner Hardemon’s allegedly unconstitutional decision.” Id. at 10.
We disagree. Our MTD Order expressly found that the Plaintiff “offers six allegations to
support its claim that the ‘County Commission and individual Commissioners were aware of, and
acquiesced in, Commissioner Hardemon’s unlawful conduct.’” MTD Order at 10 (emphasis added)
(quoting AC ¶ 83). We explained that, under the standard Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)
demands, the “six allegations indicate that the County knew about and approved of Hardemon’s refusal
to platform the resolution for an extension vote—and that it did so despite knowing about his
(supposedly) animus-based rationale.” Ibid. (emphases added). We further found that, drawing those
required inferences, it’s “plausible to believe that” the County “assumed responsibility for Hardemon’s
actions.” Id. at 10–11 (emphasis added). And we concluded that “the AC plausibly alleges that the
Commission made that decision with animus against the Plaintiff[.]” Id. at 11 (emphasis added). We
Case 1:25-cv-22659-RKA Document 73 Entered on FLSD Docket 10/13/2026 Page 6 of 15

7
therefore reject the contention that our decision allowed the Plaintiff’s Monell claim “to survive simply
based on the Board’s alleged knowledge of an allegedly unconstitutional motive of one of its
members—without more[.]” Motion at 13.
“[T]he language of an opinion is not always to be parsed as though we were dealing with
language of a statute.” Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U.S. 330, 341 (1979); see also Loper Bright Enters. v.
Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369, 426 (2024) (Gorsuch, J., concurring) (“[I]t would be a mistake to read judicial
opinions like statutes.”); Armour & Co. v. Wantock, 323 U.S. 126, 133 (1944) (“[W]ords of our opinions
are to be read in the light of the facts of the case under discussion.”). But the Defendant appears to
do just that, attempting to evade Monell liability by seizing on a perceived ambiguity in the MTD Order.
That attempt fails. We held then—and reemphasize today—that the AC sufficiently alleged that the
County agreed with Hardemon’s decision and with the animus that animated his decision.
The Plaintiff’s theory may well fall apart at the summary-judgment stage. See MTD Order at
11 (“[T]he Defendants point out that ‘there are a plethora of reasons that could justify the
Commission’s vote, including Plaintiff’s noncompliance with the requirements of the Infill Program.’
True enough. But, at this stage of the case, the Plaintiff need only identify one viable reason for the
Commission’s decision to freeze funding and order an audit.” (citation omitted)). But it survives the
motion-to-dismiss phase of this case.
II. 	The Procedural-Due-Process Challenge
That brings us to the Defendant’s final argument. Our MTD Order found that the “AC
adequately pleads a deprivation of property based solely on the allegation that the Plaintiff ‘has
incurred tens of thousands of dollars in citations because the lots remain undeveloped.’” MTD Order
at 13 (quoting AC ¶ 80); see also id. at 14 (“In plausibly alleging that it ‘incurred’ those ‘assessments’
and that the process available to it under Florida law leaves it stuck within ‘a state of limbo,’ the
Plaintiff has done enough to survive the MTD.” (quoting AC ¶¶ 79–80)). According to the Defendant,
Case 1:25-cv-22659-RKA Document 73 Entered on FLSD Docket 10/13/2026 Page 7 of 15

