Banks v. United States

76 Fed. Cl. 686, 37 Envtl. L. Rep. (Envtl. Law Inst.) 20102, 2007 U.S. Claims LEXIS 133, 2007 WL 1300768
United States Court of Federal Claims·Decided May 3, 2007·No. Nos. 99-4451 L to 99-44512L, 00-365L, 00-379L to 00-401L, 04-277L, 05-1353L, 05-1381L, 06-72L·Published·Cited by 12 cases

Opinion

OPINION

HEWITT, Judge.

The court has before it defendant’s Motion to Partially Dismiss and Memorandum in Support Thereof (Motion or Def.’s Mot.), filed on February 26, 2007, Plaintiffs’ Response to Defendant’s Motion to Partially Dismiss and Memorandum in Support Thereof (Response or PL’s Resp.), filed on March 21, 2007, and Defendant’s Reply to Plaintiffs’ Response to Defendant’s Motion to Partially Dismiss (Reply or Def.’s Reply), filed on April 9, 2007. Defendant moves the court to dismiss seventeen “of the claims brought by the plaintiffs for failure to file complaints timely before this [cjourt as required under 28 U.S.C. § 2501 [(2000)].” Def.’s Mot. 1.

[688]*688By Order on April 20, 2007, the court directed the parties “to provide the court the date of publication of the 1999 Report” referred to in Banks v. United States (Banks II), 314 F.3d 1304, 1310 (Fed.Cir.2003) “to facilitate the court’s ruling on defendant’s Motion.” Order of Apr. 20, 2007. On April 27, 2007, the parties filed a Joint Response to Court Order April 20, 2007 RE: Date of 1999 Report (Joint Response or J. Resp.). The court considers the Joint Response along with defendant’s Motion, plaintiffs Response, and defendant’s Reply.

I. Background

The St. Joseph River enters Lake Michigan between St. Joseph, Michigan, and Benton Harbor, Michigan. Def.’s Mot. 5.1 In the 1830s, the United States Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) re-constructed the mouth of the St. Joseph River and began constructing jetties that jutted generally westward into Lake Michigan in order to accommodate commercial shipping traversing the St. Joseph River into Lake Michigan. Id. The Corps lengthened the jetties periodically until they reached their present-day length in the year 1903. Id. From the 1950s to 1989, the Corps incrementally encased the jetties in steel. Id.

In the 1970s, the Corps instituted a beach nourishment program to mitigate erosion along the shoreline south of the harbor jetties. Banks II, 314 F.3d at 1306-07. “The Corps has provided fine sand nourishment for more than [fifteen] years on feeder beaches, deposited coarser sediments along the shoreline at least five times between 1986 and 1993, and placed barge-loads of large rocks into Lake Michigan in 1995.” Def.’s Mot. 5-6. The Corps issued three technical reports in 1996, 1997, and 1999 (Reports), which “addressed the Corps’ mitigation efforts and collectively concluded that the erosion was permanent and irreversible.” Def.’s Mot. 6; Banks II, 314 F.3d at 1307.

Plaintiffs are the owners of property along approximately four and a half miles of the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, south of St. Joseph Harbor. Def.’s Mot. 6; Banks II, 314 F.3d at 1306. In July 1999, sixteen of the current plaintiffs filed suit claiming that the Corps’ construction and maintenance of the jetties from 1950 to 1989 caused erosion of their shoreline property. Def.’s Mot. 2, 6; see also Original Complaint of July 9, 1999 (Orig.Compl.), 2 (“Plaintiff[s] ... are riparian landowners who have and are continuing to suffer loss of property without just compensation arising out of deprivation of sand caused by the U.S. Army CORPS of Engineers Federal project jetties at St. Joseph Harbor, Michigan, and fourteen other similar harbor jetties to the north.”). By February 2000, the number of plaintiffs had increased to thirty-seven. Banks v. United States, 49 Fed.Cl. 806, 808 (2001) (Banks I). The court consolidated the claims of all plaintiffs for the limited purpose of a trial of liability. See Order of Jan. 4, 2007; Order of Mar. 15, 2005; Order of Mar. 17, 2006, Frett v. United States, No. 05-1353 (Fed.Cl. filed Dec. 22, 2005). Currently, there are thirty-eight plaintiffs in the consolidated action. Def.’s Mot. 2, 6.

The United States moved to dismiss in February 2001, claiming that plaintiffs’ actions were time-barred under 28 U.S.C. § 2501, which states that claims of which the Court of Federal Claims has jurisdiction must be filed within six years of accrual. Def.’s Mot. 2. The court granted the motion and dismissed plaintiffs claims in July 2001. Banks I, 49 Fed.Cl. at 826. The court reasoned that plaintiffs’ takings claims accrued no later than 1989 because the “gradual process of shoreline erosion set into motion by the government had resulted in a permanent taking and the extent of the damage had become reasonably foreseeable.” Id. at 825.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Federal Circuit) reversed and remanded. Banks II, 314 F.3d at 1305-06. Because a claim cannot accrue [689]*689while the damages remain justifiably uncertain, the Federal Circuit stated that “the question is whether the ‘predictability [and permanence] of the extent of damage to the [plaintiffs’] land’ was made justifiably uncertain by the Corps’ mitigation efforts.” Id. (citing Applegate v. United States, 25 F.3d 1579, 1583 (Fed.Cir.1994)). The Federal Circuit held that “[w]ith the mitigation efforts underway, the accrual of plaintiffs’ claims remained uncertain until the Corps’ 1996 Report, 1997 Report, and 1999 Report collectively indicated that erosion was permanent and irreversible.” Banks II, 314 F.3d at 1310. These Reports “brought to an end plaintiffs’ ‘justifiable uncertainty’ which had been created by the Corps’s mitigation efforts about the permanency of erosion.” Def.’s Mot. 4 (quoting Banks II, 314 F.3d at 1310). The statute of limitations began to run only after these Reports had been issued, and “[b]eeause the [R]eports were issued less than six years before plaintiffs filed their complaints, the Federal Circuit viewed each complaint as timely.” Def.’s Mot. 4.2 Trial on the matter of liability is set to begin on Monday, June 4, 2007. Order of Jan. 19, 2007.

Defendant filed this Motion on February 26, 2007. Def.’s Mot. 1. Defendant argues that “[discovery taken through depositions subsequent to the Federal Circuit’s Banks II decision shows plaintiffs had no justifiable uncertainty regarding the erosion to their property.” Def.’s Mot. 12. Defendant argues that evidence that has come to light since Banks II makes the Federal Circuit’s legal analysis inapplicable to the seventeen plaintiffs who are the subject of the Motion. Def.’s Mot. 1. Additionally, defendant argues that plaintiffs Bodnar and plaintiffs Okonski, who filed after the Banks II decision, are barred by the statute of limitations because they were “on inquiry notice” of their claims and faded to file within the six-year limit. Def.’s Mot. 19, 22.

Plaintiffs submitted their Response but, as defendant points out in its Reply, “plaintiffs muster not a word in opposition to defendant’s Motion about either the facts ... or the law, applying those facts, on the question of ‘justifiable uncertainty.’ Nor do plaintiffs challenge or disagree with the import of those facts when applied to the Federal Circuit’s reasoning in [Banks II ].” Def.’s Reply 3. The court therefore focuses on the arguments made in defendant’s Motion.

II. Discussion

A. Plaintiffs who Joined the Case Before Banks II

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Banks v. United States, 76 Fed. Cl. 686, 37 Envtl. L. Rep. (Envtl. Law Inst.) 20102, 2007 U.S. Claims LEXIS 133, 2007 WL 1300768 (uscfc 2007).

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