Coeur D'Alene Tribe v. United States

102 Fed. Cl. 17, 2011 U.S. Claims LEXIS 2196, 2011 WL 5822177
CourtUnited States Court of Federal Claims
DecidedNovember 18, 2011
DocketNo. 06-940 L
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 102 Fed. Cl. 17 (Coeur D'Alene Tribe v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Federal Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Coeur D'Alene Tribe v. United States, 102 Fed. Cl. 17, 2011 U.S. Claims LEXIS 2196, 2011 WL 5822177 (uscfc 2011).

Opinion

OPINION

DAMICH, Judge:

Plaintiff Coeur d’Alene Tribe (“Plaintiff’ or “Tribe”) filed this case on December 29, 2006, seeking damages for the United States’ alleged mismanagement of the Tribe’s trust funds and resources. On the same day, Plaintiff filed a similar case in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (“District Court”). In that case, Plaintiff seeks a declaratory judgment that the United States breached its fiduciary trust obligations to Plaintiff and an order for a full historical equitable accounting of Plaintiffs trust assets. There is no question that, absent the District Court suit, this Court would have jurisdiction over Plaintiffs claims under the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1491 (2006), and the Indian Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1505 (2006). The issue is whether 28 U.S.C. § 1500 (2006), which provides that this Court “shall not have jurisdiction of any claim for or in respect to which the plaintiff ... has pending in any other court any suit or process against the [Government],” operates to deprive this Court of jurisdiction.

This case raises two questions. The first is whether Plaintiffs suits are for or in respect to the same claim. The Court finds that Plaintiffs claim for an accounting of trust assets is based on substantially the [20]*20same operative facts as its claim for damages arising out of the mismanagement of the same trust assets because the claims are based on the same acts of alleged mismanagement and breaches of duty.

The second question is if a plaintiff files separate lawsuits in a district court and the United States Court of Federal Claims (“CFC”) on the same day, is the district court suit pending for purposes of § 1500? The Court concludes that, in the absence of preponderant evidence regarding the order of filing, lawsuits filed on the same day are filed simultaneously for the purposes of § 1500, and that a simultaneously filed lawsuit is “pending” for the purposes of § 1500. The Court finds that Plaintiff did not establish by a preponderance of the evidence that this case was filed before the District Court suit, and therefore, the District Court suit was pending at the time this suit was filed.

Therefore, because the District Court suit is based on substantially the same operative facts as this ease and it was pending at the time this case was filed, the Court must grant the Government’s motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.

I. Background

The United States, through the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs (“BIA”), maintains trusts for the benefit of various Native American tribes. The BIA manages and administers the trusts, which hold tribal land and resources, and any funds derived therefrom, for the benefit of each tribe. The Coeur d’Alene Tribe is the beneficial owner of land and natural resources within its Reservation, which the United States holds in trust for the Tribe. Compl. ¶ 14.

On December 29, 2006, the Tribe filed lawsuits1 in this Court and the District Court2 requesting relief related to the United States’ management of its trust assets. On February 22, 2007, the Court granted the parties’ joint motion for a stay pending developments relating to accounting issues in thé District Court case. Order, Feb. 22, 2007; Jt. Mot. for Stay, Feb. 21, 2007. The one-year stay was extended a number of times, until the Government raised the issue of subject matter jurisdiction in June 2011. The Court lifted the stay to determine whether it had jurisdiction, and the parties briefed the issue.

On June 10, 2011, the Government filed a Motion to Dismiss under Rule 12(b)(1) of the Rules of the Court of Federal Claims. The Government contends that, under § 1500 and United States v. Tohono O’Odham Nation, — U.S. -, 131 S.Ct. 1723, 179 L.Ed.2d 723 (2011), this Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over the Plaintiffs suit because it is “for or in respect to” claims pending before the District Court. According to the Government, “two suits are for or in respect to the same claim,” if they are “based on substantially the same operative facts, regardless of the relief sought in each suit.” Def.’s Mot. Dismiss Br. at 1.

Plaintiff responds that its two suits are not based on “substantially the same operative facts” because its District Court suit is to compel an accounting of the Tribe’s trust fund, while this suit is for money damages resulting from the Government’s mismanagev ment of the Tribe’s land and resources. Plaintiff also argues that Tohono only applies to cases where the district court suit was filed before the CFC suit, and Tohono should not be extended to apply to cases where the CFC suit is filed before or simultaneously with the district court suit. Plaintiff contends that binding Federal Circuit precedent establishes an order-of-filing rule, and the CFC only lacks jurisdiction if the CFC suit is filed after the filing of a suit in another court.

The Government replies that under § 1500 the order of filing is irrelevant. Even if the district court suit is filed second, the Government claims that “the CFC loses ‘jurisdiction’ [21]*21whenever the plaintiff has ‘pending’ in another court a suit that is related to its CFC claim.” Def.’s Mot. Dismiss Br. at 13. Therefore, Plaintiffs filing of this suit simultaneously with, or even before, its District Court suit does not prevent § 1500 from taking jurisdiction away from this Court.

After the parties briefed the motion, the Court ordered the Plaintiff to provide evidence regarding the sequence of the complaints’ filing. The Court noted that other CFC judges had found the sequence of filing relevant, and it wanted to be sure the record was complete. In response, the Tribe filed, on October 14, 2011, two affidavits recounting the events of December 29, 2006. The Court finds that the record contains all the relevant jurisdictional facts, and the case is now ready for decision.

II. Section 1500

Congress has prohibited this Court from exercising jurisdiction over a claim when a plaintiff has filed and “has pending” another lawsuit “for or in respect to” the same claim in another court. That jurisdictional bar is set forth in § 1500, which provides that, “The [CFC] shall not have jurisdiction of any claim for or in respect to which the plaintiff ... has pending in any other court any suit or process against the [Government].” Section 1500 does not define the broad terms which it contains. As relevant here, the statute does not define what it means for two lawsuits to be “for or in respect to” the same claim, and it does not define what it means for a plaintiff to “ha[ve] pending” another claim or specify at what point during the lawsuit another claim cannot be pending. The proper interpretation and application of these two phrases are the issues presented in this case.

Congress first erected the jurisdictional bar in 1868, to “curb duplicate lawsuits brought by residents of the Confederacy following the Civil War.” Tohono, 131 S.Ct. at 1727-28. “[T]he original purpose [of § 1500] was to force an election between a suit in the Court of Claims and a suit in another court on essentially the same claim.” UNR Indus., Inc. v.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
102 Fed. Cl. 17, 2011 U.S. Claims LEXIS 2196, 2011 WL 5822177, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/coeur-dalene-tribe-v-united-states-uscfc-2011.