Source: https://www.narf.org/nill/bulletins/federal/documents/seneca_nation_v_cuomo.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 20:04:02+00:00

Document:
Andrew Cuomo, in his official capacity as Governor of New York, et al., Defendants.
On October 5, 1954, the Seneca Nation of Indians (the “Seneca Nation”) granted the State of New York a permanent easement over a portion of its Cattaraugus Reservation, in exchange for $75,500. (See Appendix 1.)1 The state wanted the easement (the “Thruway Easement”) to develop part of the New York State Thruway. Since 1954, the Seneca Nation has challenged the validity of the Thruway Easement at least twice in federal court. In 1993—the “1993 Case” mentioned in footnote 1 below—the Seneca Nation sued the state and other defendants under a variety of claims. The 1993 Case is much better known for the Seneca Nation’s claims to ownership of Grand Island and other islands in the Niagara River. See generally Seneca Nation of Indians v. New York, 206 F. Supp. 2d 448 (W.D.N.Y. 2002), aff’d, 382 F.3d 245 (2d Cir. 2004). Within the litigated claims, though, was a claim that the Thruway Easement was invalid and that the state was trespassing. District Judge Richard Arcara eventually adopted a recommendation from Magistrate Judge Carol Heckman and dismissed the Thruway Easement claim. The claim was dismissed because the State of New York owned the Thruway Easement and was an indispensable party to any litigation about it, but could not be sued because of Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed. See generally Seneca Nation of Indians v. New York, 383 F.3d 45 (2d Cir. 2004) (per curiam).
Now the Seneca Nation has brought suit again over the Thruway Easement. To avoid the problem from last time about sovereign immunity, the Seneca Nation in the new complaint assumes that the Thruway Easement is void ab initio; from there, the Seneca Nation asserts that the State of New York does not need to appear concerning an easement that does not exist. The Seneca Nation seeks declaratory and injunctive relief that would require individual state officials and the New York State Thruway Authority to obtain a valid easement. The Seneca Nation does not specify who the owner of any new easement would be. Defendants have filed a motion to dismiss the complaint (Dkt. No. 16), arguing in essence that the new complaint is too clever by half: The request to obtain a new easement presupposes the nullity of the one that has been acted on for 64 years; and the owner of that 64-year-old easement would need a chance to weigh in before any court declared that easement’s demise.
District Judge Lawrence Vilardo has referred this case to this Court under 28 U.S.C. § 636(b). (Dkt. No. 17.) The Court held oral argument on October 17, 2018. For the reasons below, the Court respectfully recommends granting defendants’ motion.
In 1946 the New York Department of Public Works (DPW) began negotiations with the Senecas concerning an easement for a state highway through their Cattaraugus Reservation. In 1950 New York State created the New York Thruway Authority (Thruway). In 1954, agreement was reached and an indenture was entered into between “THE SENECA NATION OF INDIANS” and “THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, acting by and through the New York State Thruway Authority,” by which the Senecas granted a “PERMANENT EASEMENT for Thruway purposes” over the lands of the reservation. The Seneca Nation was paid $75,000, and individual Indian landowners were separately compensated.
Seneca Nation, 383 F.3d at 47. These facts dovetail with the documents that the Court has attached as Appendix 1, which is only a small portion of the record from the 1993 Case but includes a copy of the indenture that the Second Circuit cited and that the Seneca Nation attacks as invalid. See Chambers v. Time Warner, Inc., 282 F.3d 147, 153 (2d Cir. 2002) (“Even where a document is not incorporated by reference, the court may nevertheless consider it where the complaint relies heavily upon its terms and effect, which renders the document integral to the complaint.”) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
21. The allegations set forth in ¶¶ 1 through 7 and 12 through 15 above are incorporated by reference herein.
22. The lands at issue in this claim, as described in ¶ 4(b) above, were set aside for the Seneca Nation by the United States by the Treaty of September 15,1797, 7 Stat. 601, and the later 1802 Treaty of Buffalo Creek, 7 Stat. 70, and are currently part of the Cattaraugus Reservation of the Seneca Nation.
23. Between 1797 and 1874, the Seneca Nation entered into a series of leases with white settlers in the Village of Salamanca, New York. In 1875, Congress ratified the leases, providing the necessary approval under the Nonintercourse Act, and granted the Nation the power to lease lands in the village without further congressional approval. 18 Stat. 330 (1875).
