United States District Court, D. Arizona
ORDER
Honorable John J. Tuchi United States District Judge.
At
issue is Plaintiff Roosevelt Irrigation District's
(“RID”) Motion for a New Trial or to Alter or
Amend Judgment (Doc. 264, Mot.), to which Defendant United
States and Intervenor Defendant Salt River Salt River Project
Agricultural Improvement and Power District
(“SRP”) filed Responses (Docs. 265, 266).
Plaintiff asks the Court to reconsider its June 11, 2019
Order (Doc. 256, June 11 Order) granting the United
States' Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 198). Plaintiff also
requests that the Court amend its judgment to “certify
under Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(b) that [the Court] is also dismissing
RID's state law claims . . . without prejudice.”
(Mot. at 11.) The Court finds these matters appropriate for
decision without oral argument. See LRCiv 7.2(f).
On June
11, 2019, the Court granted Defendant United States'
Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 256, June 11 Order). The Court
concluded that, under the Quiet Title Act
(“QTA”), Plaintiff's suit against the United
States was barred by the statute of limitations set forth in
28 U.S.C. § 2409a(g). Plaintiff now requests the Court
grant a new trial or alter or amend its judgment under
Fed.R.Civ.P. 59.
Rule
59(a) enables the Court to grant a new trial while 59(e)
enables the Court to amend a judgment, but Plaintiff
acknowledges that the “standards for each manner of
motion are largely identical.” (Mot. at 2.)
“Amending a judgment after its entry remains ‘an
extraordinary remedy which should be used
sparingly.'” Allstate Ins. Co. v. Herron,
634 F.3d 1101, 1111 (9th Cir. 2011) (quoting McDowell v.
Calderon, 197 F.3d 1253, 1255 n.1 (9th Cir. 1999)).
Further, “[s]ince specific grounds for a motion to
amend or alter are not listed in the rule, the district court
enjoys considerable discretion in granting or denying the
motion.” Id. Nonetheless, the Ninth Circuit
defined several grounds which a Rule 59(e) motion may be
granted:
(1) if such motion is necessary to correct manifest errors of
law or fact upon which the judgment rests; (2) if such motion
is necessary to present newly discovered or previously
unavailable evidence; (3) if such motion is necessary to
prevent manifest injustice; or (4) if the amendment is
justified by an intervening change in controlling law”
Id.
Plaintiff
apparently bases its Motion on its belief that the
Court's decision constitutes “manifest
injustice.” Id. In its Motion, Plaintiff
recounts several key cases that both parties addressed in
their dispositive motion briefing and that the Court
considered in reaching its decision to dismiss
Plaintiff's suit for quiet title. Concluding that, under
the QTA, Plaintiff's suit was barred by the applicable
statute of limitations, the Court interpreted the relevant
case law (much of which is now cited to the Court again) to
require dismissal. Without any further cause to do so other
than a disagreement by Plaintiff, this is not one of the
instances when the Court will exercise its discretion to
employ the “extraordinary remedy” of a new trial
or amendment of the judgment under Rule 59.[1]
Aside
from its disagreement over the application of case law,
Plaintiff argues that “the [June 11 Order] relies upon
several errors of material fact in reaching its
conclusion.” (Mot. at 8.) Plaintiff cannot premise its
Rule 59 Motion on these alleged errors as those “upon
which the judgment rests” because correction of the
raised errors does not affect the substance of the
Court's judgment. However, it is also proper for the
Court to grant Rule 59(e) amendment “where, as here,
the amendment reflects the purely clerical task of
incorporating undisputed facts into the judgment.”
Id. The facts at issue appear to be undisputed, and
thus the Court may amend its Order to reflect them more
accurately.
