744
Opinion of the Court
penalties attached to noncompliance," hardship has been demonstrated and "access to the courts . . . must be permitted." Id., at 153.
Abbott Laboratories is not on point. The drug companies in that case were challenging the validity of a regulation as beyond the scope of the FDA's authority. Whatever the arguable merit of the FDA's position on ripeness may have been, it rested on the fact that the manufacturers could have precipitated their challenge (if they had wanted) by violating the regulation and defending any subsequent prosecution by placing the regulation's validity in question. Suitum is in a different position from the manufacturers. She does not challenge the validity of the agency's regulations; her litigating position assumes that the agency may validly bar her land development just as all agree it has actually done, and her only challenge to the TDR's raises a question about their value, not about the lawfulness of issuing them. Suitum seeks not to be free of the regulations but to be paid for their consequences, and even if for some odd reason she had decided to bring things to a head by building without a permit, a § 1983 action for money would not be a defense to an equity proceeding to enjoin development. Indeed, to the extent that Abbott Laboratories is in any sense instructive in the disposition of the case before us, it cuts directly against the agency: Suitum is just as definitively barred from taking any affirmative step to develop her land as the drug companies were bound to take affirmative steps to change their labels. The only discretionary step left to an agency in either situation is enforcement, not determining applicability.
* * *
Because we find that Suitum has received a "final decision" consistent with Williamson County's ripeness requirement, we vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Page: Index Previous 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007