Opinion ID: 1162719
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Pleading The Provisions of the Pretrial Order Dealing With the Filing and Service of Pleadings[17]

Text: The Pretrial Order provides detailed procedures for the filing and service of pleadings, motions, and all other documents, except the statements of claimant. [18] Each party is required, as in other cases, to file a copy of any document with the clerk of the trial court. Documents need not, however, be served on every party to the adjudication, but must only be mailed to all parties on the trial court's approved mailing list. There are two ways that the other parties may receive notice of the documents filed. First, parties may file a written request with the court to be included on the court-approved mailing list. Second, parties may keep abreast of all filings through the docket system instituted by the Pretrial Order. The docket system functions as follows. The clerk of the trial court assigns a docket number to each document filed by any party to the adjudication. The clerk then adds the docket number, the title of the document, and any descriptive summary contained in the document to the docket sheet. On the first day of each month, the clerk provides a copy of the docket sheet identifying all documents filed during the preceding month to the clerk of the superior court in each county except Mohave County. [19] The clerk of each of these superior courts must post, in a conspicuous location in the clerk's office, either the complete docket sheet or a notice indicating the location in the clerk's office of the complete docket sheet available for inspection. The docket sheet, or a notice indicating where the complete docket sheet is available for inspection, is also to be posted in DWR's Phoenix office and the Pinal, Prescott and Tucson Active Management Area offices. In addition, the Pretrial Order mandated the establishment of a subscription system, through which any party that has appeared can receive a copy of the Pretrial Order and of each month's docket sheet in the mail by paying a fee to cover actual expenses. To begin our analysis, we reiterate that due process requires that interested parties be given notice reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to ... afford them an opportunity to present their objections. Mullane, 339 U.S. at 314, 70 S.Ct at 657 (emphasis added). In this case, any party that desired to receive service of every document filed had only so to inform the court and be placed on the court-approved mailing list. Other parties can keep themselves updated by consulting or subscribing to the monthly docket sheets. In addition, at certain critical stages of the adjudication, the Pretrial Order requires that the parties be given additional notice. For example, pursuant to A.R.S. § 45-256(C) and the Pretrial Order, DWR must provide each water claimant with adequate notice when DWR's preliminary Hydrological Survey Reports  and, later, the Comprehensive Report  are available for inspection and comment. Due process is not a static concept, but must account for the practicalities and peculiarities of the case. Mullane, 339 U.S. at 314, 70 S.Ct. at 657. The most significant factor in this case is the sheer multitude of the parties to the adjudication. In response to the summons and public notices, over 23,900 persons filed a total of more than 65,000 individual statements of claims. [20] As the trial judge explained, [s]trict [c]ompliance with the provision of Rule 5(a) of the Arizona Rules of Civil Procedure, requiring that nearly all papers filed with the Court subsequent to the original complaint [also] be served upon each of the parties, would work a severe financial hardship on many parties, and might discourage, or even prevent them from actively participating in this action. Pretrial Order at 5. We agree. If each party were required to serve a copy of every document filed on each of the 24,000 other parties to the litigation, the cost of actively litigating a claim would be prohibitive to all but the largest water users. Such a result could not be required by due process, for, as we have already noted, [a] construction of the Due Process Clause which would place impossible or impractical obstacles in the way could not be justified. Mullane, 339 U.S. at 313-14, 70 S.Ct. at 657. A federal district court rejected a similar due process challenge to the constitutionality of Nevada's special statutory procedures for water adjudications in the pre- Mullane decision of Humboldt Land & Cattle Co. v. Allen, 14 F.2d 650 (D.Nev. 1926), aff'd without opinion, 274 U.S. 711, 47 S.Ct. 574, 71 L.Ed. 1314 (1927). The Humboldt court rejected a claim that due process required parties to serve their objections to the state water engineer's report on every other party: To require each party dissatisfied with the engineer's order of determination, after filing his objections with the clerk, and serving them on the state engineer, to serve them also on every other party interested in the stream system, of whom there may be 500 or 600, or more, would impose an intolerable burden on the court as well as litigants. In many instances the cost of objecting would be prohibitive. Id. at 653. Modern technology has greatly facilitated communication in the years since Humboldt was decided, but fundamental obstacles remain: the cost of having to serve each document on 24,000 parties is so prohibitive that it would impair or prevent, rather than promote, the assertion of claims. Requiring service of every document on every party would not further the ability of individuals to litigate their claims, but would instead place insurmountable obstacles in their paths. We therefore conclude that the filing and service provisions of the Pretrial Order are well-designed under the circumstances to afford the litigants adequate notice of all filings in the adjudication.