E. Perry Iron & Metal Co., Inc. v. City of Portland, 2008 ME 10

Summary

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court affirmed judgment for the City of Portland in a challenge to the City's Scrap Metal Recycling Facilities ordinance. The court held that the ordinance was not preempted by Maine's Solid Waste Act because the record did not show that it frustrated the Act's purposes or imposed stricter environmental standards, and it rejected the plaintiff's equal protection, substantive due process, takings, and Commerce Clause claims.

Holdings

1. The Scrap Metal Recycling Facilities ordinance was not implicitly preempted by the Solid Waste Act because the record did not show that the ordinance frustrated any defined state purpose.
2. The ordinance was not shown to impose standards stricter than those established by the Solid Waste Act, and its more rigorous testing procedures did not alone constitute impermissibly stricter standards.
3. The ordinance survived rational-basis review because regulating scrap-metal facilities as a source of pollution was rationally related to the legitimate governmental purpose of pollution control.
4. Perry failed to establish a selective-enforcement equal protection violation because it did not show differential treatment of a similarly situated person based on impermissible considerations or a bad-faith intent to injure.
5. Perry did not prove that the ordinance violated substantive due process.
6. Perry failed to establish that the ordinance effected an unconstitutional taking.
7. Perry failed to prove that the ordinance violated the Commerce Clause.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Portland's Scrap Metal Recycling Facilities ordinance was implicitly preempted by the Maine Hazardous Waste, Septage and Solid Waste Management Act.
2. Whether the ordinance established standards stricter than those permitted by 38 M.R.S. § 1310-U.
3. Whether the ordinance violated equal protection through irrational classification or selective enforcement.
4. Whether the ordinance violated substantive due process.
5. Whether the ordinance effected an unconstitutional taking of private property.
6. Whether the ordinance violated the Commerce Clause.

Disposition

affirmed