8
however, that analysis “overlooked the legal distinction between legislative and adjudicative action.”
Motion at 13. Pointing to 75 Acres, LLC v. Miami-Dade Cnty., 338 F.3d 1288 (11th Cir. 2003), the
Defendant insists that the Eleventh Circuit’s holding there “compels this Court to conclude that [the]
Plaintiff, who failed to take advantage of the mechanisms of democratic government, received all the
due process constitutionally due.” Id. at 16 (cleaned up).
“In deciding what the Due Process Clause requires when the State deprives persons of life,
liberty or property, the Supreme Court has long distinguished between legislative and adjudicative
action.” Jones v. Governor of Fla., 975 F.3d 1016, 1048 (11th Cir. 2020). When “[t]he State . . . deprives
persons of liberty or property through legislative action,” “the affected persons are not entitled to any
process beyond that provided by the legislative process.” Ibid.; see also City of N. Miami v. FAA, 47
F.4th 1257, 1277 (11th Cir. 2022) (“We have described legislative action as general laws that apply to
more than a few people[.]” (cleaned up)). “In contrast, the Due Process Clause may require individual
process when a State deprives persons of liberty or property through adjudicative actions—those that
concern a ‘relatively small number of persons’ who are ‘exceptionally affected, in each case upon
individual grounds,’ by the state action.” Jones, 975 F.3d at 1048 (quoting Bi-Metallic Inv. Co. v. State Bd.
of Equalization, 239 U.S. 441, 446 (1915)).
In 75 Acres, the Eleventh Circuit considered this legislative-adjudicative divide in the context
of a county ordinance that “require[d] the County Manager to impose a building moratorium on
certain 	parcels 	of 	real 	property 	without 	affording 	[ ] 	procedural 	due 	process[.]”
75 Acres, 338 F.3d at 1289; see also id. at 1290 (“Pursuant to § 33–319(k)(1) of the Miami–Dade County
Code, the County Manager was required to issue an administrative order prohibiting the issuance of
building permits on 75 Acres’ property as soon as the County Manager learned that an information
had been returned charging Vera with accepting unlawful compensation in a zoning case related to
that property.”). The panel concluded that the imposition of the mortarium was a legislative act because,
Case 1:25-cv-22659-RKA Document 73 Entered on FLSD Docket 10/13/2026 Page 8 of 15

9
even though “the County’s moratorium ordinance ha[d] been applied specifically to 75 Acres’
property,” the “language of § 33–319(k)”—“a generally applicable ordinance”—“d[id] not limit the
ordinance’s application solely to 75 Acres’ property.” Id. at 1297.
In reaching that conclusion, the panel said that “one aspect of § 33–319(k)” gave it “pause”:
“the pivotal role the State Attorney plays in triggering the imposition of a moratorium.” Id. at 1297.
Whereas other cases involve deprivations “triggered by the occurrence of a legislatively-defined
condition unrelated to any government action,” the panel explained, the moratorium at issue there
had been “imposed only after the State Attorney”—“a government official who makes factual
determinations and exercises official discretion”—“file[d] a criminal information.” Ibid. Still, the court
concluded that “the State Attorney’s act of filing a criminal information [wa]s best characterized as a
legislatively-defined condition precedent that d[id] not transform the imposition of a moratorium
under § 33–319(k) from a legislative act to an adjudicative act.” Id. at 1298. And that was because the
plaintiff sought a hearing for the sole purpose of contesting the “validity of the moratorium”—not the
“State Attorney’s decision to file a criminal information.” Id. at 1297 (cleaned up & emphasis added).
So, because the plaintiff challenged only “the legislature’s judgment that no building permits should be
issued on real property implicated in zoning fraud” instead of “the State Attorney’s factual
determinations and discretionary act,” the court determined that the plaintiff “was not entitled to
procedural due process protections when the County Manager, acting without discretion, heeded the
legislative command of § 33–319(k) and imposed a moratorium on 75 Acres’ property after the
criminal information was filed.” Id. at 1298.
Our 	Defendant 	believes 	that 	75 	Acres 	proves 	“strikingly 	similar[ ]” 	to—and 	indeed
“control[s]”—this case. Motion at 16. But our Plaintiff isn’t challenging a statute. It’s instead
challenging the imposition of “tens of thousands of dollars in citations because the lots remain
undeveloped.” AC ¶ 80; see also id. ¶ 85 (alleging that the Plaintiff was “assessed tens of thousands of
Case 1:25-cv-22659-RKA Document 73 Entered on FLSD Docket 10/13/2026 Page 9 of 15

