A Helping Hand, LLC v. Baltimore County, MD

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 08-2253

A HELPING HAND, LLC, A Maryland Corporate Entity; JOHN DOE
1; JANE DOE NUMBER 1; JOHN DOE 2,

Plaintiffs - Appellees,

and

JANE DOE NUMBER 2; JANE DOE NUMBER 3,

Plaintiffs,

v.

BALTIMORE COUNTY, MARYLAND; OFFICE OF THE ZONING
COMMISSIONER OF BALTIMORE COUNTY; COUNTY COUNCIL OF
BALTIMORE COUNTY; BALTIMORE COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF PERMITS AND
DEVELOPMENT MANAGEMENT,

Defendants - Appellants.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
Maryland, at Baltimore. Catherine C. Blake, District Judge.
(1:02-cv-02568-CCB)

Argued: December 1, 2009 Decided: December 10, 2009

Before MOTZ, DUNCAN, and AGEE, Circuit Judges.

Reversed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

ARGUED: Paul M. Mayhew, BALTIMORE COUNTY OFFICE OF LAW, Towson,
Maryland, for Appellants. Jimmy Rock, TROUTMAN SANDERS, LLP,
Washington, D.C., for Appellees. ON BRIEF: John E. Beverungen,
County Attorney, Jeffrey Grant Cook, Assistant County Attorney,
BALTIMORE COUNTY OFFICE OF LAW, Towson, Maryland, for
Appellants. Deborah A. Jeon, AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF
MARYLAND, Centreville, Maryland; Tameka M. Collier, Daniel W.
Cohen, TROUTMAN SANDERS, LLP, Washington, D.C.; Richard A.
Simpson, WILEY REIN, LLP, Washington, D.C., for Appellees.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:

Baltimore County (“the County”) appeals from the judgment

of the district court granting A Helping Hand, LLC (“the

Clinic”) a two-year injunction as remedy for a jury finding that

the County violated the Clinic’s substantive due process rights.

Because the Clinic has established neither irreparable harm nor

the inadequacy of money damages, we must reverse.

I.

Despite significant opposition from the local community,

the Clinic, a for-profit methadone clinic, opened at its current

site on Slade Avenue in the County in April 2002. At that time,

in response to the public mood, the County enacted an ordinance

restricting the location of all “state-licensed medical

clinics,” including the Clinic.

The ordinance bans such clinics from operating, without a

special exception, in commercial zones or within 750 feet of a

residence. The Clinic’s site on Slade Avenue lies within the

restricted area.

The ordinance only applies to those clinics established and

operating after April 1, 2002. For clinics established and

operating between April 1, 2002 and April 16, 2002, the

ordinance provides an amortization period, which permits those

clinics to operate for six months before relocating. The

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amortization provision allows investors to recoup some of their

investment, and provides a period for the clinics to relocate.

Clinics established and operating after April 16, 2002 do not

receive any benefit from the amortization provision.

When the County enacted the ordinance, the Clinic argued in

an administrative challenge that because the Clinic had begun

operations on April 15, it should at least receive the benefit

of the amortization period. The County disagreed and began

enforcing the ordinance against the Clinic immediately. The

Clinic then filed this action in federal court, alleging that

the County’s enforcement of the ordinance violated the Americans

with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) and the Due Process Clause of the

Fourteenth Amendment. The County decided not to enforce the

ordinance pending the outcome of this litigation.

Following a ten-day trial, a jury returned a verdict

finding that the County’s enforcement of the ordinance against

the Clinic violated both the ADA and the Clinic’s substantive

due process rights. The district court then awarded a

declaratory judgment and injunctive relief to the Clinic. (The

Clinic did not seek money damages). The injunction prohibited

the County from discriminating against the Clinic on the basis

of its patients’ disabilities and from enforcing the ordinance

against the Clinic. Thus, the injunction permitted the Clinic

to remain on Slade Avenue without complying with the ordinance.

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 On appeal, we held that the district court had erred in

finding for the Clinic as a matter of law on an element of its

ADA claim. See A Helping Hand, LLC v. Baltimore County, Md.,

515 F.3d 356, 368 (4th Cir. 2008). We reversed the jury verdict

as to the ADA claim and remanded the case for a new trial if the

Clinic should choose to pursue that claim. Id. at 373. We also

held, however, that the County had not preserved a challenge to

the jury’s verdict on the substantive due process claim, and so

upheld the jury’s verdict for the Clinic on that claim. Id. at

370. Finally, we vacated the injunction and remanded the case

to the district court to “determine the appropriate injunctive

relief on the basis of the due process claim alone.” Id. at

373.

On remand, the district court issued a new injunction,

prohibiting the County from enforcing the ordinance against the

Clinic for two years. A Helping Hand, LLC v. Baltimore County,

Md., No. CCB-02-2568, 2008 WL 4755843 (D.Md. Oct. 8, 2008). The

court chose a two-year time period in an attempt to balance the

County’s interest in zoning control against the Clinic’s

interest in a reasonable amount of time to relocate.

The district court entered its order on October 8, 2008.

The County timely appealed. After the parties had filed all

appellate briefs, we heard oral argument in the case on December

1, 2009. Throughout this period, the Clinic has continued to

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operate at its Slade Avenue site, and other methadone clinics

have opened in the County subject to the requirements of the

ordinance.

II.

We review a district court’s grant of injunctive relief for

abuse of discretion. Va. Soc’y for Human Life, Inc. v. Fed.

Election Comm’n, 263 F.3d 379, 392 (4th Cir. 2001). The

district court abuses its discretion when it makes a legal

mistake or a clearly erroneous factual finding. See id.

