Opinion ID: 724016
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Legal Nature of CIHD

Text: 12 Appellants argue that the district court erred in finding that CIHD was an unincorporated and non-profit association. Factual findings are reviewed for clear error, so a reviewing court must accept a finding unless it is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed. United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. 364, 395, 68 S.Ct. 525, 542, 92 L.Ed. 746 (1948). The district court did not make the finding appellants seek to challenge. It found only that CIHD is a non-profit environmentalist membership organization and that it has operated as a non-profit environmental membership organization under the name 'Committee for Idaho's High Desert'  since its organization in the late 1970s. 881 F.Supp. at 1463. It also found that CIHD incorporated in 1981, forfeited its corporate charter in 1985 for failure to file an annual report, and thereafter operated under the mistaken assumption that it was a corporation in good standing until it first learned of its forfeiture when the appellants attempted to prevent CIHD's intervention in the de-listing lawsuit. Id. at 1464. Those findings are not clearly erroneous. 13 Appellants also challenge the finding that CIHD organized and began conducting business as a non-profit environmental membership organization under the name 'Committee for Idaho's High Desert' as early as the late 1970s ... and has conducted such activity and business continuously until the time of trial. Id. at 1463. This finding is also not clearly erroneous. The record contains a copy of CIHD's Articles of Incorporation dated July 1981, as well as a certificate of incorporation dated July 15, 1981. The record also contains copies of minutes of meetings of CIHD's board of directors from September 1981 to June 1994, and these minutes contain extensive detail as to the organization's activities during those years. Copies of CIHD newsletters published between 1982 and 1994 were admitted into evidence. In addition, Randy Morris, long-time chairman of CIHD, and Pamela Marcum, a past officer and active member of CIHD, both testified about the nature of the organization, its operations, purposes, activities, and membership. 14 In challenging this finding, the appellants repeatedly attack the lack of evidentiary support for the founding or operation of an unincorporated association. The district court, however, made no factual finding that CIHD was an unincorporated association. It found only that CIHD was, at all times since its founding, a non-profit environmentalist membership organization. As noted, this finding was not clearly erroneous. The court did then conclude as a matter of law that CIHD was an unincorporated association with the capacity to sue in its common name under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 17(b). 881 F.Supp. at 1469. If appellants' brief can be read to challenge this conclusion of law, 3 the challenge fails. Rule 17(b)(1) allows an unincorporated association to sue in federal court, regardless of its capacity to sue under the law of the state in which the court sits, when the association is suing for the purpose of enforcing ... a substantive right existing under the ... laws of the United States. Fed.R.Civ.P. 17(b)(1). See, e.g., Sierra Association for Environment v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 744 F.2d 661, 662 (9th Cir.1984) ([B]ecause this action arises under federal law, [plaintiff] had capacity to sue as an unincorporated association, Fed.R.Civ.P. 17(b)(1), and any incapacity under California law is accordingly irrelevant.). For purposes of Rule 17(b)(1), the determination of what constitutes an unincorporated association is a question of federal law. Associated Students of the University of California at Riverside v. Kleindienst, 60 F.R.D. 65, 67 (C.D.Cal.1973) (citing cases). Courts have generally defined an unincorporated association as a voluntary group of persons, without a charter, formed by mutual consent for the purpose of promoting a common objective. Local 4076, United Steelworkers v. United Steelworkers, 327 F.Supp. 1400, 1403 (W.D.Pa.1971). CIHD, in the period after the forfeiture of its corporate charter, clearly meets this definition. 15 Appellants' contention that the district court somehow erred in allowing Morris and Marcum to testify as if they were officers of an association is unavailing. Those witnesses testified that they believed at all times, until appellants moved to bar CIHD's intervention in the snail litigation, that CIHD was a corporation. After learning of the forfeiture and being unable to reinstate the corporation, the organization continued to act as what can only be described as an unincorporated association under the definition noted above. The district court did not err in allowing Morris and Marcum to testify.