Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/490/605
Timestamp: 2019-09-21 00:59:18
Document Index: 325068980

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 27', '§ 27', '§ 28', '§ 28', '§ 1', '§ 1', '§ 1', '§ 1', '§ 28', '§ 28', '§ 27']

ASARCO INCORPORATED, et al., Petitioners v. Frank KADISH, et ux., et al. | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute
ASARCO INCORPORATED, et al., Petitioners v. Frank KADISH, et ux., et al.
490 U.S. 605 (109 S.Ct. 2037, 104 L.Ed.2d 696)
Argued: Feb. 27, 1989.
Decided: May 30, 1989.
opinion, KENNEDY [HTML]
concurrence, BRENNAN, WHITE, MARSHALL, BLACKMUN [HTML]
conc_diss, REHNQUIST, SCALIA [HTML]
(a) The Arizona Supreme Court issued a final judgment within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. 1257, despite the fact that it remanded the case for the trial court to determine appropriate further relief. On remand, the trial court does not have before it any federal question whether past or current leases are valid, since respondents, on appeal, withdrew their request for an accounting and payment of sums due under past leases. In addition, the trial court's further actions cannot affect the State Supreme Court's ruling that § 27- 34(B) is invalid. Thus, the judgment below comes within two of the exceptions to the finality requirement set out in Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U.S. 469, 479, 480, 95 S.Ct. 1029, 1039, 43 L.Ed.2d 328 (1975): (1) the federal issue is conclusive and the outcome of further proceedings is preordained, and (2) the federal questions that could come to this Court have been adjudicated by the state court, and the remaining issues will not give rise to any further federal question. Pp. 611-612.
If the assertion were correct, the judgment below would not yet be final within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. 1257, and we would lack jurisdiction in the case. But it is not correct. Respondents originally sought a declaratory judgment that the state law is invalid, an injunction against further leases, and an accounting and payment of sums due under past leases; but they withdrew the last request on appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court. See Brief for Appellant in Kadish v. Arizona State Land Dept., CV-86-0238-T, p. 6, n. 3, p. 40. Thus, on remand the trial court does not have before it any federal question whether past and current leases are valid because they were made in "substantial conformity" with the terms of the Enabling Act. And, of course, the trial court's further actions cannot affect the Arizona Supreme Court's ruling that § 27-234(B) is invalid. Accordingly, the judgment below comes within two of the exceptions to the finality requirement that were set out in Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U.S. 469, 95 S.Ct. 1029, 43 L.Ed.2d 328 (1975). Here "the federal issue is conclusive" and "the outcome of further proceedings preordained." Id., at 479, 95 S.Ct., at 1038; see also Duquesne Light Co. v. Barasch, 488 U.S. 299, 109 S.Ct. 609, 102 L.Ed.2d 646 (1989). In addition, the " 'federal questions that could come here have been adjudicated by the State court,' " and the remaining issues, contrary to the United States' suggestion, will not give rise to any further federal question. Cox, supra, 420 U.S., at 480, 95 S.Ct., at 1038, quoting Radio Station WOW, Inc. v. Johnson, 326 U.S. 120, 127, 65 S.Ct. 1475, 1480, 89 L.Ed. 2092 (1945).
The question whether taxpayers or citizens have a sufficient personal stake to challenge laws of general application where their own injury is not distinct from that suffered in general by other taxpayers or citizens covers old and familiar ground. As an ordinary matter, suits premised on federal taxpayer status are not cognizable in the federal courts because a taxpayer's "interest in the moneys of the Treasury . . . is shared with millions of others, is comparatively minute and indeterminable; and the effect upon future taxation, of any payments out of the funds, so remote, fluctuating and uncertain, that no basis is afforded for judicial intervention." Frothingham v. Mellon, 262 U.S. 447, 487, 43 S.Ct. 597, 601, 67 L.Ed. 1078 (1923) (decided with Massachusetts v. Mellon ).
