Rivkin v. Dover Township Rent Leveling Bd

In Rivkin v. Dover Township Rent Leveling Bd., 143 N.J. 352, 366, 368, 671 A.2d 567, cert. denied, 519 U.S. 911, 117 S. Ct. 275, 136 L. Ed. 2d 198 (1996), the Court considered only the Fourteenth Amendment, not the New Jersey Constitution, and it stressed the availability of other remedies. Rifkin, supra, 143 N.J. at 363-71, 671 A.2d 567(rejecting plaintiff-property owners' federal civil rights claim, under 42 U.S.C.A. 1983, that defendant-rent leveling board deprived them of their property without due process, on their application for a rent increase, when one of its members was flagrantly biased and the rest of the board refused to disqualify him). The Court commented that "substantive due process is reserved for the most egregious governmental abuses against liberty or property rights," such as extreme cases of "intrusions on an individual's privacy and bodily integrity." Id. at 366, 671 A.2d 567. The Court held that the board's conduct did not "rise to the level of a substantive due process violation under the Supreme Court's standards." Ibid.