Opinion ID: 175660
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Prejudice to Existing Parties

Text: The district court explained the nature of the prejudice that the existing parties could suffer: This case was filed over four years and three month ago, and trial is schedule to begin less than a week from today. As previously stated, the Nation admits ... there's a possibility for delay ... in the event this Court were to permit intervention.... The filing of an intervenor's complaint, including a federal common law nuisance claim would trigger more than a 120 day delay. It would require the reinsertion of three causes of action that were previously dismissed, the consequent resuscitation of numerous motions pertaining to those causes of action, both motions for summary judgment and motions in limine. Perhaps more significantly, it would trigger the necessity of a new round of discovery pertaining to at least the statute of limitations issues, a new round of motions for summary judgment and likely a new round of motions in limine, in addition to those 41 that have already been filed. Such an approach would result in delay and expense, which would severely prejudice the parties who have been actively proceeding toward trial these past four-plus years. Aplt.App., Vol. 5 at 927-28. The Nation concedes that the original parties ... will suffer some discomfort if intervention is granted. Aplt. Br. at 20. And it has not disputed the gist of the district court's observations about what would have needed to be done before trial had the court permitted intervention. In any event, those observations are amply supported by the record. For example, to prepare for the Nation's proposed common-law nuisance claim, discovery would have been necessary regarding the Nation's ownership of resources in the IRW; and because the claims could be subject to a statute of limitations, that issue would also need to be investigated. Further, Tyson indicated that it would defend against the Nation's claim by arguing that the Nation was responsible for the presence of certain pollutants in the IRW, thus raising another issue requiring discovery. The CERCLA damages claims would also require additional discovery because the district court had ruled (in granting Tyson's motion to dismiss the damages claims under Rule 19) that damages under CERCLA would need to be awarded to the State and the Nation in proportion to the actual management and control exercised by each plaintiff over the injured resources, a matter not yet resolved, or even investigated, in the case. The State and Nation argue that these matters would not be the consequence of any delay in the Nation's moving to intervene but simply the result of allowing intervention. They point out, correctly, that the prejudice to other parties must be prejudice caused by the movant's delay, not by the mere fact of intervention. See Clinton, 255 F.3d at 1251. But the point here is not that intervention by the Nation would require more work by the existing parties. That in itself did not concern the district court, which said that it would gladly have granted a motion to intervene if it had been made earlier. Rather, the court's reference to the need for this work explained why intervention would require a substantial delay before the case could go to trial. Cf. id. (intervention proper when no scheduling order ha[d] been issued, no trial date set, and no cut-off date for motions set). And that last-minute delay would create prejudiceprejudice that would not have resulted from an earlier intervention. Perhaps a short delay in trial could be accommodated without much of a burden. But the delay of more than 120 days anticipated by the district court would be something else. With the start date set for less than three weeks from the date of the Nation's motion to intervene, the parties had necessarily already arranged their schedules and the schedules of their witnesses. For example, the numerous attorneys (the record shows that at the hearing on the motion to intervene, the State had 11 attorneys and the six defendants were represented by 18 attorneys from nine firms) would have removed other obligations from their calendars for the next several months. And at the hearing, counsel for Tyson represented that [d]ozens of witnesses have cleared their schedule and some of them are here, ready to go. We have moved to Tulsa [and] set up war rooms.... Aplt.App., Vol. 5 at 917. The State and the Nation argue that Tyson has exaggerated the burden of delaying the trial, pointing out that Tyson had requested a continuance not long before the Nation moved to intervene. To be sure, Tyson had filed such a motion on June 30; but it requested only an indefinite brief postponement, Def.'s Mot. for Modification of May 14, 2009 Scheduling Order & Integrated Br. in Supp. at 3, Tyson Foods, Inc., No. 05-cv-329-GKF (PJC) (N.D. Okla. June 30, 2009). And Tyson's motion reads less like a request for continuance than a plea for rulings on numerous pending motions (for summary judgment and the exclusion of expert testimony) that would impact trial preparation. The thrust of the motion was that Tyson needed to be able to plan efficiently for trial, the same interest that it raised in opposing the delay that would result from the Nation's intervention. The district court could properly decide that the prejudice to Tyson would be significant. See Culbreath v. Dukakis, 630 F.2d 15, 22 (1st Cir.1980) (The purpose of the basic requirement that the application to intervene be timely is to prevent last minute disruption of painstaking work by the parties and the court.). (The impact on the State could be similar, but the State clearly thought that the advantages of being able to pursue its damages claims at the trial outweighed the costs of delay.)