We have indicated that the same conclusion may not hold for municipal taxpayers, if it has been shown that the "peculiar relation of the corporate taxpayer to the municipal corporation" makes the taxpayer's interest in the application of municipal revenues "direct and immediate." Frothingham, supra, at 486-487, 43 S.Ct., at 600-601, citing Crampton v. Zabriskie, 101 U.S. 601, 609, 25 L.Ed. 1070 (1880). Yet we have likened state taxpayers to federal taxpayers, and thus we have refused to confer standing upon a state taxpayer absent a showing of "direct injury," pecuniary or otherwise. Doremus v. Board of Education of Hawthorne, 342 U.S. 429, 434, 72 S.Ct. 394, 397, 96 L.Ed. 475 (1952).
Although the state courts are not bound to adhere to federal standing requirements, they possess the authority, absent a provision for exclusive federal jurisdiction, to render binding judicial decisions that rest on their own interpretations of federal law. See 28 U.S.C. 1738; Grubb v. Public Utilities Comm'n of Ohio, 281 U.S. 470, 50 S.Ct. 374, 74 L.Ed. 972 (1930). Indeed, inferior federal courts are not required to exist under Article III, and the Supremacy Clause explicitly states that "the Judges in every State shall be bound" by federal law. U.S. Const., Art. VI, cl. 2.
Petitioners contend before us that the Arizona Supreme Court's decision rests on an erroneous interpretation of federal statutes. They claim that the declaratory judgment sought and secured by respondents, along with the relief that may flow from that ruling, is invalid under federal law. If we were to agree with petitioners, our reversal of the decision below would remove its disabling effects upon them. In these circumstances, we conclude that petitioners meet each prong of the constitutional standing requirements. As the parties first invoking the authority of the federal courts, they have shown that they "personally have suffered some actual or threatened injury as a result of the putatively illegal conduct of the other party . . . and that the injury 'fairly can be traced to the challenged action' and 'is likely to be redressed by a favorable decision.' " Valley Forge, 454 U.S., at 472, 102 S.Ct., at 758 (citations omitted). In addition, petitioners' standing to invoke the authority of this Court is not affected by any of the prudential limitations that have been identified in prior cases. Id., at 474-475, 102 S.Ct., at 759-760. Indeed, the United States appears to recognize the force of these points. See Brief for United States 20, n. 14 ("In light of the decision below, petitioners may now have standing" to invoke the authority of a federal court).
In addition, we doubt it would be a proper exercise of our authority to vacate the state court's judgment in these circumstances. It would be an unacceptable paradox to exercise jurisdiction to confirm that we lack it and then to interfere with a State's sovereign power by vacating a judgment rendered within its own proper authority. This case is not one committed to the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal courts. We have no authority to grant a writ only to announce that, solely because we may not review a case, the state court lacked power to decide it in the first instance. 1
If we were merely to dismiss this case and leave the judgment below undisturbed, a different set of problems would ensue. Although the judgment of a state court on issues of federal law normally binds the parties in any future suit even if that suit is brought separately in federal court, we have occasionally cautioned that such a judgment may well not bind the parties if the state court's conclusions about federal law were not subject to any federal review. See, e.g., Doremus, 342 U.S., at 434, 72 S.Ct., at 397 ("We cannot accept . . . as the basis for conclusive disposition of an issue of federal law without review, any procedure which does not constitute" a case or controversy); Minnesota v. National Tea Co., 309 U.S. 551, 557, 60 S.Ct. 676, 679, 84 L.Ed. 920 (1940) (this Court is responsible for assuring "that state courts will not be the final arbiters of i portant issues under the federal constitution"); Fidelity Nat. Bank & Trust Co. of Kansas City v. Swope, 274 U.S. 123, 130-131, 47 S.Ct. 511, 513-514, 71 L.Ed. 959 (1927) (proceeding in state court is res judicata if "the constitutional rights asserted, or which might have been asserted in that proceeding, could eventually have been reviewed here"). The predominant interest promoted by this apparent exception to normal preclusion doctrines is to assure that the binding application of federal law is uniform and ultimately subject to control by this Court. See Richardson v. Ramirez, 418 U.S. 24, 42, n. 13, 94 S.Ct. 2655, 2665, n. 13, 41 L.Ed.2d 551 (1974) (this Court may review a declaratory judgment granted by a state court, for "any other conclusion would unnecessarily permit a state court of last resort, quite contrary to the intention of Congress in enacting 28 U.S.C. 1257, to invalidate state legislation on federal constitutional grounds without any possibility of state officials who were adversely affected by the decision seeking review in this Court").
