Bethlehem Manor Village LLC v. City of Bethlehem

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

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No. 24-2925

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BETHLEHEM MANOR VILLAGE, LLC

v.

CITY OF BETHLEHEM; CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF BETHLEHEM;

ROBERT J. DONCHEZ, Former Mayor of the City of Bethlehem

ROBERT J. DONCHEZ, Former Mayor of the City of Bethlehem,

Appellant

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On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. No. 5:22-cv-05215)

District Judge: Honorable Kelley B. Hodge

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Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)

September 29, 2025

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Before: SHWARTZ, MATEY, and SCIRICA, Circuit Judges

(Filed: December 12, 2025)

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OPINION *

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This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and, pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7,

*

does not constitute binding precedent.

MATEY, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff Bethlehem Manor Village (“BMV”) is a property developer that alleges

public officials in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania connived to block a new psychiatric hospital.

Although BMV ultimately obtained approval from a court, it brought this suit under 42

U.S.C. § 1983 against the Mayor, the City Council, and the City.

While partially granting the Mayor’s motion to dismiss, the District Court denied

his claim for qualified immunity on BMV’s constitutional claim, reasoning that “property

rights are sufficiently established in the Third Circuit” that “a reasonable person” in the

Mayor’s position “would have been aware that arbitrary (and potentially discriminatory)

deprivation of Plaintiff’s property rights is a violation of the Constitution.” Bethlehem

Manor Vill., LLC v. City of Bethlehem, No. CV 22-5215, 2024 WL 4367922, at *11 (E.D.

Pa. Sept. 30, 2024) (citing DeBlasio v. Zoning Bd. of Adjustment, 53 F.3d 592, 600–01

(3d Cir. 1995) and Blanche Rd. Corp. v. Bensalem Twp., 57 F.3d 253 (3d Cir. 1995)). 1

We disagree because, properly framed, no caselaw “clearly established” the

Mayor’s alleged conduct as unlawful. While “[t]he text of § 1983 does not provide any

immunities from suit,” Fogle v. Sokol, 957 F.3d 148, 158 (3d Cir. 2020), a government

official may avoid section 1983 liability by asserting the affirmative defense of qualified

1

The District Court had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331. BMV contends that

we lack appellate jurisdiction because the District Court’s order, granting in part and

denying in part a motion to dismiss, is not a final order. But “[w]hen the defense of

qualified immunity is raised and denied, a defendant is generally entitled to an immediate

appeal under the collateral order doctrine so long as the denial turns on an issue of law.”

De Ritis v. McGarrigle, 861 F.3d 444, 451 (3d Cir. 2017) (citation omitted).

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immunity, Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 815 (1982). Qualified immunity is “an

immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to liability,” so immunity “is effectively

lost if a case is erroneously permitted to go to trial.” Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511,

526 (1985). “[O]fficers are entitled to qualified immunity under § 1983 unless (1) they

violated a federal statutory or constitutional right, and (2) the unlawfulness of their

conduct was ‘clearly established at the time.’” District of Columbia v. Wesby, 583 U.S.

48, 62–63 (2018) (citation omitted). Courts may “exercise their sound discretion in

deciding which of the two prongs of the qualified immunity analysis should be addressed

first.” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 236 (2009).

On this second requirement, “a defendant cannot be said to have violated a clearly

established right unless the right’s contours were sufficiently definite that any reasonable

official in the defendant’s shoes would have understood that he was violating it.”

Plumhoff v. Rickard, 572 U.S. 765, 778–79 (2014). “In other words, ‘existing precedent

must have placed the statutory or constitutional question’ confronted by the official

‘beyond debate.’” Id. at 779 (quoting Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 741 (2011)). In

this Circuit, a right might become “clearly established” only with “binding Supreme

Court [or] Third Circuit precedent or from a robust consensus of cases of persuasive

authority in the Courts of Appeals.” Minor v. Delaware River & Bay Auth., 70 F.4th 168,

174 (3d Cir. 2023) (quoting Bland v. City of Newark, 900 F.3d 77, 84 (3d Cir. 2018)).

