STAHL, Circuit Judge.
Thomas Gianfrancesco, the former proprietor of a now-defunct bar and restaurant in Wrentham, Massachusetts, sued the Town of Wrentham and a number of town officials, claiming federal civil rights violations and unfair trade practices.
We draw the following facts from Gianfrancesco's amended complaint. See Katz v. Pershing, LLC, 672 F.3d 64, 69 (1st Cir.2012). From 1998 to 2009, Gianfrancesco owned and operated Tom's Tavern, a restaurant and bar in Wrentham. At various times, Gianfrancesco appeared before local governmental bodies (including the Board of Health, the Planning Board, the Zoning Board of Appeals, and the Board of Selectmen) to voice his opinion — most often critical — of "the town's regulations and enforcement of various rules and code provisions concerning local businesses." In 2003, he "openly and publicly defied" the Town's smoking ordinances, which resulted in state court litigation (the outcome of which is not described in the complaint).
Gianfrancesco alleges that, during and after the state court proceedings, the defendants subjected Tom's Tavern to a pattern of deliberate and selective application and enforcement of town regulations. This pattern included: repeated inspections aimed at ferreting out violations; repeated requests for information; and a series of unjustified orders requiring "improvements, additions, and renovations," including septic and sprinkler system upgrades. Gianfrancesco alleges that all of these actions were deliberately directed at Tom's Tavern and not at "other similarly situated establishments," and that they were undertaken "in direct retaliation against Mr. Gianfrancesco for the exercise of his First Amendments Rights of expression and speech in criticizing town government and defying the smoking by-law." He also alleges that during a 2009 meeting regarding the sprinkler system requirements, the Town Administrator "made remarks to the effect that `Tom's Tavern' should be shut down." Indeed, in early 2009, Tom's Tavern "was forced out of business," allegedly "due to the deliberate and intentional misconduct of the defendants."
Although the defendants wholeheartedly endorse the district court's dismissal of Gianfrancesco's amended complaint for failure to state a claim, they also offer another basis for affirmance: that Gianfrancesco lacks standing to bring his claims. The gist of the defendants' argument is that Gianfrancesco (who is the sole remaining plaintiff in the case
Standing doctrine has two elements: an "irreducible constitutional minimum," Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992), and a prudential component, see Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 751, 104 S.Ct. 3315, 82 L.Ed.2d 556 (1984). The former requires that a plaintiff allege a concrete injury that is fairly traceable to the defendant's conduct and likely to be redressed by the requested relief. DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U.S. 332, 342, 126 S.Ct. 1854, 164 L.Ed.2d 589 (2006); Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560-61, 112 S.Ct. 2130. The latter has various aspects, including a requirement that a party "assert his own legal rights and interests," not those of third parties. Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 499, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975). The shareholder-standing rule is a species of prudential limitation, not a component of the core constitutional standing requirement. See Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v. Alcan Aluminium Ltd., 493 U.S. 331, 336-37, 110 S.Ct. 661, 107 L.Ed.2d 696 (1990).
Here, the ownership structure of Tom's Tavern is actually unclear. The amended complaint lists Gianfrancesco as "d/b/a Tom's Tavern" in the caption, but elsewhere alleges that he is "the owner
For example, in Franchise Tax Board, a pair of foreign parent companies challenged the constitutionality of taxes imposed on their subsidiaries; the defendants disputed their standing to do so. 493 U.S. at 334-35, 110 S.Ct. 661. The Supreme Court found that the parent companies had Article III standing, but assumed without deciding that they could duck the shareholder-standing rule (and thus show prudential standing) because a statute barred their claim anyway. See 493 U.S. at 336-38, 110 S.Ct. 661. Following the Court's example, we need not decide whether the shareholder-standing rule bars Gianfrancesco's claims because we conclude that, under any construction of the allegations in his complaint, see Allen, 468 U.S. at 752, 104 S.Ct. 3315, he does have Article III standing and, as explained below, his claims fail on the merits.
If Tom's Tavern is simply the name under which Gianfrancesco personally does business, then he has Article III standing because he suffered direct financial harm as a result of the defendants' alleged conduct. See Danvers Motor Co. v. Ford Motor Co., 432 F.3d 286, 291 (3d Cir.2005) (noting that economic harm is a "paradigmatic" injury-in-fact for standing purposes). And if Tom's Tavern is a separate corporate entity of some sort, he has Article III standing for the same reason the parent companies had it in Franchise Tax Board: the defendants' actions, although taken against his business rather than against Gianfrancesco himself, caused him "actual financial injury" by driving Tom's Tavern out of business. See 493 U.S. at 336, 110 S.Ct. 661; see also SBT Holdings, LLC v. Town of Westminster, 547 F.3d 28, 37-38 (1st Cir.2008) (plaintiffs suffered Article III injury-in-fact by virtue of actions taken against their business, which caused them "direct and consequential financial harm"). At the pleading stage, when "general factual allegations... may suffice" to show standing, Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561, 112 S.Ct. 2130, no more is required, see Franchise Tax Bd., 493 U.S. at 336, 110 S.Ct. 661.
To survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, a complaint need not present "detailed factual allegations," Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007), but it "must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to `state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face,'" Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955). The precise parameters of the plausibility standard are "still a work
Gianfrancesco's amended complaint asserts claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of his rights to "free-speech, freedom of enterprise, due process of law and equal protection." See West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42, 48, 108 S.Ct. 2250, 101 L.Ed.2d 40 (1988) (to state a § 1983 claim, a plaintiff must allege that a person acting under color of state law violated his federally secured rights). On appeal, however, Gianfrancesco has offered no developed argument regarding his First Amendment or freedom-of-enterprise claims; thus, we do not consider them. See Wilson v. Moulison N. Corp., 639 F.3d 1, 6 (1st Cir.2011); United States v. Zannino, 895 F.2d 1, 17 (1st Cir.1990).
Gianfrancesco's due process claim is of the substantive sort, and alleges executive (rather than legislative) misconduct.
Gianfrancesco's equal protection claim is similarly deficient. Under the class-of-one rubric, an equal protection plaintiff may press a claim "that [he] has been intentionally treated differently from others similarly situated and that there is no rational basis for the difference in treatment," even where he does "not [show] membership in a class or group." Vill. of Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562, 564, 120 S.Ct. 1073, 145 L.Ed.2d 1060 (2000) (per curiam). But, as we recently
That leaves only Gianfrancesco's chapter 93A claim. But, because he has not challenged the district court's dismissal of that claim, we need not address it. See Wilson, 639 F.3d at 6.
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the district court.