Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-4_11-cv-00397/USCOURTS-azd-4_11-cv-00397-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 360
Nature of Suit: Other Personal Injury
Cause of Action: 28:1446 Petition for Removal- Personal Injury

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

Desiree Dold-Apger; Thomas Apger, 

Plaintiffs, 

vs.

Friends of the San Pedro River, Inc., et al.,

Defendant. 

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No. 11-397-TUC-JGZ

ORDER

On October 14, 2011, Magistrate Judge D. Thomas Ferraro issued a Report and

Recommendation in which he recommended that the Plaintiffs’ Motion toRemand (Doc. 17)

and the United States’ Motion to Remand (Doc. 24) be granted. Defendant Friends of the

San Pedro River, Inc. (“FSPR”) filed an Objection to the Report and Recommendation (Doc.

46), and Plaintiffs replied. (Doc. 48.) FSPR then moved for permission to file a response

to Plaintiffs’ Reply. (Doc. 49.) Upon independent review and for the reasons stated herein,

the Report and Recommendation is adopted and the motion to file a response (Doc. 49) is

denied. 

I. Defendants’ Motion for leave to file Response to Plaintiffs’ Reply

As an initial matter, the Court addresses Defendants’ request for permission to file a

reply to Plaintiffs’ response to Defendants’ objections to the R&R. Defendants contend that

additional briefing is necessary because Plaintiffs’ reply offers a new theory - “namely that

FSPR has failed to aver a federal defense.” The Court will deny the request. This matter

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has been fully and completely and exhaustively briefed. Defendants have filed Responses

to the two Motions to Remand (Docs. 19, 28), a Supplemental Brief in Opposition to

Plaintiffs’ and the Government’s Motions to Remand (Doc. 32), a Reply to Plaintiffs’

Response to FSPR’s Supplemental Brief (Doc. 34), a Reply to the Government’s Response

to FSPR’s Supplemental Brief (Doc. 38), and an Objection to the R&R (Doc. 46). The

requirement that FSPR demonstrate “a colorable federal defense” was set forth in Plaintiffs’

filings (Doc. 17), the Government’s filing (Doc. 24), Defendants’ filing (Doc. 32, p. 8 ) and

the R&R (Doc. 39, p. 4). Defendants addressed this argument, asserting that the volunteer

Agreement and the Long affidavit “sanction and [sic] a ‘colorable federal defense’” and

“their right to the federal defense of personal immunity under the FTCA.” (Doc. 39, pp. 12,

15.) No opportunity for further briefing is warranted. 

II. Consideration of Report and Recommendation

A. Standard of Review

The Court reviews de novo the objected-to portions of the R&R. 28 U.S.C.

§ 636(b)(1); Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b). The Court reviews for clear error the unobjected-to

portions of the R & R. Johnson v. Zema Systems Corp., 170 F.3d 734, 739 (7th Cir. 1999);

see also Conley v. Crabtree, 14 F. Supp. 2d 1203, 1204 (D. Or. 1998).

B. Factual Background

The factual background contained in Magistrate Judge Ferraro’s R&R is uncontested.

As such, it is adopted by reference herein. 

C. Discussion

This is a tort suit for negligence under Arizona state law. Plaintiffs allege that

Defendants FSPR, a volunteer group, and Nancy Doolittle, one of FSPR’s members, were

negligent in the organization and supervision of a trail ride in which Plaintiff Desieree DoldApger was thrown from her horse and injured. Defendant FSPR’s notice of removal

indicates that the ground for removal is a Group Volunteer Services Agreement

(“Agreement”) between FSPR and the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”); that

Agreement deems members of FSPR federal employees for purposes of the Federal Tort

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Under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2671 et. seq., the United States may be

sued, with certain exceptions, for the torts of its employees while acting within the scope of their

employment. 28 U.S.C. §§ 2674-2675. 

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Claims Act (“FTCA”).1

 Defendants filed a petition for certification pursuant to 28 U.S.C.

