Background
Shree Arihant Motel, Inc. owned the Colonial Corner shopping center in Hopewell, Virginia, a commercial property that had sat vacant after two failed redevelopment attempts in 2008 and 2014. Beginning in 2019, City officials declared the property blighted and notified Shree Arihant that the buildings were dilapidated, unsafe, and a danger to public health and welfare. Shree Arihant did not submit an abatement plan, and while City officials and the property owner engaged in ongoing discussions, no written demolition agreement was ever reached. Notably, the City Council never formally adopted an ordinance declaring the property blighted as required by Virginia Code § 36-49.1:1 and the Hopewell City Code, and a clerical error caused the Council’s August 2019 vote to “plan” the controlled burn to be recorded instead as a vote to burn the structure.
Citing continuing trespassing—including by children—and an immediate public safety danger, the City’s fire department, assisted by neighboring jurisdictions, burned Colonial Corner on February 26, 2021. Shree Arihant filed suit in 2024 alleging intentional trespass, business conspiracy under Virginia Code §§ 18.2-499 and 18.2-500, tortious interference with a business expectancy, waste under Virginia Code §§ 8.01-178.1 and 8.01-178.2, a state constitutional takings claim under Article I, Section 11 of the Virginia Constitution, and requests for declaratory relief regarding costs and penalties the City imposed.
The City filed a plea in bar asserting sovereign immunity as to all claims except the takings claim, arguing that blight abatement is a governmental function. The circuit court denied the plea, concluding it could not determine whether the City’s actions were solely or partially governmental in nature. The City pursued an interlocutory appeal under Virginia Code §§ 8.01-626 and 8.01-670.2.
The Court’s Holding
The Supreme Court of Virginia reversed the circuit court and held that the City is entitled to sovereign immunity from all claims except the takings claim. Writing for a unanimous court, Justice Chafin explained that municipal sovereign immunity turns on the nature of the function the city was performing when liability arose—not on whether the city complied with procedural requirements. Because blight abatement involves the exercise of discretionary authority directed at protecting the health, safety, and general welfare of citizens, it constitutes a governmental function that triggers sovereign immunity even when the city acts in a negligent or improper manner.
The Court rejected Shree Arihant’s argument that the City’s failure to follow the statutory and municipal procedural requirements for spot blight abatement stripped the City of immunity. It also rejected the contention that the City’s alleged ulterior motive—facilitating redevelopment of the property—converted the demolition into a proprietary function. The Court acknowledged that the complaint suggested the City may have had dual purposes, but held that when governmental and other functions coincide, the governmental function is the “overriding factor” and sovereign immunity shields the municipality from liability, citing City of Chesapeake v. Cunningham, 268 Va. 624, 639 (2004).
The Court further held that the statutes underlying Shree Arihant’s statutory tort claims—business conspiracy and waste—do not expressly waive municipal sovereign immunity, and that a waiver of sovereign immunity cannot be implied from general statutory language. The City’s sovereign immunity likewise bars the declaratory judgment claims tied to costs and penalties, though the takings claim based on the self-executing provisions of the Virginia Constitution remains unaffected by sovereign immunity and proceeds on remand.
Key Takeaways
- Municipal sovereign immunity in Virginia is determined by the nature of the function performed, not by whether the municipality complied with the procedural requirements governing that function—ultra vires execution of a governmental function does not forfeit immunity.
- Blight abatement is a governmental function under Virginia law because it involves the exercise of discretionary authority to protect public health, safety, and welfare; a city that burns a blighted structure is therefore immune from resulting tort and statutory tort claims.
- When a municipality acts with dual purposes—one governmental, one potentially proprietary or pretextual—the governmental function is the overriding factor and sovereign immunity applies.
- Statutory waivers of sovereign immunity must be explicit; immunity will not be implied away by general tort or conspiracy statutes that do not expressly name municipalities.
- Sovereign immunity does not bar takings claims grounded in self-executing provisions of the Virginia Constitution, such as Article I, Section 11, which proceed regardless of any immunity ruling.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces the breadth of municipal sovereign immunity in Virginia for core public-safety activities. By confirming that procedural non-compliance—even a city’s failure to pass a required ordinance—does not strip a municipality of immunity when the underlying function is governmental, the Court gives Virginia localities significant protection against tort liability in blight enforcement and demolition contexts. Property owners whose blighted structures are demolished without full statutory compliance are largely limited to constitutional takings claims for compensation rather than common-law or statutory tort remedies.
The ruling also clarifies how courts should handle mixed-motive scenarios. The holding that a governmental purpose is “overriding” whenever it coincides with a proprietary or economic development interest may limit plaintiffs’ ability to reframe governmental enforcement actions as proprietary conduct by alleging an economic development motive—a theory frequently raised in blight and urban redevelopment litigation. Practitioners advising municipalities on code enforcement and blight abatement, and those representing affected property owners, should take note of both the immunity’s scope and its limits at the constitutional takings boundary.