Given the likelihood that dismissal in this case would defeat the normal preclusive effects of the state court's judgment, however, the effect again would be to impose federal standing requirements on a state court that sought to render a binding decision on issues of federal law. It also would denigrate the authority of the state courts by creating a peculiar anomaly in the normal channels of appellate review. The Rooker-Feldman doctrine interprets 28 U.S.C. 1257 as ordinarily barring direct review in the lower federal courts of a decision reached by the highest state court, for such authority is vested solely in this Court. District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 103 S.Ct. 1303, 75 L.Ed.2d 206 (1983); Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Locomotive Engineers, 398 U.S. 281, 296, 90 S.Ct. 1739, 1748, 26 L.Ed.2d 234 (1970); Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 415-416, 44 S.Ct. 149, 150, 68 L.Ed. 362 (1923). The United States urges that the proper course for petitioners is to sue in federal trial court in order to readjudicate the very same issues that were determined in the state-court proceedings below. Brief for United States 20, n. 14. That action, in essence, would be an attempt to obtain direct review of the Arizona Supreme Court's decision in the lower federal courts, and would represent a partial inroad on Rooker-Feldman § construction of 28 U.S.C. 1257.
For these reasons, we believe it would be inappropriate to dismiss the case at this stage. 2 That disposition would come at the cost of much disrespect to state-court proceedings and judgments. It also would require petitioners to commence a new action in federal court to vindicate their rights under federal law, even though right now they present us with a case or controversy that is justiciable under federal standards. Cf. Wallace, 288 U.S., at 262-263, 53 S.Ct., at 347-348 (a justiciable controversy is not "any the less so because through a modified procedure appellant has been permitted to present it in the state courts"). Instead, we adopt the following rationale for our decision on this jurisdictional point: When a state court has issued a judgment in a case where plaintiffs in the original action had no standing to sue under the principles governing the federal courts, we may exercise our jurisdiction on certiorari if the judgment of the state court causes direct, specific, and concrete injury to the parties who petition for our review, where the requisites of a case or controversy are also met.
We are not unmindful of the paradox that would result if respondents (plaintiffs below) prevail on the merits, for then they will have succeeded in obtaining a federal determination here that would have been unavailable if the action had been filed initially in federal court. Nonetheless, although federal standing "often turns on the nature and source of the claim asserted," it "in no way depends on the merits of the claim." Warth, 422 U.S., at 500, 95 S.Ct., at 2206. The rule we adopt is necessary in deference to the States and in response to the petitioning parties who seek this forum to redress a real and current injury stemming from the application of federal law.
We conclude that the opinion below is not based on an adequate and independent state ground. Its discussion focuses solely on the federal statutes, and the State Constitution is never mentioned on its own apart from the Enabling Act. The Arizona Supreme Court explicitly considered itself "bound to adopt the construction advanced by plaintiffs" based on the prior decisions of this Court, and described Article 10 of the Arizona Constitution as simply a "rescript" of § 28 of the Enabling Act. Id., at 495-496, 747 P.2d, at 1194-1195. In light of this description, the references to the Arizona Constitution simply reflect a holding which rests on the state court's interpretation of federal law. Although the Arizona Supreme Court was free to rest its holding on the State Constitution as an independent ground, the decision below did not divorce the state constitutional issue from the questions of federal law. See Enterprise Irrigation Dist. v. Canal Co., 243 U.S. 157, 164, 37 S.Ct. 318, 321, 61 L.Ed. 644 (1917); see also 155 Ariz., at 495, 747 P.2d, at 1194 ("The Enabling Act is the 'fundamental and paramount law' in Arizona," quoting Murphy v. State, 65 Ariz. 338, 345, 181 P.2d 336, 340 (1947)).
The grant of all lands under the Enabling Act is conditioned, by the statute's clear language, upon the specified requirements for leasing or selling those lands. The Act declares that "all lands hereby granted . . . shall be by the said State held in trust, to be disposed of in whole or in part only in the manner as herein provided, . . . and that the natural products and money proceeds of any of said lands shall be subject to the same trusts as the lands producing the same." § 28, 36 Stat. 574, 575 (emphasis added). "Disposition of any of said lands, or of any money or thing of value directly or indirectly derived therefrom, . . . in any manner contrary to the provisions of this Act, shall be deemed a breach of trust." Any such disposition is expressly stated to be "null and void" unless "made in substantial conformity with the provisions of this Act." Ibid. And, again, the requirements set forth in the Act apply to "all lands, leaseholds, timber, and other products of land." Ibid.
