Opinion ID: 175660
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Length of Time Since the Nation Knew of its Interest

Text: When the applicant appears to have been aware of the litigation but has delayed unduly seeking to intervene, courts generally have been reluctant to allow intervention. 7C Charles A. Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Mary Kay Kane, Federal Practice & Procedure § 1916, at 539-40 (3d ed. 2007). In this case it is undisputed that the Nation had been aware of the litigation for more than four years before its eve-of-trial motion to intervene. Indeed, even before suit was filed in June 2005, the Nation's Principal Chief wrote to the Oklahoma Attorney General about the proposed lawsuit. Aplt.App., Vol. 4 at 688. The Nation and the State argue, however, that the timeliness of the Nation's motion must be measured only from when it had reason to recognize that its interests were not being adequately represented by a party to the litigation. In particular, they contend that the Nation reasonably believed that the State was adequately representing its interests until shortly before the motion to intervene. According to them, (1) it was only on October 31, 2008, when Tyson filed its Rule 19 motion to dismiss for absence of a required party, that the Nation became aware of the possibility that its interests would not be adequately represented by the State, and (2) it was not until July 22, 2009, when the district court ruled on that motion, that the Nation definitively knew that the State could not in fact represent its interests. We agree that a potential party could not be said to have unduly delayed in moving to intervene if its interests had been adequately represented until shortly before the motion to intervene. After all, an earlier motion to intervenewhen the movant's interests were adequately represented by a partywould have been denied. See San Juan County, Utah v. United States, 503 F.3d 1163, 1203 (10th Cir.2007) (plurality opinion). Therefore, we join the other circuits that measure delay from when the movant was on notice that its interests may not be protected by a party already in the case. See Reich v. ABC/York-Estes Corp., 64 F.3d 316, 322 (7th Cir.1995) ([W]e do not expect a party to petition for intervention in instances in which the potential intervenor has no reason to believe its interests are not being properly represented....); Sierra Club v. Espy, 18 F.3d 1202, 1206 (5th Cir.1994) (A better gauge of promptness is the speed with which the would-be intervenor acted when it became aware that its interests would no longer be protected by the original parties.); Hill v. W. Elec. Co., 672 F.2d 381, 386 (4th Cir.1982) ([C]ritical issue with respect to timeliness is whether the proposed intervenor moved to intervene `as soon as it became clear that the interests of the unnamed class members would no longer be protected by the named class representatives.' (quoting United Airlines, Inc. v. McDonald, 432 U.S. 385, 394, 97 S.Ct. 2464, 53 L.Ed.2d 423 (1977) (ellipsis omitted))); Legal Aid Soc'y of Alameda Co. v. Dunlop, 618 F.2d 48, 50 (9th Cir.1980) ([T]he relevant circumstance here for determining timeliness is when the intervenor became aware that its interest would no longer be protected adequately by the parties ....); cf. Elliott, 407 F.3d at 1103 (Prior to the district court's entry of final judgment it was reasonable for [the prospective intervenor] to rely on Appellees to argue the issue of subject matter jurisdiction.). There may, of course, be different degrees of clarity of notice that a party cannot or will not represent a potential movant's interest; and the district court will need to consider that clarity (or lack of it) in weighing the factors for and against intervention. For example, the court could expect the motion to intervene to be filed promptly when delay could significantly prejudice other parties, even though the inadequacy of representation is not free from doubt. It helps the Nation little, however, to measure its delay from when it was on notice that the State might not adequately represent its interests. It had such notice long before its motion. True, in one respect the Nation had every reason to expect the State to protect its interests. In seeking injunctive relief against Tyson, the State was doing all that the Nation might wish to do in that regard. Moreover, in seeking funds from Tyson under CERCLA to remedy the effects of prior pollution (say, money for decontaminating an area), the State may have been doing just what the Nation would have wanted. But the Nation's interests that are relevant to the question before us are the interests pursued in its proposed complaint in intervention; and, as we shall see, the Nation has made no showing that it ever had reason to rely on the State to pursue many of those interests on its behalf. The Nation's proposed complaint stated three causes of action. All relied on essentially the same allegations against Tyson as those in the State's complaint, except that they alleged the interests of the Nation, rather than the State, with respect to the alleged pollution. The first count was for CERCLA cost recovery under 42 U.S.C. § 9607. It alleged that as a result of Tyson's improper release of hazardous substances into the IRW, the Nation has incurred, and will continue to incur, necessary response costs ... includ[ing] ... costs of monitoring, assessing and evaluating water quality, wildlife and biota in the IRW. Aplt. App., Vol. 4 at 627-28. Accordingly, said the complaint, the Nation is entitled to recover from [Tyson] all of the [Nation's] past and present necessary response costs and to a declaratory judgment that Tyson is liable for all future necessary response costs incurred by the [Nation]. Id. at 628. The State, however, had not sought recovery of past, present, or future response costs of the Nation. Rather, it sought all of the State of Oklahoma's past and present necessary response costs, and sought a declaratory judgment that Tyson was liable for all future necessary response costs incurred by the State of Oklahoma.  