In
correcting those misstatements of fact, the Court notes that
in 1923, Carrick and Mangham Agua Fria Lands and Irrigation
Company (“CMAFL&IC”) assigned its rights in
the 1921 Agreement-not the 1917 Agreement as the Order
states-to the newly formed RID. (June 11 Order at 6:20.) The
Court does not find that CMAFL&IC had any rights in the
original 1917 Agreement. (Doc. 41 Ex. 1.) CMAFL&IC
assumed rights in the relationship only when, pursuant to its
authority under the 1917 Agreement, the Association entered
into the 1920 Agreement (and a supplemental Agreement) with
A.A. Carrick and Frank Mangham (“C&M”) which
obligated C&M to operate pumps on the Association's
behalf and C&M later assigned those rights to
CMAFL&IC. (Doc. 41 Exs. 2, 3.)
Despite
the convoluted nature of the events giving rise to this
dispute over the last hundred years, the Court notes that RID
is a successor in interest to both CMAFL&IC and C&M,
each of whom acquired rights and responsibilities in
agreements with the Association and later assigned those
rights to their successors. RID's interest was borne out
of the 1923 assignment of rights in the 1921 Agreement from
CMAFL&IC to RID. Thus, the Court's analysis on the
issue of whether RID had notice of the United States'
interest is unchanged by the correction of these details, but
the Court will amend its judgment to more accurately reflect
the undisputed history of this dispute.
Plaintiff's
Motion also “requests that the Court [] amend its Order
to certify under Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(b) that it is also
dismissing RID's state law claims against the Association
without prejudice.” (Mot. at 11.) Plaintiff refers to
the two state law claims raised against the Association (now
known as SRP) in its First Amended Complaint (Doc. 35, FAC.)
Those claims, for breach of contract and breach of covenants
in the 1928 Deed, are claims of pure state law. (FAC
¶¶ 37-64.) Further, the claims are raised only
against Intervenor-Defendant SRP-not against the United
States. Thus, the Court's subject matter jurisdiction
over those claims existed only because they were raised in
conjunction with the QTA claim against the United States.
Having dismissed that claim, the Court now declines to
exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state law causes
of action.
“‘The
district courts may decline to exercise supplemental
jurisdiction over a claim . . . if . . . the district court
has dismissed all claims over which it had original
jurisdiction.'” Martin v. Kamalu-Staggs,
87 F.3d 1320 (9th Cir. 1996) (citing 28 U.S.C. §
1367(c)(3)). Indeed, “in the usual case in which all
federal-law claims are eliminated before trial, the balance
of factors to be considered under the pendent jurisdiction
doctrine-judicial economy, convenience, fairness, and
comity-will point toward declining to exercise jurisdiction
over the remaining state law claims.” Id.
(citing Carnegie-Mellon Univ. v. Cohill, 484 U.S.
343, 350 n.7 (1988)).
Considering
these factors, the Court declines to exercise supplemental
jurisdiction here. Comity strongly favors declining
jurisdiction, as Plaintiff would now proceed exclusively on
state law breach of contract and breach of covenants claims.
The other factors are more complicated in this case due to
its complex procedural posture. In granting the United
States' Motion to Dismiss, the Court did not adjudicate
the merits of the title dispute. All the Court decided was
“that RID cannot succeed in quieting its title against
the competing interest of the United States” because it
failed to bring suit within the statutory period. (June 11
Order at 8.) As the Court explained, the United States is now
free to bring its own quiet title suit against RID, if it so
wishes. But currently, there is no decision on RID's
rights to the property at issue, which the Court anticipates
may affect its state law claims.
Because
of the complicated nature of the case's current posture
and the various ways in which it could develop, it is
difficult to determine whether exercising pendent
jurisdiction over the state law claims promotes judicial
economy or convenience for the parties. The Court concludes
that the best way forward is to dismiss the claims without
prejudice and, should the Ninth Circuit overturn the
Court's June 11 Order and return Plaintiff's QTA suit
to this Court on the merits, Defendant would be free to raise
the state law claims once more. If the quiet title dispute
proceeds in a separate action brought by the United States,
Plaintiff may re-raise its state law claims against SRP,
assuming SRP is once again a party. In order to best promote
comity and ...