Injunctive relief is an “extraordinary remedy.” Weinberger

v. Romero-Barcelo, 456 U.S. 305, 312 (1982); Nat’l Audubon Soc’y

v. Dep’t of Navy, 422 F.3d 174, 201 (4th Cir. 2005). To obtain

such relief, a plaintiff must demonstrate:

(1) that it has suffered an irreparable injury; (2)
that remedies available at law, such as monetary
damages, are inadequate to compensate for that injury;
(3) that, considering the balance of hardships between
the plaintiff and defendant, a remedy in equity is
warranted; and (4) that the public interest would not
be disserved by a permanent injunction.

eBay, Inc. v. MercExchange, LLC, 547 U.S. 388, 391 (2006).

Furthermore, “an injunction may not be used for ‘punishment or

reparations for . . . past violations.’” Belk v. Charlotte-

Mecklenburg Bd. of Educ., 269 F.3d 305, 347 (4th Cir. 2001) (en

banc) (alteration in original) (quoting United States v. Or.

State Med. Soc., 343 U.S. 326, 333 (1952)).

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 III.

With these governing principles in mind, it is immediately

clear that the injunction cannot stand. The Clinic has not

demonstrated that it will suffer irreparable injury absent an

injunction. Nor has the Clinic shown that money damages would

provide an inadequate remedy for whatever injury it may suffer

by virtue of being forced to relocate.

The County’s enforcement of the ordinance against the

Clinic could require the Clinic to relocate. Undoubtedly,

relocation would result in some costs and inconvenience for the

Clinic. That injury, however, does not constitute irreparable

(rather than temporary) injury, and money damages could

compensate any cost to the Clinic. See Virginia Carolina Tools,

Inc. v. Int’l Tool Supply, Inc., 984 F.2d 113, 120 (4th Cir.

1993) (upholding a district court finding that “expenses

incurred in relocation, injury to reputation, loss of profits”

and other “highly speculative and largely economic injuries”

were not irreparable harm); Taylor v. Resolution Trust Corp., 56

F.3d 1497, 1507 (D.C. Cir. 1995) (“[I]n the absence of special

circumstances, . . . recoverable economic losses are not

considered irreparable.”); cf. Fed. Leasing, Inc. v.

Underwriters at Lloyd’s, 650 F.2d 495, 500 (4th Cir. 1981)

(finding irreparable injury only when economic losses threatened

the very existence of the business); Blackwelder Furniture Co.

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of Statesville, Inc. v. Seilig Mfg. Co., Inc., 550 F.2d 189, 197

(4th Cir. 1977) (finding irreparable harm to business interests

when the losses were “incalculable”), overruled on other grounds

by Real Truth About Obama, Inc. v. Fed. Election Comm’n, 575

F.3d 342 (4th Cir. 2009).

Notwithstanding these well-established principles, the

Clinic maintains that we should uphold the injunction. The

Clinic offers three rationales for this position. All fail.

First, the Clinic contends that it seeks not merely to make

money, but also to serve its clients, and therefore it will

suffer irreparable harm by virtue of being forced to cease

operations while it relocates. Even assuming that making money

does not primarily motivate the Clinic -- a for-profit business

-- the Clinic has not demonstrated that a temporary interruption

would irreparably frustrate its customer-service purpose. Nor

can it. Were it so, then every service business would have a

foolproof case for an injunction.

Second, the Clinic argues that relocation may prove

complicated because its licenses are tied to its address on

Slade Avenue, and it would therefore have to seek new licenses

from both the state and the County as part of relocation. The

licensing process might well require some time and energy, but

the Clinic has offered no evidence casting doubt on its ability

to secure new licenses. Indeed, the County has represented on

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numerous occasions that it will do everything in its power to

assist the Clinic in relocating. Thus, the possible time and

energy expended to obtain new licenses hardly constitutes an

irreparable injury, not compensable by money damages. 1

Third, relying on Ross v. Meese, 818 F.2d 1132, 1135 (4th

Cir. 1987), the Clinic contends that a constitutional violation

per se constitutes irreparable harm. This contention wrenches

the Ross holding from its context. The plaintiff in Ross

alleged violations of her First, Fourth, and Sixth Amendment

rights arising out of a series of unlawful searches, and sought

to compel the government to destroy the information that it had

acquired and to enjoin the offending law enforcement agents from

disseminating the information. 818 F.2d at 1133. The harm at

issue here -- damage to a business’s property interests -- is

qualitatively different, most clearly because assessing money

damages in Ross would have been, at the very least,

significantly more challenging than in this case.

In sum, the Clinic has failed to demonstrate entitlement to

injunctive relief. We therefore vacate the injunction. Thus

the ordinance, including its amortization provision, will apply

1
Of course, the mere fact that the Clinic has not sought
money damages does not prove them an inadequate remedy.

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to the Clinic from the date of the entry of our mandate. 2 If the

County decides to enforce the ordinance against the Clinic, the

Clinic will have six months from the date of our mandate to

relocate or to win approval of its Slade Avenue location in

accord with the requirements of the ordinance.

IV.

For all of these reasons, we reverse the judgment of the

district court. We direct the clerk to issue the mandate

forthwith.

REVERSED

2
The County argues that the Clinic is not entitled to the
benefit of the amortization provision because the Clinic has
occupied its location for more than six months. The Clinic,
however, never received the benefit of the amortization
provision; indeed, the County’s contention that the Clinic had
no entitlement to the amortization period precipitated this
lawsuit. In this action, the Clinic proceeded to challenge the
ordinance as a whole, including the amortization provision.
Thus, when the jury found the ordinance unconstitutional, its
finding encompassed the amortization provision.

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