10
dollars in citations related to NANA’s unfinished construction sites”). And, if anything, the
government conduct at issue here more closely the sort of “exercise of discretion” about which 75
Acres warned. 75 Acres, 338 F.3d at 1297.
Compare our Plaintiff’s allegation to cases in which the Eleventh Circuit has applied 75 Acres.
The Eleventh Circuit has held that a Senate bill implementing an amendment to the Florida
Constitution counts as a legislative act. See Jones, 975 F.3d at 1049 (“The legislative and constitutional-
amendment processes gave the felons all the process they were due before Florida deprived them of
the right to vote and conditioned the restoration of that right on completion of their sentences.”). It
has determined that “the amendment of [a] zoning ordinance [i]s a legislative act.” O’Neal Homes, Inc.
v. City of Orange Beach, 333 F. App’x 428, 430 (11th Cir. 2009). So too a “general provision that affected
a large number of persons and area, 200 acres in all, rather than being specifically targeted at [the
plaintiff himself] or his immediate neighbors.” Busse v. Lee Cnty., 317 F. App’x 968, 972 (11th Cir.
2009); see also Kentner v. City of Sanibel, 750 F.3d 1274, 1280 (11th Cir. 2014) (“Because plaintiffs are
challenging the Ordinance on its face rather than contesting a specific zoning or permit decision made
under the auspices of the Ordinance, we conclude that they are challenging a legislative act. The
Ordinance applies to all properties within the entire Bay Beach Zone, not just those owned by the
plaintiffs.” (citations omitted)). And the Eleventh Circuit has done the same for airport-navigation
procedures, see City of N. Miami, 47 F.4th at 1277 (“The Metroplex Project plainly is not an
adjudication. The FAA acted pursuant to statutory authorization, planned for a prospective project,
and affected the ‘rights’ of tens of millions of people. Thus, Burkett’s procedural due process claim
fails.”), as well as a salary schedule for public-school teachers, see Alvarez v. Sch. Bd. of Miami-Dade Cnty.,
2021 WL 2935366, at *4 (11th Cir. July 13, 2021) (“There is no indication that the School Board used
a different process when it adopted the November 2014 schedule than it did for any other schedule,
for example.”).
Case 1:25-cv-22659-RKA Document 73 Entered on FLSD Docket 10/13/2026 Page 10 of 15

11
This case stands in stark contrast to those examples. In its case against the Defendant, our
Plaintiff isn’t challenging a statute, a zoning ordinance, or any legislative directive. It merely “pleads a
deprivation of property based solely on the allegation that the Plaintiff has incurred tens of thousands
of dollars in citations because the lots remain undeveloped.” MTD Order at 13 (cleaned up &
emphasis added). And, as we’ve explained, “‘the issuance of a citation and fine’ suffices for a claim
asserting ‘a deprivation of property resulting from state action.’” Ibid. (quoting Kupke v. Orange Cnty.,
293 F. App’x 695, 698 (11th Cir. 2008)). Holding otherwise here would mean that administrative-fines
challenges cannot be brought as procedural-due-process claims—a result that would be impossible to
square with binding precedent from this Circuit and persuasive precedents from others. See, e.g., Zen
Grp., Inc. v. Agency for Health Care Admin., 80 F.4th 1319, 1327 (11th Cir. 2023) (“[O]ur precedents
establish that a due-process right attaches to the imposition of civil or administrative penalties.”); Cnty.
of Suffolk, New York v. First Am. Real Est. Sols., 261 F.3d 179, 195 (2d Cir. 2001) (“Due process requires
that before a . . . significant civil or administrative penalty attaches, an individual must have fair
warning of the conduct prohibited by the statute or the regulation that makes such a sanction
possible.”).
Resisting this conclusion, the Defendant insists that our holding as to Count III cannot coexist
with our legislative-immunity holding. See Motion at 17 (“[T]he Court’s analysis of Plaintiff’s
procedural due process claim is inconsistent and in direct contravention of controlling and binding
Eleventh Circuit precedent[.]”). We disagree. In finding that legislative immunity protects Hardemon,
we focused on Hardemon’s “discretionary choices related to the deliberative and communicative
processes by which legislators pass laws”—namely, “declining to put forward an extension vote” and
“moving to cut funding.” MTD Order at 5. In finding that the Plaintiff stated a plausible procedural-
due-process claim against the County, however, we focused not on Hardemon’s voting choices but on
the simple fact that the Plaintiff has (allegedly) incurred fines issued by the County. See AC ¶ 85 (“[T]he
Case 1:25-cv-22659-RKA Document 73 Entered on FLSD Docket 10/13/2026 Page 11 of 15

