Opinion ID: 409488
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the indispensable party issue

Text: 18 All the parties before us briefed this issue. Joel Held, the second priority applicant who was awarded lease No. M-38285, has apparently resolved his differences with the several appellees whose names were on the first-drawn DEC for that lease. This court granted a motion to remand that part of the case for a stipulated dismissal, thus taking the issue of Held's joinder out of the case. The issue of Ruby Bell's joinder may be still viable, though Ms. Bell has shown no interest in participating in this lawsuit. 19 The Department of the Interior devoted its brief to the joinder issue while at the same time conceding the issue of the date requirement. As to joinder, the Department argues that failure to join may subject the Department to inconsistent obligations or multiple liability. In addition, the Department argues, Bell can be readily joined; she is subject to service of process in Wyoming, the locus of the action. The Department cites numerous cases in which lessees were found to be indispensable parties in actions by others with prior claims on contested leaseholds, and urges that joinder is particularly appropriate where dismissal would not be required by the finding of indispensability. 20 Appellant Willard Brown does not address the joinder issue in his brief, but focuses rather on the date of signature issue. 21 Appellees urge in response to the Department that the trial court was correct in granting relief in the absence of Held and Bell. They continue their argument that the issue before the court was not who was entitled to the leases, in which case Held and Bell would be indispensable parties. Instead it was the more narrow issue of whether the first drawees were qualified applicants for the leases. The district court order did find that the first drawees were the qualified applicants. The district court went further and cancelled Held's and Bell's leases and awarded them to appellees, but appellees say that this only was equivalent to merely directing the Department to find that the appellees were properly qualified applicants. 22 The Department can then exercise its discretion to void the Held and Bell leases and award those leases, as well as the other nineteen, to appellees. 23 In oral arguments in connection with this appeal the Department and the appellees suggest that instead of bringing Bell into the lawsuit that we uphold the district court judgment insofar as it directs the Department to issue the leases to all the first drawees but reverse insofar as it directs the cancellation of Bell's lease. As we see it this is a practical solution to this unusual problem, in which the circumstances are somewhat unique. Out of the several leases involved in this appeal only one was awarded to a second drawee, Bell, whose rights have not now been settled like Held's, or who is not a party to this lawsuit like Brown. It was subsequently taken away from her and awarded to the appellees. Bell was asked to intervene and chose not to. For that reason she is not a party. For that reason also any rights which she may have cannot be adjudicated in this lawsuit. As a result she is free to litigate elsewhere. In order to avoid subjecting the Department to inconsistent obligations we reverse the judgment only insofar as it directs the department to cancel Bell's lease. 24 In all other respects, that is the award of the leases to the original drawees, the judgment is in all respects affirmed.