24. In 1950, in the Seneca Leasing Act, Congress extended the Nation’s power to lease without congressional approval to tribal land lying beyond the village. 64 Stat. 442 (1950).
25. In 1961, Congress amended the 1950 Seneca Leasing Act to include the power to grant rights-of-way and easements. 75 Stat. 499 (1961).
26. On October 5, 1954, defendant New York Thruway Authority, on behalf of the State of New York, entered into an agreement with the Nation to transfer to the defendants a permanent easement over 300 acres of land for the construction of the New York Thruway through the Cattaraugus Reservation for a one-time payment of $75,500.
The Secretary of the Interior be, and he is empowered to grant rights-of-way for all purposes, subject to such conditions as he may prescribe, over and across any lands now or hereafter held in trust by the United States for individual Indians or Indian tribes, communities, bands, or nations, or any lands now or hereafter owned, subject to restrictions against alienation, by individual Indians or Indian tribes, communities, bands, for nations, including the lands belonging to the Pueblo Indians in New Mexico, and any other lands heretofore or hereafter acquired or set aside for the use and benefit of the Indians.
28. The permanent easement obtained by the defendants was not approved by the Secretary of the Interior as required under 25 U.S.C. § 323, and the Nation had not been granted power by Congress to enter into rights-of-way or easements without congressional approval at the time the easement was obtained.
29. The interest of the Seneca Nation was taken in violation of the Nonintercourse Act and 25 U.S.C. § 323. As such, the transaction is void, illegal and of no force and effect. The defendants State of New York and New York Thruway Authority are trespassers upon the land in violation of the law.
Examined more closely, it becomes apparent that plaintiffs’ argument against the application of Coeur d’Alene [Idaho v. Coeur d’Alene Tribe of Idaho, 521 U.S. 261 (1997)] is internally inconsistent. First, plaintiffs brought suit against the individual state defendants to enjoin alleged ongoing violations of federal law (and, admittedly, “in order to bring its claims within the doctrine of Ex parte Young [209 U.S. 123 (1908)].” The ongoing violations alleged are not the individual state defendants’ physical possession of the land (i.e., plaintiff “does not seek to quiet title against the state officials” (Seneca Op. at 10)); instead, plaintiffs seek to extinguish their continued enforcement of laws and continued jurisdictional authority over the land. Now, however, plaintiffs claim that what they seek is mere possession, and not [an] end to New York’s jurisdiction and sovereign power. If the former point is true, then Coeur d’Alene applies, because significant issues of sovereignty are at stake. If the latter point is true, then Ex parte Young cannot apply, because there would be no cognizable ongoing violation of federal law by the individual state defendants. Either way, plaintiffs’ claims fail.
The State of New York falls squarely into the definition of a necessary and indispensable party under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 19. If it is not a party to the lawsuit, the State of New York’s ability to protect its sovereignty interests will, as a practical matter, be eliminated in its absence. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 19(a)(2). Furthermore, in the State’s absence, the non-State defendants may be found liable for payment of massive money damages—a claim that may be in the billions of dollars—for the fair rental value of the land at issue from 1815 until the present day. To saddle the truly innocent non-State landowners with such a burden violates the letter and spirit of Rule 19.
Plaintiffs allege that the United States ceded the land at issue to their predecessors in the Treaty of Canandaigua. The type of interest granted by the Treaty of Canandaigua is not—and cannot be—merely possessory. Instead, this type of interest contains the entire bundle of rights associated with the land: possession, title, sovereignty, and everything in between.
Here, plaintiffs have attempted to convince the Court that the possessory interest can somehow be carved out of the bundle of rights that plaintiffs claim under the Treaty of Canandaigua, and therefore that the State is not a necessary or indispensable party. This, however, cannot be so. The only remedy that can be awarded from a claim such as plaintiffs’ is the entire set of rights, including sovereignty over the lands at issue—which makes the State a necessary party as its interests will be affected by the outcome of this case.