Petitioners cite Neel v. Barker, 27 N.M. 605, 204 P. 205 (1922), as standing for the proposition that because mineral lands originally were exempted by Congress from the grant made in the Enabling Act, its provisions for the sale or lease of granted lands did not apply to those lands later determined to be mineral in nature. That proposition, never tested in a federal court, is flawed in two respects. First, in Wyoming v. United States, supra, decided the year before but not mentioned or discussed in Neel, this Court held that unknown mineral lands were within the grant made by Congress. Second, since those lands were granted to the States under the authority of the Enabling Act itself, they could not be regarded as unburdened by its mandatory conditions. In consequence, the New Mexico Supreme Court erred in concluding that because "Congress did not intend to grant to the state any mineral lands . . . it follows that the state is not controlled nor restricted by said act in regard to leasing said lands for mineral purposes." 27 N.M., at 611, 204 P., at 207. All the lands granted under the Act are granted subject to its conditions. 3
The lands granted under the Jones Act are subject to the same conditions. This very brief enactment was passed to address the continuing problems associated with the dual regime, under which the adjudication of title to lands would depend on whether they were known to be mineral at the time the Federal Government granted them. H.R.Rep. No. 1761, 69th Cong., 2d Sess., 2-3 (1927); S.Rep. No. 603, 69th Cong., 1st Sess., 1-6 (1926). Indeed, its formal title was: "An Act Confirming in States and Territories title to lands granted by the United States in the aid of common or public schools." 44 Stat. 1026. The Jones Act resolved the problem of the dual regime by simply "extending" the prior grants of lands "to embrace numbered school sections mineral in character." § 1, 44 Stat. 1026. The statute explicitly stated that "the grant of numbered mineral sections under this Act shall be of the same effect as prior grants for the numbered non-mineral sections." § 1(a), 44 Stat. 1026 (emphasis added).
We do not agree with this reading of the Jones Act. First, the suggested interpretation of the "same effect" language would render that language redundant: The statute continues immediately with an additional clause that directly addresses the "vesting" of "titles to such numbered mineral sections." § 1(a), 44 Stat. 1026. Instead, we believe that the "same effect" language has independent meaning, and that it achieved Congress' stated objective of "extending" the 1910 grants to encompass all mineral lands and of "confirming" title to such lands in the States. Ibid.
Perhaps the most fundamental defect of the interpretation urged by petitioners is that it would largely perpetuate the dual regime that Congress sought to eliminate by enacting the Jones Act. Under that interpretation, the restrictions in the Enabling Act would continue to apply to unknown mineral lands, but would not apply to known mineral lands. As a result, for example, some of the leases involved in this case might be proper, under the Jones Act, while others would be improper, under the Enabling Act, and the critical difference would rest on a determination, to be made at some future point, whether those lands were known to be mineral in 1910. This is surely not the resolution Congress intended when it passed this statute, and it is neither a sensible n r an appealing one. 4
In addition, the "as the State legislature may direct" language is not inconsistent with the express restrictions set forth in the Enabling Act. Given the preceding restrictions on the sale of minerals in § 1(b), Congress may have thought it necessary to emphasize that leases were subject to no such novel limitations; instead, the States retained all the authority given under the conditional grants made in the Enabling Act. We thus agree with the court below that this language is properly viewed as authorizing the States to regulate the methods by which mineral leases are made and to specify any additional terms in those leases that are thought necessary or desirable, as long as the leases comply with the dispositional requirements set forth in the Enabling Act. See 155 Ariz., at 491, 747 P.2d, at 1190. But this language, in and of itself, does not dispense with those restrictions. 5
