South Gwinnett Venture v. Pruitt

RONEY, Circuit Judge

(specially concurring) :

I concur in the result reached by the majority for what may be a slightly different reason. Although I am not sure of the legal difference between arbitrary and capricious conduct and the denial of certain elements of due process, I agree with Judges Wisdom and Ingraham as to a distinction between the necessary action for adoption of a comprehensive zoning plan and the treatment that must be accorded a landowner in consideration of his petition to reclassify a specific tract of land under an existing plan. For want of better words, it seems appropriate to say that in the latter instance, the decision maker must accord the petitioner minimal due process.

As revealed, however, by the opinion of Judge Edenfield in the trial court, the dissenting opinion of Judge Bootle sitting with the panel on our court, and the opinion of Judge Coleman for the en banc court, the plaintiffs were accorded minimal due process in this case.

*8I concur, therefore, in the dismissal of the cause by the trial court not because plaintiffs were entitled to no more than if a comprehensive plan were being adopted, but because they received the more to which they were entitled.