12
County . . . assessed tens of thousands of dollars in citations[.]”). Those two inquiries are different—
at least at this early stage of the case.2
“[T]he line between legislation and adjudication is not always easy to draw, especially when
the extent of the legislative domain is extremely limited[.]” LC& S, Inc. v. Warren Cnty. Area Plan
Comm’n, 244 F.3d 601, 603 (7th Cir. 2001) (Posner, J.); see also Garcia-Rubiera v. Fortuno, 665 F.3d 261,
274 (1st Cir. 2011) (“More importantly, not all government actions fall neatly into these polar
categories.”). Indeed, “[t]here is no dispositive test to determine which actions are executive and which
are legislative, because local governing bodies often do both.” Kentner, 750 F.3d at 1280; see also Morrissey
v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 481 (1972) (“It has been said so often by this Court and others as not to require
citation of authority that due process is flexible and calls for such procedural protections as the
particular situation demands.”). On the record before us, we cannot say that a challenge to the
imposition of “tens of thousands of dollars in citations because the lots remain undeveloped,” AC
2 The Defendant might’ve but didn’t invoke Smith v. Jefferson Cnty. Bd. of Sch. Comm’rs, 641 F.3d
197 (6th Cir. 2011), in which the Sixth Circuit linked its procedural-due-process analysis to its
legislative-immunity discussion. See id. at 218 (“Because we determined in our analysis of the teachers’
procedural-due-process claim that the Board was performing a legislative function, we conclude that
the members of the Board are entitled to legislative immunity in their individual capacities.”). But our
holding would remain the same even if the Defendant had raised that argument.
In Smith, the government conduct at issue appears to have been the same in both the
procedural-due-process and the immunity context. Compare id. at 217 (“Because the Board engaged in
legislative activity when it made the budgetary determinations that eliminated the alternative school,
we hold that the Board did not violate the teachers’ procedural-due-process rights. The Board’s
decision to abolish the alternative school and contract with Kingswood in order to save money was
the result of weighing budgetary priorities, a legislative activity.”), with id. at 218 (“Even if the Board
did not have the power to abolish the alternative school under Tennessee law, the Board members
may still enjoy legislative immunity as individuals in federal court for their legislative actions, sound or
unsound.”). Here, by contrast, the AC presents us with two different catalysts: the tabling of the vote
(and slashing of funding) on the one hand, and the imposition of fines on the other. So, while we
recognize that the two analyses might often intersect, the particular allegations of our case yield a
different result.
Case 1:25-cv-22659-RKA Document 73 Entered on FLSD Docket 10/13/2026 Page 12 of 15

13
¶ 80—given the specific factual allegations at issue here—amounts to a challenge to a legislative act
that’s “general in nature,” that “covers a large group of individuals beyond . . . this case,” and that
operates “without prejudice.” Perez v. KIPP DC Supporting Corp., 2024 WL 3534769, at *9 (D.D.C. July
25, 2024) (Contreras, J.).
Procedural due process may have “nothing to do with [a] case” when “a law of general
applicability . . . affects all [citizens] equally,” when that law “was passed by [the] legislature,” and when
it requires “[n]o individualized determination.” New Ga. Project v. Raffensperger, 976 F.3d 1278, 1289
(11th Cir. 2020) (Lagoa, J., concurring); see also ibid. (“The ‘process’ that Georgia’s voters are entitled
to before their late-arriving ballots are rejected is the process that inured during the enactment of the
law itself.”). But this is a case about a party incurring fines for the stalled development of land due to
the individualized decision-making of a single city commissioner. See Harris v. Cnty. of Riverside, 904
F.2d 497, 502 (9th Cir. 1990) (“[T]he County’s decision to alter its proposed General Plan Amendment
specifically to rezone Harris’ land constituted a decision which was distinct from, rather than a part
of, approval of the General Plan Amendment. This decision . . . concerned a relatively small number
of persons (Harris and the immediately adjacent landowner) rather than the entire population of the
West Coachella Valley.”); Johnson v. Quander, 370 F. Supp. 2d 79, 91 (D.D.C. 2005), aff’d, 440 F.3d 489
n.7 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (explaining that 75 Acres and cases with similar “logic address issues regarding
land-use regulations” and thus are “not analogous” to other contexts).
We therefore see no tension between our MTD Order and Eleventh Circuit precedent.
Indeed, our outcome comports with 75 Acres, which explained that targeted, one-off decisions—at
the hands of “a government official who makes factual determinations and exercises official
discretion”—can pose procedural-due-process problems. It also complies with the Second Circuit test
75 Acres followed, which “focuses on the function performed by the decisionmaker to make the
determination.” 75 Acres, 338 F.3d at 1296; see also Thomas v. City of New York, 143 F.3d 31, 36 n.7 (2d
Case 1:25-cv-22659-RKA Document 73 Entered on FLSD Docket 10/13/2026 Page 13 of 15