Framing the question at a sufficient level of specificity is key, and the Supreme

Court has “repeatedly told courts . . . not to define clearly established law at a high level

of generality.” Plumhoff, 572 U.S. at 779 (quoting al-Kidd, 563 U.S. at 742). Instead,

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courts must consider clearly established law “in light of the specific context of the case,

not as a broad general proposition.” Mullenix v. Luna, 577 U.S. 7, 12 (2015) (per curiam)

(quoting Brosseau v. Haugen, 543 U.S. 194, 198 (2004) (per curiam)).

Here, the District Court concluded that BMV’s allegations, if proven, would show

that the Mayor engaged in “arbitrary or irrational decisions” depriving BMV of its

“clearly established” due process right “to use or enjoyment of property.” Bethlehem

Manor, 2024 WL 4367922, at *11 (citing Blanche Rd. Corp., 57 F.3d 253 and DeBlasio,

53 F.3d at 601). But this “broad general proposition” is divorced from “the specific

context of the case” and thus too abstract to give a reasonable official in the Mayor’s

position proper guidance as to whether his conduct violated BMV’s due process rights.

See Mullenix, 577 U.S. at 12 (citation omitted).

Instead, we must analyze “whether the violative nature of [the Mayor’s] particular

conduct is clearly established” by existing precedent. See id. (citation omitted). That

requires focusing on BMV’s specific allegations that the Mayor: 1) called a “highly

irregular” meeting where he “directly instructed” City officials to “take all steps

necessary to prevent the psychiatric hospital from opening” because he did “‘not want

those people [i.e., psychiatric patients] here,” App. 39–40; 2) influenced zoning officials

who “would have granted [relevant permits] but for the direction by the Mayor,” App. 49;

and 3) prompted revision to local ordinances to prevent construction of the psychiatric

hospital, App. 41–42, 89.

Neither the District Court nor BMV identified any prior decisions from this Circuit

finding a due process violation based on similar facts. And, as we have explained, the

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cases on which the District Court relied “cannot be reconciled” with the Supreme Court’s

subsequent “explanation of substantive due process analysis” in County of Sacramento v.

Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 847 (1998), which specifies “that executive action violates

substantive due process only when it shocks the conscience.” United Artists Theatre Cir.,

Inc. v. Twp. of Warrington, 316 F.3d 392, 399–400 (3d Cir. 2003). 2

The misconduct alleged here in this “normal zoning dispute” does not involve “the

most egregious official conduct” of “corruption or self-dealing,” a “virtual ‘taking,’” or

attempts “to hamper development in order to interfere with otherwise constitutionally

protected activity at the project site, or because of some bias against an ethnic group.”

Eichenlaub v. Twp. of Indiana, 385 F.3d 274, 285–86 (3d Cir. 2004) (citation omitted).

As a result, our decisions do not “clearly establish” that the Mayor’s particular alleged

conduct violated BMV’s due process rights to develop a psychiatric hospital on its

property free from arbitrary zoning decisions that “shock the conscience.”

* * *

For these reasons, we will reverse the District Court’s denial of the Mayor’s

motion to dismiss based on qualified immunity and remand with instructions to dismiss

BMV’s substantive due process claim against the Mayor.

2

Nor does Addiction Specialists, Inc. v. Township of Hampton, 411 F.3d 399,

406–07 (3d Cir. 2005), abrogated on other grounds by Spring Commc’ns, Inc. v. Jacobs,

571 U.S. 69, 72 (2013), provide the necessary notice. Addiction Specialists held only that

a clinic had standing to sue for alleged discrimination against future patients, id. at 407,

but declined any analysis of immunity, writing: “we of course pass no judgment as to the

merits of those claims,” id. at 408.

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