Plaintiffs Doug and Mika Race allege that the City of Pigeon Forge, former Mayor David Wear, and private defendants conspired to deprive them of their property at 362 Ogle Drive for a private campground development. The plaintiffs claim the city altered the route of the proposed Westside Connector roadway to target their land while sparing a nearby site owned by Appalachian Springs, LLC.
The city and Wear moved for judgment on the pleadings, arguing that federal jurisdiction was barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine because the plaintiffs were effectively appealing a state court’s Agreed Order of Possession. Judge Charles E. Atchley agreed that the public-use Takings Clause claim was barred, as a successful challenge would require invalidating the state court’s grant of eminent domain authority.
However, Judge Atchley rejected the argument that all claims were barred by Rooker-Feldman or federal abstention doctrines. He held that the plaintiffs’ conspiracy claims, procedural due process claim, and First Amendment retaliation claim were independent of the state court judgment.
The judge held that the plaintiffs alleged their injuries stemmed from the defendants’ misconduct before and during the condemnation proceeding, not the state court order itself. He noted that adjudicating these claims would not require reviewing or rejecting the state court’s order, but rather would focus on how and why defendants sought the order.
The motion to dismiss filed by Appalachian Springs, LLC, Richard Perry, and Debbie Perry was denied. The court held that the plaintiffs sufficiently alleged that these private defendants acted as state actors by conspiring with city officials and that they pleaded concrete facts supporting a civil conspiracy under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985(3).
The court also rejected arguments for abstention under Younger or Colorado River doctrines, finding that the remaining state condemnation proceeding focused solely on just compensation and did not involve the constitutional claims at issue in federal court.