Opinion ID: 186000
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Judicial Overreaching

Text: 28 The Department argues we have jurisdiction over its claim of judicial overreaching pursuant to § 1292(a)(1) because the district court's rulings (1) imposed an injunction; or (2) had the practical effect of an injunction; or (3) worked a modification of a declaratory judgment that the [district] court has [since] held to be indistinguishable from a mandatory injunction. The gravamen of the Department's argument, however expressed, is that the district court orders both require[ ] action and implicitly enjoin[ ] the Secretary's future exercise of discretion. 29 We disagree. As the plaintiffs demonstrate, the Orders and the Opinion were full of sound and fury, but they signified very little to be done by the DOI. In the Contempt Order the court appointed a Special Master-Monitor, 226 F.Supp.2d at 163 ¶ ¶ 13-16, and required the defendants, in anticipation of the Phase 1.5 trial, to file with the Court ... a plan for conducting a historical accounting of the IIM trust accounts and to file a plan for bringing themselves into compliance with [their] fiduciary obligations. Id. at 162 ¶ ¶ 2, 3. It also held Secretary Norton and Assistant Secretary McCaleb in contempt, id. at 161 ¶ ¶ 1-5, and ordered them to pay the expenses the plaintiffs had incurred for the contempt trial. Id. at 162 ¶ ¶ 9-10.  30 None of this had the practical effect of an injunction. The Contempt Order compels the Department only to prepare for the Phase 1.5 proceedings by making certain filings with the court. As such, we think it more akin to an order ... relat[ing] only to the conduct or progress of litigation, Gulfstream Aerospace, 485 U.S. at 279, 108 S.Ct. at 1138, than to an injunction. 31 The Department also points to the district court's statement that it will order new relief following the Phase 1.5 trial rather than simply remand[ing] the matter back to the agency, Contempt Opinion, 226 F.Supp.2d at 152, as evidence that the court intends to take over the management of trust reform. Such a claim is premature. To be sure, the district court stated it has determined that it will grant further injunctive relief, id. at 146 — specifically, a structural injunction, id. at 146 n. 154 — presumably upon completion of the Phase 1.5 trial. Any such injunction, once issued, would be appealable under § 1292(a)(1). But no such injunction has yet issued. At worst, the district court has threatened to take action that, according to the Department, would violate the separation of powers. Until the district court takes such action, however, we are without power under § 1292(a)(1) to review its decisions. 32 Anticipating that the court might lack jurisdiction to hear the present appeal, the Department asks us in the alternative to issue a writ of mandamus providing equivalent relief. But we may not do that, either. The Department's challenge does not meet the criteria for the writ; in particular, the Department has not shown that an appeal from the district court's eventual entry of an injunction, if and when that occurs, would not provide it with adequate relief. 33