Opinion ID: 770253
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Applicant's Delay in Filing Motion and Resulting Prejudice to Existing Parties

Text: 22 We have affirmed a denial of a motion to intervene where granting intervention would have jeopardized a settlement. See, e.g., Pitney Bowes, 25 F.3d at 72 (explaining that intervention would delay agreed-upon cleanup of Superfund site and require parties to begin negotiations again from scratch). In Pitney Bowes, we affirmed the denial of intervention in part because the parties had negotiated for eight months before reaching a final agreement with respect to a proposed consent decree that had been lodged with the District Court, see id., as well as because the applicant's explanations for its delay in filing a motion to intervene were inadequate, see id. at 71. The applicant in Pitney Bowes had submitted a letter to the District Court opposing the proposed consent decree within one month of learning about it, but had waited another seven months before filing its actual motion to intervene. See id. We rejected the explanation that the applicant had delayed because it had been waiting for a response to its letter, noting that the applicant could have filed the motion in the meantime. See id. We have also rejected as sufficient justification for a delay in filing a motion to intervene the argument that the delay occurred because the order that triggered the need to intervene came as a total surprise to the proposed intervenors. See Catanzano, 103 F.3d at 233. In Catanzano, we reasoned that the applicants should have known that the issue addressed by the order in question had been clearly present in the litigation from the very beginning. Id. 23 In the present case, the parties engaged in extensive negotiations, lasting more than a year, before reaching an agreement. Once the parties submitted the written Settlement-with its definition of Victims or Targets of Nazi Persecution-appellants waited another eight months before moving to intervene in October 1999. Appellants had been on notice of their arguable interest in this litigation for at least eight months, since they had submitted their letter objecting to the Settlement in February 1999. 24 Appellants argue that they delayed in filing the motion because their previous attorney discovered a conflict of interest and withdrew from the case in September or October 1999. This argument fails because the attorney's withdrawal occurred very late and, therefore, does not account for most of the eight months of delay. 25 Appellants also argue that their delay was due in part to the fact that they were waiting for a response to their letter. As in Pitney Bowes, this reason is not a sufficient justification for the delay. See Pitney Bowes, 25 F.3d at 71. Appellants would still have had to intervene, and could have filed their motion as they waited for a response, if a response was indeed appropriate. 26 In short, intervention at this late stage would prejudice the existing parties by destroying their Settlement and sending them back to the drawing board. In light of this prejudice, and of appellants' unjustified delay in submitting their motion, the District Court did not abuse its discretion in denying intervention as of right.