Both sides place a great deal of emphasis on the later amendments to the Enabling Act, which occurred in 1936 and 1951. We think that the language of the original grants of these lands to Arizona is the decisive basis for decision here, and that subsequent amendments are at best only illustrative of how a later Congress read the original terms of the statute. Congress could not, for instance, grant lands to a State on certain specific conditions and then later, after the conditions had been met and the lands vested, succeed in upsetting settled expectations through a belated effort to render those conditions more onerous. Congress could relax the conditions upon which lands had been granted previously, of course, but we see nothing in the later amendments here to suggest that it has done so. Instead, the later amendments are wholly consistent with the view that Congress granted these lands in 1910 and 1927 subject to the conditions discussed previously and has never removed those conditions. 6
In both the 1936 and the 1951 amendments, Congress reiterated the formulation that the lands could be leased for certain purposes as the state legislature "may direct," Act of June 5, 1936, ch. 517, 49 Stat. 1477, and as it "may prescribe," Act of June 2, 1951, 65 Stat. 52. But the former amendment did not alter the application of § 28 to "all lands . . . and other products of land," which remained in a passage which directly followed the "as the State legislature may direct" language. And the latter amendment altered the application of § 28 in a manner that tends to confirm the interpretation adopted here: It expressly extinguished the advertising, bidding, and appraisal restrictions upon any leases of these lands "for the exploration, development, and production of oil, gas, and other hydrocarbon substances," 65 Stat. 52, though not upon leases for other purposes, such as mineral leases. Thus the subsequent history of these statutes, to the extent it indicates anything of significance, merely confirms that the original restrictions upon the sale or lease of mineral lands contained in the Enabling Act and the Jones Act remain undiminished in force.
"The Court's concern for the integrity of the conditions imposed by the Enabling Act has long been evident." Alamo Land & Cattle Co. v. Arizona, 424 U.S. 295, 302, 96 S.Ct. 910, 915, 47 L.Ed.2d 1 (1976). We conclude that the sale or lease of mineral lands granted to the State of Arizona under these federal statutes must substantially conform to the mandatory requirements set out in the Enabling Act. The court below was correct in declaring Ariz.Rev.Stat.Ann. § 27-234(B) (Supp.1988) invalid as to nonhydrocarbon mineral leases. The judgment of the Arizona Supreme Court is
The Court's opinion makes much of the fact that " 'the record shows the existence of a genuine case or controversy,' " ante, at 619, and that "these parties remain adverse. . . ." Ibid. But most of our case law limiting federal standing does not depend on any conclusion that the parties were not "adverse" or that there was no "genuine case or controversy" in the lay sense of those terms. See Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975); Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church & State, supra; DeFunis v. Odegaard, 416 U.S. 312, 94 S.Ct. 1704, 40 L.Ed.2d 164 (1974); Linda R.S. v. Richard D., 410 U.S. 614, 93 S.Ct. 1146, 35 L.Ed.2d 536 (1973). In each of these cases the parties were emphatically adverse to one another and vigorously contended with one another as to how the lawsuit should be decided. No one suggested that the cases were trumped up, or that they were "friendly suits." The shortcoming in each of them was the failure of the plaintiffs to establish actual injury to themselves as a result of the governmental action which they sought to challenge on federal grounds. To have considered their cases on the merits would have required us to decide the questions presented "in the rarified atmosphere of a debating society"; the plaintiffs had simply a generalized grievance about governmental action which they claimed was prohibited by federal statute or by the United States Constitution. And that is really all that the Court has before it in the present case.
Robert J. QUINN, Jr., and Patricia J. Kampsen, etc., Appellants v. Wayne L. MILLSAP et al.
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, Petitioner, v. George R. TRIPLETT et al. COMMITTEE ON LEGAL ETHICS OF the WEST VIRGINIA STATE BAR, Petitioner v. George R. TRIPLETT et al.
Louise RENNE, San Francisco City Attorney, et al., Petitioners v. Bob GEARY, et al.
Manuel LUJAN, Jr., Secretary of the Interior, Petitioner v. DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE, et al.
NORTHEASTERN FLORIDA CHAPTER OF the ASSOCIATED GENERAL CONTRACTORS OF AMERICA, Petitioner, v. CITY OF JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA, et al.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES CITY OF CHICAGO, PETITIONER v. JESUS MORALES et al.
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. CITY OF ERIE, et al., PETITIONERS v. PAP'S A. M. tdba "KANDYLAND"
NIKE, INC., ET AL., PETITIONERS v. MARC KASKY.
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. CITY NEWS AND NOVELTY, INC., PETITIONER v. CITY OF WAUKESHA