§ 2679(d)(3), asking the Court to find that Defendants were operating as federal employees

at the relevant time and thus “are accorded protection under the [FTCA].” (Doc. 14.) In the

Petition, FSPR asserted that removal was proper under “the federal officer/ agency removal

statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1442.” (Id.) 

The Plaintiffs and the Government moved to remand this case to state court on the

ground that this Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction. (Docs. 17, 24.) In his R&R, the

Magistrate Judge recommended granting the Motions because Defendants failed to meet their

burden of proving removability under § 1442. The Magistrate Judge found that: Defendants

did not allege or provide any evidence that a federal official directed or asserted direct

control over the trail rides conducted by FSPR; FSPR’s activities were not required by

federal law and did not involve a federal duty; and, thus, the Defendants failed to meet at

least one of the requirements of § 1442. (Doc. 39, p. 5.) Defendants object to the R&R on

two grounds and assert that: (1) the Magistrate Judge misapplied the governing law and (2)

the Magistrate Judge failed to give effect to the Group Volunteer Services Agreement.

Defendants appear to misunderstand the applicable law. 

The Court is required to remand an action to state court “if at any time before final

judgment it appears that the district court lacks subject matter jurisdiction.” 28 U.S.C. §

1447(c). The party invoking the federal court’s jurisdiction carries the burden of establishing

removability. California ex rel. Lockyer v. Dynegy, Inc., 375 F.3d 831, 838 (9th Cir. 2004).

Federal courts have limited jurisdiction, and therefore the law imposes a presumption against

federal jurisdiction that requires the court to deny jurisdiction in all matters where such

jurisdiction does not affirmatively appear in the record. Ins. Corp. of Ireland, Ltd. v.

Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee, 456 U.S. 694, 702 (1982).

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Section 1442(a)(1) allows federal officers and their agents to remove a case to district

court based on acts performed under color of their federal office if they assert a colorable

federal defense. Durham v. Lockheed Martin Corp., 445 F.3d 1247, 1251 (9th Cir. 2006).

Section 1442(a)(1) provides:

(a) A civil action or criminal prosecution commenced in a State

court against any of the following may be removed by them to

the district court of the United Statesfor the district and division

embracing the place wherein it is pending:

 (1) The United States or any agency thereof or any officer (or

any person acting under that officer) of the United States or of

any agency thereof,sued in an official or individual capacity for

any act under color of such office. . . .

A party seeking removal under § 1442(a) must establish that: (1) it is a “person” within the

meaning of the statute; (2) there is a causal nexus between its actions, taken pursuant to a

federal officer’s directions, and plaintiff’s claims; and (3) it can assert a “colorable federal

defense.” See Jefferson County Ala. v. Acker, 527 U.S. 423, 431 (1999); Mesa v. California,

489 U.S. 121, 139 (1989); Durham v. Lockheed Martin Corp., 445 F.3d 1247, 1251 (9th Cir.

2006). 

Defendants do not object to the Magistrate Judge’s statement of the applicable law or

his conclusion that Defendants bear the burden of proving removal under § 1442 by

establishing each of the three prongs of the § 1442 test. Defendants object that the

Magistrate should not have “got involved in such niceties as whether a federal official

directed the organization or rules for the trail ride, and whether the ride was required by

federal law or involved a federal duty.” Defendants claim these niceties are unfair and

would have the effect of voiding the deemed federal employee clause in the Group Volunteer

Services Agreement. Defendants appear not to comprehend that they were required to

establish these facts to demonstrate subject matter jurisdiction under § 1442(a)’s three-part

test. 

The court’s analysis does not end, as the Defendants contend, with confirmation of

the fact that the Agreement deems FSPR and its members federal employees. The issue the

Court must decide is whether it has federal jurisdiction, not whether the defendants are

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federal employees. As fully explained in the R&R, these are separate issues. Even if the

Court were to conclude that Defendants were deemed federal employees pursuant to the