As to the proof on this issue, the State has submitted the affirmation of Henry A. De Cotis, Assistant Attorney General in Charge of the Real Property Bureau for the New York State Department of Law. Mr. De Cotis has more than 25 years of experience handling the legal aspects of Thruway right-of-way acquisitions and supervising administrative records of acquisitions made since the creation of the Thruway Authority. According to Mr. De Cotis, most Thruway rights-of-way were acquired by the New York State Department of Transportation (or its predecessor the Department of Public Works) pursuant to Section 358 of the Public Authorities Law and Section 347(2) of the Highway Law. Mr. De Cotis affirms that title to real property interests acquired for Thruway purposes, including the easement through the Cattaraugus Reservation, is held by the State “for and in behalf of the people” (Item 217, ¶ 6).
The Seneca Nation of Indians as grantor has conveyed to the People of the State of New York acting by and through the New York State Thruway Authority as grantee a permanent easement across the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation.
(Id. at 20). As this contemporaneous documentation suggests, the view of the Attorney General’s Office at the time of the transaction was that “the People”—i.e., the State—would hold title to the easement through the Thruway Authority.
This evidence, considered in light of the express language of the easement agreement and the statutory and decisional law pertaining to the relationship between the State of New York and the New York State Thruway Authority, leads to the conclusion that the State—and not the Thruway Authority independently—holds title to the easement. While it is true that in some cases the Thruway Authority may be capable of holding title itself, in this case it does not because the Seneca Nation clearly and unambiguously conveyed the easement to the State.
Giving the Rule 19(b) factors the consideration due in light of the State’s Eleventh Amendment immunity, I find that equity and good conscience require dismissal of the Seneca Nation’s suit to invalidate the Thruway easement because the State is an indispensable party to the suit. First, a judgment favorable to the tribe rendered in the State’s absence would undeniably prejudice the State’s governmental interest in securing and protecting property rights acquired on behalf of the people of the state for Thruway purposes. Second, no protective provisions in the judgment, or other measures, have been suggested that would enable the court to shape the relief so as to lessen the prejudice. Third, a judgment rendered in favor of the Seneca Nation adjudicating the right of title to the Thruway easement would be meaningless in the absence of the State as a party to the adjudication. Fourth, even though the tribe may not have an adequate remedy if the Thruway easement claim is dismissed for nonjoinder, this factor is outweighed by the “paramount importance” to be accorded to the State’s immunity from suit.(Id. at 23.) District Judge Richard Arcara adopted Magistrate Judge Heckman’s recommendations regarding dismissal of Count 2 on Rule 19(b) and sovereign-immunity grounds. (1993 Case, Dkt. No. 244.)4 The Second Circuit affirmed. Seneca Nation of Indians v. New York, 383 F.3d 45 (2d Cir. 2004) (per curiam). Specifically, the Second Circuit decided that “the Magistrate Judge was correct in concluding that the State of New York, rather than the Thruway Authority, owned the Cattaraugus easement, and that, as a result, the State had an interest relating to the subject of the action and was so situated that the disposition of the action in its absence may as a practical matter have impaired or impeded its ability to protect that interest.” Id. at 48 (internal quotation and editorial marks and citation omitted). The Second Circuit then found no abuse of discretion with the analysis of sovereign immunity, “particularly in light of the significance sovereign immunity plays in weighing the Rule 19(b) factors.” Id. at 49 (citation omitted).
Nation has asked the Thruway Authority to collect tolls for the Nation and to remit them to the Nation for the use of its lands by motorists on the Thruway. The Thruway Authority has refused to do so and continues to assert the validity of the easement notwithstanding the failure to comply with federal law.
the prior action was dismissed by the Second Circuit, in which the Court upheld the principle that the State of New York had Eleventh Amendment immunity from suit by the Plaintiff, among others. Seneca Nation of Indians, 383 F.3d 45. The Court further held that the State of New York was the actual owner of the easement in question and was, therefore, a necessary and indispensable party to any action regarding the easement. This is a decision on the merits of the sovereign immunity and indispensable party issues. Clearly, the same Plaintiff was involved. In the earlier case, the Seneca Nation was a Plaintiff. The earlier suit also concerned the validity of the Thruway easement and the relief Plaintiff could obtain as a result of that issue, so the claims asserted were raised in the prior action.
