Opinion ID: 220390
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Reason for and length of delay

Text: The final factor that bears on the timeliness of a motion to intervene is the the length of and the reason for its delay. LULAC, 131 F.3d at 1304. To assess the timeliness of a motion to intervene, the crucial date is not the date the applicant learned of the case, but rather the date that the applicant should have been aware its interests would no longer be protected adequately by the parties. Id. (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). The applicant's failure adequately to explain the reason for its delay in moving to intervene may weigh even more heavily than the delay itself in finding the motion untimely. See id. Here, the magistrate judge found that WCSPA waited over seven years from the time NRDC filed the original complaint in 2001, and over four years from the time we highlightedin NRDC v. National Marine Fisheries Service, 421 F.3d 872, 878 (9th Cir.2005)the economic impact of rebuilding plans on fishing communities, before WCSPA moved to intervene in response to the Fifth Amended Complaint. The magistrate judge also found that WCSPA gave no reason for its delay, but merely denied that there had been any delay. But WCSPA was correct to insist that it did not delay; WCSPA moved to intervene only two days after the magistrate judge granted NRDC leave to file the Fifth Amended Complaint. As noted above, in the Fifth Amended Complaint NRDC raises new issues not mentioned in the previously operative complaintit challenged the 2009-10 specifications, as opposed to mere Groundfish Plan amendments. In so doing, NRDC fundamentally altered WCSPA's interest in this case because by challenging the 2009-10 specification, NRDC challenged specific quotas on the amount of each overfished groundfish species that may be fishedand therefore processedin 2009 and 2010. This bears far more heavily and directly on the ability of WCSPA's members to earn their livelihood processing fish than the Groundfish Plan amendment. These new issues triggered WCSPA's right to intervene. Whereas WCSPA had been content to participate in this case as an amicus, it consistently intervened in separate actions that challenged the specifications/quotas. The most reasonable inference from this pattern of litigation is that WCSPA concluded that NMFS could adequately protect WCSPA's interests as to Groundfish Plan amendments at issue in this case, but that NMFS could not adequately protect WCSPA's interests as to specifications at issue in the other actions. Thus, WCSPA had no cause to intervene in this case until the filing of the Fifth Amended Complaint. Given the pattern of litigation set out above, in which NRDC challenged successive Groundfish Plan amendments in this case and annual/biennial specifications in separately filed actions, WCSPA had no reason to know that NRDC would one day challenge the 2009-10 specifications not by continuing its practice of commencing a separate action, but by amending its complaint in this case. WCSPA therefore had no reason to intervene in this case prior to the filing of the Fifth Amended Complaint. See Alisal, 370 F.3d at 923 (A party must intervene when he knows or has reason to know that his interests might be adversely affected by the outcome of litigation. (internal quotation marks omitted)); cf. United States v. Washington, 86 F.3d 1499, 1506 (9th Cir.1996) (A failure to realize that one's interests are in jeopardy until very late in the proceedings may make a late motion to intervene `timely.'). Accordingly, the magistrate judge's finding that WCSPA's motion to intervene in this case was long delayed, for no apparent reason, is without support in inferences that may be drawn from facts in the record. Thus, in light of all the factors that bear on timeliness, the magistrate judge abused his discretion when he denied WCSPA's motion to intervene as untimely.