Agreement, that conclusion would not be sufficient, in and of itself, to support jurisdiction

under § 1442(a). Section 1442 is a purely jurisdictionalstatute; itseeksto conferjurisdiction

where the defendant is a federal officer. Mesa v. California, 489 U.S. 121, 136 (1989). It

does not, however, independently support federal jurisdiction; rather “it is the raising of a

federal question in the officer’s removal petition that constitutes the federal law under which

the action against the federal officer arises for Art. III purposes.” Id. This principle is

demonstrated by the Mesa case. There, the Supreme Court held that United States postal

workers could not remove a state criminal proceeding to federal court even though the postal

workers wanted to challenge traffic citationsthey received while driving government trucks

in the course of their employment with the federal government. The Court rejected the

government’s many arguments for expansion of the federal officer removal doctrine, and in

its concluding statement wrote: “Federal officer removal under 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a) must

be predicated upon averment of a federal defense.” Id. at 139. 

Looking to the three-part test, it is clear that the Agreement deeming FSRP and its

members federal employees is insufficient to confer federal subject matter jurisdiction on this

Court. The Magistrate Judge correctly concluded that Defendants did not satisfy the second

prong of the three-part test as they failed to show that there was a causal nexus between

Defendants’ actions, taken pursuant to a federal officer’s directions, and Plaintiffs’ claims.

Neither the Group Volunteer Services Agreement nor the Affidavit of Christopher Long

demonstrated that a federal official directed the organization of, or rules for, the trail ride at

issue. 

 This Court also concludes that Defendants failed to satisfy the third prong of the test -

the assertion of a colorable federal defense. To confer jurisdiction under § 1442, a federal

officer must raise a colorable defense arising out of his duty to enforce federal law.

Willingham v. Morgan, 395 U.S. 402, 406-407 (1969). Defendants’ removal petition and

many filings with this Court do not cite any federal statute or regulation which would support

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a finding that Defendants were enforcing federal law. Defendants’ reliance on the

Agreement between BLM and FSPR is unpersuasive because the Agreement does not, in and

of itself, provide a defense under federal law. Although Defendants assert that they would

be entitled to immunity under the FTCA, that immunity does not exist absent certification

by the Attorney General or by a court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2679(d)(3). See Vardeventer

v. Guimond, 494 F.Supp.2d 1255,1267-68 (D. Kan. 2007) (defendants could not assert

immunity where they were not certified as federal employees under the Westfall Act and the

United States was never made a party to the action). Because there is no statutory basis for

removal of this action under § 1442(a), this Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction to rule on

Defendants’ petition for certification asking the Court to find that Defendants were acting

as federal employees. See Vardeventer, 494 F.Supp. 2d at 1268. “Absent certification, §

2679(d)(3) directs that the case must be remanded to the state court in which the action

commenced.” Osborn, 549 U.S. at 241-42; see also Vardeventer, 494 F.Supp. 2d at 1268.

In sum, Defendants have failed to meet their burden of demonstrating subject matter

jurisdiction under §1442(a). Thus, this case must be remanded. Upon remand, FSPR may

file a petition for a scope of employment certification. Vardeventer, 494 F.Supp. 2d at 1268;

see 28 U.S.C. § 2679(d)(1)-(3). The Court is aware that remand carries the risk of

“shuttling” this matter back-and-forth from state to federal court, however, this Court cannot

presume to know the intentions of the Attorney General and without subject matter

jurisdiction, this Court is without power to entertain the certification issue. This Order does

not determine whether Defendants should be deemed federal employees, only that this Court,

at this time, lacks jurisdiction to decide that issue

Accordingly, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED as follows:

(1) United States Magistrate Judge Ferraro’s Report and Recommendation (Doc. 39)

is ACCEPTED AND ADOPTED; 

(2) Plaintiff's Motion to Remand (Doc. 17) is GRANTED;

(3) The United States’ Motion to Remand (Doc. 24) is GRANTED;

(4) Defendants’ Petition for Certification (Doc. 14) is DENIED; 

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(5) Any other pending motions in this case are denied as moot; 

(6) This matter is REMANDED to the Pima County Superior Court (Cause #

C20113684); 

(7) The Clerk of the Court shall mail a certified copy of this Order to the Clerk of the

Pima County Superior Court; and 

(8) The Clerk of the Court shall then close its file in this matter.

Dated this 19th day of July, 2012. 

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