Federal judge rules against Wilkes-Barre in dismissal of ‘One-Strike Ordinance’ suit

SCRANTON — Wilkes-Barre struck out with a federal judge who denied its request to dismiss a two-year-old civil rights suit challenging the city’s “One-Strike Ordinance.”

U.S. District Judge James Munley issued his decision Wednesday and ordered the city to respond within 14 days to the complaint filed last year by a group of tenants and landlords.

The American Civil Liberties Union and private attorneys representing the plaintiffs claimed the ordinance violated their constitutional rights by not allowing them to contest beforehand evictions and shutterings of residences.

The law, enacted in September 2013, aimed to address problem properties city officials said they had connected to drug dealing and a wave of violent crime. The ordinance authorized the city to shut down for six months properties where illegal drug and gun activity occurred even if the owner was unaware of what was happening at the residence. The ordinance opened a 20-day window to appeal to a specially created Housing Appeals Board.

But the judge dismissed the city’s argument the federal court should abstain from taking the case because, among other things, state court affords “an adequate opportunity” to address the legal issues, he said. The judge determined the delays in scheduling hearings and sending out notices of the board’s decisions ran up against the six-month closure, limiting the plaintiffs opportunity to take their cases to state court.

“A post (event), laggard review of a deprivation without due process can hardly be considered adequate opportunity to raise the claim that one’s property rights are being violated,” Munley wrote.

He let stand claims alleging violations of due process under the 14th Amendment and excessive fines under the Eight Amendment. The suit seeks damages for financial harm, emotional and psychological suffering and injunctive relief to erase the “ongoing threat” that the city will close the plaintiffs’ properties “without notice or due process because of the alleged misconduct of third parties.”