Opinion ID: 203380
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Instructions to Citizens To File Third-Party Complaints in a New Case

Text: On July 20, 2007, the court denied Citizens's motion for leave to file supplemental third-party complaints in the existing case, given its preference that further proceedings be docketed as a new case. The court's order included the following language: After carefully considering the issues briefed by the parties, the Court finds that the Phase One Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law are not binding on the Court or any of the parties to this litigation. Under the changed circumstances in the case, those findings and conclusions were superseded by the Settlement Agreement reached between the City of Bangor and Citizens and the Court approved Consent Decree between the State of Maine, the City of Bangor, and Citizens. As such, those findings and conclusions were never available for appellate review and, thus, never became final. Accordingly, given that Citizens had expressed its willingness to file its supplemental third-party complaints as a new case and, the court concluded, there would not be any prejudice to the third parties, the court ordered that the supplemental third-party complaints be filed as a new case. The effect of the language quoted above is presented as a major issue in this appeal. On November 28, 2007, the court granted Citizens's motion to dismiss its third-party claims without prejudice and deemed all of the pending third- and fourth-party motions for judgment moot and therefore dismissed all of them without prejudice. City of Bangor v. Citizen Commc'ns Co., No. 02-183, 2007 WL 4233094, at -2 (D.Me. Nov.28, 2007). On November 29, 2007, the district court issued a final judgment in which it entered judgment in favor of the United States Army Corps of Engineers with respect to Citizens's third-party claims and noted that the Amended Consent Decree (which did not involve any substantive changes from the proposed Consent Decree) had been entered as a final judgment.