(Id.; see also Dkt. No. 23 at 3 (“As to the issue of dismissal on the merits, Plaintiff is correct that dismissal for failure to join a necessary party is not a judgment on the merits, but it is preclusive on that one issue.”).) Technically, the Seneca Nation’s request for declaratory relief did not appear in the 1993 Case, but defendants assert that it could have, meaning that res judicata will apply to that claim as well. Alternatively, even if res judicata somehow did not apply, defendants argue that the absence of res judicata would mean only that the Court would start over applying Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity. (Dkt. No. 16-1 at 8.) The narrow exception to sovereign immunity provided by Ex parte Young does not apply here, according to defendants, because this case is both an action for money damages and an action to quiet title, not an action to prohibit rogue public officials from violating federal law. (Id. at 13–14.) Finally, defendants note that the Seneca Nation has brought this case approximately 64 years after the alleged injury and decades after the Thruway Easement in question became an established part of the Interstate Highway System. (Id. at 19.) The long passage of time prompts defendants to raise laches as an additional ground for dismissal.
MAGISTRATE JUDGE SCOTT: But if you’ve got—but if there is an easement that’s valid, what’s been violated?
MR. TYSSE: If there’s an easement that’s valid, Your Honor, I think that sort of begs the question in this case because we’ve pleaded and—in an allegation that I think has taken us through at this stage of the pleadings. We pleaded that there is no valid easement, that there is an ongoing violation of federal law, that there’s no right for the state to use that land. Now, at the motion to dismiss stage that’s enough.
MR. SLEIGHT: About the—counsel’s claim that this is not a case about the validity of the easement, this is a case that’s all about the validity of this easement.
If you don’t rule or if the Court doesn’t find that as a matter of law that easement is not valid, there’s nothing else to talk about really. I mean, that’s what they’re challenging. It’s not the ongoing operation of the Thruway.
If that’s what they were challenging they would be seeking an ejectment and they’re not. They’re seeking to force the State—asking this Court to force the State to come back to the negotiating table to extract more money for the Thruway right-of-way.
Defendants technically have moved under Rules 12(b)(1), (6), and (7), but a major part of their argument is that all of the substantive issues raised in this case were addressed in the 1993 Case. The potential for overlap of issues between the two cases, regardless of the exact framing of the claims, implicates collateral estoppel. “Res judicata and collateral estoppel are affirmative defenses that must be pleaded.” Blonder-Tongue Labs., Inc. v. Univ. of Illinois Found., 402 U.S. 313, 350 (1971); accord Leather v. Eyck, 180 F.3d 420, 424 (2d Cir. 1999). Defendants filed the pending motion instead of answering the complaint, as was their right, and affirmative defenses can be raised in Rule 12 motions under the right circumstances. “Dismissal under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) is appropriate when a defendant raises claim preclusion ... and it is clear from the face of the complaint, and matters of which the court may take judicial notice, that the plaintiff’s claims are barred as a matter of law.” Conopco, Inc. v. Roll Int’l, 231 F.3d 82, 86 (2d Cir. 2000) (citations omitted); accord, e.g., Cayuga Indian Nation of New York v. Seneca Cty., New York, 260 F. Supp. 3d 290, 302 (W.D.N.Y. 2017) (citations omitted); Chmurynski v. Robbins, No. 3:10CV1303 JBA, 2011 WL 2619078, at *2 (D. Conn. July 1, 2011) (citations omitted).
The standard for collateral estoppel is well known. “Under collateral estoppel, or issue preclusion, the second suit is upon a different claim or cause of action. This doctrine’s fundamental notion is that an issue of law or fact actually litigated and decided by a court of competent jurisdiction in a prior action may not be relitigated in a subsequent suit between the same parties or their privies. Collateral estoppel saves parties and the courts from the waste and burden of relitigating stale issues, and, by discouraging inconsistent results, forwards public policy favoring the establishment of certainty in legal relations. There are exceptions to the use of collateral estoppel. For example, a court should decline to give preclusive effect to a prior judgment if there have been changes either in the applicable legal rules or the factual predicates essential to that prior judgment. In addition, where pure questions of law—unmixed with any particular set of facts—are presented to a court, the interests of finality and judicial economy may be outweighed by other substantive policies.” United States v. Alcan Aluminum Corp., 990 F.2d 711, 718–19 (2d Cir. 1993) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). “Collateral estoppel generally applies if: (1) the issues in both proceedings are identical, (2) the issue in the prior proceeding was actually litigated and actually decided, (3) there was a full and fair opportunity for litigation in the prior proceeding, and (4) the issues previously litigated were necessary to support a valid and final judgment on the merits.” Lord v. Int’l Marine Ins. Servs., 420 F. App’x 40, 41 (2d Cir. 2011) (summary order) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).