14
Cir. 1998) (“Adjudicative facts are facts about the parties and their activities, businesses, and
properties, as distinguished from general facts which help the tribunal decide questions of law and
policy and discretion. Local Law No. 51 directs the TLC to consider what look like adjudicative facts
(such as the ‘fitness of the applicant’) in making its decisions.” (cleaned up)). And it adheres to the
Seventh Circuit’s approach 75 Acres explicitly invoked, which “focuses on the generality and
prospectivity of government action[.]” 75 Acres, 338 F.3d at 1296; see also LC&S, 244 F.3d at 604 (“If
the Williamsport town council had imposed a fine on the plaintiffs, or provided that only the plaintiffs
had to apply for permission to operate a tavern in the town’s commercial district, the amendment
would have lacked either prospectivity (in the first example) or generality (in the second); it might even
have been a bill of attainder. But the amendment operated prospectively, regulating a future use but
not imposing a sanction for past conduct.”).
More fundamentally, our outcome accords with the animating principle of the legislative-act
doctrine. Citizens are “not entitled to procedural due process above and beyond that which is already
provided by the legislative process” because they’re expected to “take advantage of the mechanisms
of democratic government” in the first instance, when the legislative decision is “enacted.” 75 Acres,
338 F.3d 1293, 1298; see also id. at 194 (“When the legislature passes a law which affects a general class
of persons, those persons have all received procedural due process—the legislative process.”). In other
words, the “large number of people affected by the legislative process ensures that the legislature will
act reasonably.” Cnty. Line Joint Venture v. City of Grand Prairie, 839 F.2d 1142, 1144 (5th Cir. 1988). But
when government conduct affects only one entity, not the general population, “the need for additional
procedural protections is greater because political remedies are often unattainable by individuals or
small groups, and the grant of procedural safeguards to a few does not impose as great a burden on
government.” Onyx Props. LLC v. Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs of Elbert Cnty., 838 F.3d 1039, 1046 (10th Cir.
2016) (citations omitted).
Case 1:25-cv-22659-RKA Document 73 Entered on FLSD Docket 10/13/2026 Page 14 of 15

15
We’ll close by reiterating what our MTD Order makes plain: Our Plaintiff may well fail to clear
the summary-judgment hurdle. For Count III to ultimately survive, the Plaintiff “will need to produce
viable evidence establishing (among other things) that it paid—and lacks sufficient state-law avenues
to challenge—th[e] fines” at issue here. MTD Order at 14. We leave that inquiry for another day. What
matters here is that the Plaintiff adequately asserts a procedural-due-process claim stemming from the
imposition of monetary fines. We reject the Defendant’s attempt to refashion Count III into anything
else.
C ONCLUSION
After careful review, therefore, we ORDER and ADJUDGE that the Defendant’s Motion
for Reconsideration [ECF No. 60] is DENIED.
DONE AND ORDERED in the Southern District of Florida on October 9, 2026.
_________________________________
ROY K. ALTMAN
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
cc: counsel of record
Case 1:25-cv-22659-RKA Document 73 Entered on FLSD Docket 10/13/2026 Page 15 of 15