Id., Vol. 2 at 324 (emphasis added). The Nation could never have reasonably thought that the State was representing the Nation's interests in recovering its damages. Even if the Nation believed that it would not need to recover any future response costs because the State would be doing all the responding (although nothing in the record supports that belief), the prayer for recovery of response costs already incurred by the Nation could not be answered by a State victory in its suit. The Nation's second count, for CERCLA resource damages under 42 U.S.C. § 9607, is similar. It alleges that Tyson's pollution has resulted in injury to, destruction of, and loss of natural resources in the IRW, ... for which the [Nation] is trustee, just as the State alleged its trustee status in its complaint. Id., Vol. 4 at 629. The count then alleges that the Nation has incurred reasonable and necessary costs to assess and evaluate this injury, destruction and loss of the natural resources and seeks damages, including (a) the cost to restore, replace, or acquire the equivalent of such natural resources; (b) the compensable value of lost services resulting from the injury to such natural resources; and (c) the reasonable cost of assessing injury to the natural resources and the resulting damages. Id. at 630. Again, however, the State's complaint did not seek such damages for the Nation, and the Nation could not have reasonably thought that the State was representing its interests in those damages. As with the first count, the Nation may have thought that it would not need to seek future damages because the State would restore, replace, or acquire the equivalent of the injured or lost resources; but the State's suit could not have recovered for the Nation the cost of assessing injury or the value to the Nation of lost services. As for the Nation's third count, a claim of federal common-law nuisance, the injunctive relief sought is identical to what the State sought on its claims that went to trial. But the compensatory and punitive damages sought by the Nation for past and future injury could not have been recovered for the Nation in the State's suit. The Nation has not argued any theory under which the State could have adequately represented the Nation's interest in obtaining monetary relief on this claim. We can sum up as follows regarding the three types of interests that the Nation sought to pursue in its proposed complaint. First, insofar as the Nation had an interest in injunctive relief against Tyson, it could have reasonably assumed from the outset of the suit that the State would adequately represent the Nation's interests, and nothing that occurred before the Nation moved to intervene would suggest the contrary. The district court ruled that the State could pursue its injunctive relief and has held a trial on that matter. The Nation had no need to intervene in that trial; and apparently it never sought to modify its motion to intervene to allow it to be a party at that trial. Second, insofar as the Nation had an interest in recovering past response and assessment costs under CERCLA and both compensatory damages (for past and future injury) and punitive damages under federal common law, the State's complaint never sought such recovery for the Nation, and nothing in the record suggests that the Nation could have reasonably believed that those interests would be adequately protected by the State in its lawsuit. Third, insofar as the Nation had an interest in damages for its future response and restoration costs under CERCLA, the State's complaint did not seek such damages for the Nation. Perhaps the Nation could have believed that the State's suit would protect this interest of the Nation because success in the State's suit would eliminate any need for the Nation to incur such future costs; but nothing in the record directly supports such a belief. Accordingly, for much, perhaps most, of what the Nation sought in its proposed complaint, nothing had happened in the four-plus years since the State filed its complaint that would indicate that the State could no longer adequately represent the Nation's interests. Either the Nation's interests were never represented by the State (the interest in past CERCLA damages and in all common-law-nuisance compensatory and punitive damages) or were still being adequately represented by the State (the interest in injunctive relief). In particular, with respect to these interests the Nation could not point to some event shortly before it moved to intervene that could explain a sudden effort to intervene. On this basis alone, the district court could properly find an unjustified delay by the Nation in seeking to intervene. Moreover, even if one assumes that the Nation reasonably believed when the State filed its suit that the Nation would be protected by the suit from incurring future costs to remedy the alleged pollution, the Nation can still be charged with a delay of almost a year. The Nation was on notice that its reliance on the State was questionable when Tyson filed its motion to dismiss in October 2008. Indeed, the Nation was certainly aware of the risk to its interests in early 2009 when it began negotiations with the State to assign it those interests. The Nation has not explained why it could not have moved to intervene at the same time that it was conducting those negotiations; such a motion would have protected it in the event of deadlocked negotiations or, as happened, court rejection of the agreement. If the date for commencement of trial had still been far off, it may have made perfect sense to try negotiating before moving to intervene. But given the imminent date for a lengthy trial, the district court could decide that the Nation (and the State) were taking an unreasonable risk by putting all their eggs in the negotiated-agreement basket. A potential intervenor cannot ignore the prejudice to others that could result from a last-minute intervention. Likewise, the Nation's attempts to facilitate settlement of the case in August 2009 (a month before trial) came too late to justify delay in moving to intervene. After all, a party cannot excuse its unreadiness for trial on the ground that it had been trying to settle the dispute. At some point well before trial a party must realize that it needs to plan for the possibility that negotiations will fail. That said, however, we recognize that delay in itself does not make a request for intervention untimely. The requirement of timeliness is not a tool of retribution to punish the tardy would-be-intervenor.... Utah Ass'n of Counties v. Clinton, 255 F.3d 1246, 1250 (10th Cir.2001) (internal quotation marks omitted). The other factors in the test for untimeliness must also be considered. See id. (timeliness requirement is a guard against prejudicing the original parties by the failure to apply sooner (internal quotation marks omitted)); 7C Wright et al., supra § 1916, at 541-48 (The most important consideration in deciding whether a motion for intervention is untimely is whether the delay in moving for intervention will prejudice the existing parties to the case.). We now turn to those factors.