1) The Thruway Easement exists, and the documentation establishing it appears to be at least facially valid. The Court infers that the Second Circuit would not have wasted its time discerning ownership of the easement if the related documentation did not have the necessary signatures and at least appear to be in order.
2) The State of New York owns the Thruway Easement.
3) Any attack on the validity of the Thruway Easement is an attack on its owner’s rights, meaning that the State of New York must have an opportunity to appear and to defend its rights.
4) Since the United States either has not been asked to intervene or has declined to intervene on behalf of the Seneca Nation, the State of New York cannot appear here because of sovereign immunity.
For all that the Court knows, the State of New York very well might have pressured the Seneca Nation into a procedurally improper and grossly unfair easement back in 1954. Fourteen years ago, however, the Second Circuit definitively resolved issues that make further litigation here impossible. This Court has to respect that. The Seneca Nation might still have remedies at the New York Court of Claims or perhaps through the political process. Those potential remedies, if available, are beyond this Court’s ability to address.
For all of the above reasons, the Court respectfully recommends granting defendants’ motion (Dkt. No 16).
A copy of this Report and Recommendation will be sent to counsel for the parties by electronic filing on the date below. “Within 14 days after being served with a copy of the recommended disposition, a party may serve and file specific written objections to the proposed findings and recommendations.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b)(2); see also 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1). Any objections must be filed electronically with the Clerk of the Court through the CM/ECF system.
“As a rule, a party’s failure to object to any purported error or omission in a magistrate judge’s report waives further judicial review of the point.” Cephas v. Nash, 328 F.3d 98, 107 (2d Cir. 2003) (citations omitted); see also Mario v. P & C Food Markets, Inc., 313 F.3d 758, 766 (2d Cir. 2002) (“Where parties receive clear notice of the consequences, failure timely to object to a magistrate’s report and recommendation operates as a waiver of further judicial review of the magistrate’s decision.”) (citation omitted). “We have adopted the rule that failure to object timely to a magistrate judge’s report may operate as a waiver of any further judicial review of the decision, as long as the parties receive clear notice of the consequences of their failure to object. The rule is enforced under our supervisory powers and is a nonjurisdictional waiver provision whose violation we may excuse in the interest of justice.” United States v. Male Juvenile (95-CR-1074), 121 F.3d 34, 38–39 (2d Cir. 1997) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).
“Where a party only raises general objections, a district court need only satisfy itself there is no clear error on the face of the record. Indeed, objections that are merely perfunctory responses argued in an attempt to engage the district court in a rehashing of the same arguments set forth in the original papers will not suffice to invoke de novo review. Such objections would reduce the magistrate’s work to something akin to a meaningless dress rehearsal.” Owusu v. N.Y. State Ins., 655 F. Supp. 2d 308, 312–13 (S.D.N.Y. 2009) (internal quotation and editorial marks and citations omitted).
This appendix constituted Docket Nos. 195-14 through 18 in Seneca Nation of Indians v. New York, Case No. 93-CV-688 (the “1993 Case”) (W.D.N.Y.). Since the 1993 Case preceded the development of the federal judiciary’s CM/ECF system, the Court retrieved the archived physical file and attached this appendix for the reader’s convenience.
For the reader’s convenience, the full text of the Report and Recommendation is attached to this writing as Appendix 2.
The Court notes briefly that the land claims in the 1993 Case were not subject to sovereign immunity because the United States chose to intervene, for those claims only and not the easement claim, on the Seneca Nation’s behalf. (Id. at 4.) See also Seneca Nation of Indians v. New York, 178 F.3d 95, 97 (2d Cir. 1999) (per curiam).
The Court could not find the original copy of Docket No. 244 in the archived file. From the discussion in the ensuing Second Circuit opinion, the Court infers that Judge Arcara declined to adopt portions of the Report and Recommendation that are not relevant here.
The New York Attorney General at the timing of the filing of the complaint. As of January 1, 2019, Letitia James will be New York Attorney General. Per Rule 25(d), the Clerk of the Court is directed to amend the caption to replace “Eric T. Schneiderman, in his official capacity as New York State Attorney General” with “Letitia James, in her official capacity as New York State Attorney General.” The substitution will take effect automatically as of January 1, 2019.

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