Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cadc/98-5428/98-5428a-2011-03-24.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 20:50:27+00:00

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David Lazerwitz, Attorney, United States Department of Justice, argued the cause for the federal appellants in No. 98- 5451. Lois J. Schiffer, Assistant Attorney General, and Peter Coppelman, William Lazarus and Marta Hoilman, Attor- neys, United States Department of Justice, were on brief.
Karen LeCraft Henderson, Circuit Judge: The County of Bernalillo, New Mexico and the Sandia Mountain Coalition (intervenor appellants) appeal the district court's remand order and grant of summary judgment to the appellee, the Pueblo of Sandia (Pueblo). The federal appellants, Bruce H. Babbitt in his official capacity as Secretary of the United States Department of the Interior (Interior) and Dan Glick- man in his official capacity as Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture (Agriculture), move to withdraw their own appeal and to dismiss the intervenor appellants' appeal for lack of appellate jurisdiction. For the reasons set forth below, we grant the federal appellants' motion and hold that the court lacks jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. s 1291 to hear the intervenor appellants' appeal.
__________ 1 A formal pueblo consists of four square leagues of land, the area within the extension of one league (2.6 miles) measured from the center of the settlement to the north, south, east and west. See JA 322-23 (Stanley M. Hordes, "History of the Boundaries of the Pueblo of SandIa, 1748-1860"); cf. Pueblo of Sandia v. Babbitt, Civ. No. 94-2624, 1996 WL 808067, at *2 n.3 (D.D.C. Dec. 10, 1996).
2 See Pueblo of Sandia, 1996 WL 808067, at *9. The district court concluded that the APA governed the Pueblo's action, rejecting the federal appellants' contention that it was time barred by either the Quiet Title Act or the Indian Claims Commission Act.
court denied the federal appellants' motion for summary judgment and granted the Pueblo's motion for summary judgment. See id. at 11. Finding Interior's actions arbitrary and capricious, the court vacated the Solicitor's Opinion and remanded the case "to the Interior Department for agency action consistent with [the court's] Opinion." Id.
__________ States are presumed correct and in compliance with statutory requirements. See Nina R. B. Levinson, 1 I.B.L.A. 252, 256 (Feb. 2, 1971).
4 Although the parties agreed to settle the pending litigation and related matters on the terms set forth in the "Agreement of Compromise and Settlement," the settlement agreement requires ratifying legislation to effectuate its terms. See Plaintiff-Appellee Sandia Pueblo's Response in Support of Federal Appellants' Mo- tions to Dismiss Appeals, for Leave to File a Dispositive Motion Later than 45 Days after Docketing the Case, and to Defer Briefing pending Resolution of these Motions, at Appendix A ("Agreement of Compromise and Settlement"), Pueblo of Sandia v. Babbitt, Nos. 98-5428 & 98-5451 (Apr. 13, 2000).
before considering the arguments on the merits. Cf. Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env't, 523 U.S. 83, 94 (1998).
The jurisdiction of the courts of appeals to review district court actions is limited to "final orders." See 28 U.S.C. s 1291. Section 1291 "entitles a party to appeal not only from a district court decision that 'ends the litigation on the merits and leaves nothing more for the court to do but execute the judgment,' but also from a narrow class of decisions that do not terminate the litigation, but must, in the interest of 'achieving a healthy legal system,' nonetheless be treated as 'final.' " Digital Equip. Corp. v. Desktop Direct, 511 U.S. 863, 867 (1994) (citations omitted). Because the district court's decision here does not end the litigation on the merits, we grant the motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.
(1985) (holding that "orders disqualifying counsel in civil cases, as a class, are not sufficiently separable from the merits to qualify for interlocutory appeal"). Because the district court's order comes within the category of a remand for significant further proceedings, we are without jurisdic- tion to review it because, as noted, remand orders as a category are not final. See In re St. Charles Preservation Investors, Ltd., 916 F.2d at 729.
The intervenor appellants ask this court to consider the district court's remand order a final decision because the order left nothing for the agency to do on remand other than the ministerial act of issuing a corrected boundary. We dis- agree with their characterization for two reasons.
regularity." Slip op. at 8. Although the result on remand may be the issuance of a corrected survey, that result is not directed by the court's decision.
Second, while we acknowledge that several courts, includ- ing this one, have noted that remand orders may be consid- ered final where a court remands for solely "ministerial" proceedings, see In re St. Charles Preservation Investors, Ltd., 916 F.2d at 729; see also Koyo Seiko Co. v. United States, 95 F.3d 1094, 1096-1097 (Fed. Cir. 1996) (finding district court's remand for sole purpose of correcting two computer programming errors ministerial); Tallahassee Mem. Regional Med. Ctr. v. Bowen, 815 F.2d 1435, 1443 n.12 (11th Cir. 1987) (finding remand directing agency to pay plaintiff's medical bills final), here the district court's remand order contemplates more than the ministerial act of issuing a corrected survey. On remand, Interior is to reconsider the facts contained in the nine-volume administrative record un- der the Indian claim-favoring canon. It must also reconsider its position that it lacks the legal authority to issue a correct- ed survey.5 Given the twelve-year period of time since Interior finished its earlier proceedings and the continuing interest in the matter, it will have the option of re-opening the record to solicit additional comments from the public before conducting its reevaluation. Finally, if Interior does issue a corrected boundary, it must commission a survey to determine where the "main ridge" of the Sandia Mountains lies.
__________ 5 The Solicitor maintained that even if the Pueblo established "by a preponderance of the evidence that the [original survey] was either fraudulent or grossly erroneous," the Secretary would be without authority to issue a new patent "unless he found that the United States never owned the disputed land." JA 1124-1125 (Solicitor's Opinion at 12-13 & n.6). The district court rejected the Solicitor's reasoning, holding that the Secretary has supervisory authority over all public lands, including the authority to survey Indian lands, to correct erroneous land surveys and to correct patents of conveyances to eliminate errors. See Pueblo of Sandia, 1996 WL 808067, at *7.
__________ 6 Because of our conclusion that we lack jurisdiction, we do not reach the merits of the contention of both sets of appellants that the district court's review under the APA was improper. See supra note 2. In addition, because the intervenor appellants do not rely on the collateral order doctrine to support appealability, we need not reach that issue either.

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