Opinion ID: 220390
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Stage of the proceedings

Text: To determine whether the stage of the proceeding factor supports a finding of untimeliness, the court should consider not only what had not yet occurred prior to the motion to intervene, but also what had already occurred by that time. See LULAC, 131 F.3d at 1303 (emphases in original). This factor weighs heavily against allowing intervention as of right where the trial court has substantially engaged the issues in a case. Smith v. Marsh, 194 F.3d 1045, 1051 (9th Cir.1999). But the mere lapse of time, without more, is not necessarily a bar to intervention; changed circumstance may suggest[] that the litigation is entering a new stage and, therefore, militate in favor of granting the application. United States v. Oregon, 745 F.2d 550, 552 (9th Cir.1984). The magistrate judge found that this factor weighed against timeliness in this case, but the reasons he cited for this finding are without support in inferences that may be drawn from facts in the record. The magistrate judge first noted that two related cases that challenged the 2001 and 2002 specifications, respectively, had been resolved on appeal. But this says little, if anything, about the stage of the proceedings in this case which dealt with fish quotas for 2009-10, not 2001 and 2002. This is true even as to the 2001 specifications case, which was consolidated with this case and then dismissed. The 2002 specifications case has an even more tenuous connection to this case because that case was never consolidated with this one. Moreover, WCSPA timely intervened in the 2002 specifications case, but later moved to participate in this case only as an amicus. The only reasonable inference is that WCSPA perceived its interest to be stronger in challenges to the quotas in the specifications than in challenges to the procedural reforms of the Groundfish Plan amendments. The magistrate judge also noted that, back in August 2001, he had granted summary judgment in this case to NRDC, in part because Amendment 12 violated the Magnuson Act's requirement that rebuilding plans take the form of a fishery management plan, plan amendment, or proposed regulation. NRDC v. Evans, 168 F.Supp.2d 1149, 1158 (N.D.Cal.2001). But Amendment 12 is no longer at issue in this case because, by its own admission, NRDC is no longer pursuing ... claims [as to] Amendments 12 and 16-1 through 16-3. Only Amendment 16-4, which supersedes the prior amendments, is still at issue in this case. Summary judgment as to Amendment 12 therefore does not support the magistrate judge's finding that this case is at a late stage in the proceedings. Cf. United States v. Alisal Water Corp., 370 F.3d 915, 921 (9th Cir.2004) (motion that was pending as to the bulk of ongoing claims supported a finding that the motion to intervene came at a late stage in the litigation). What the magistrate judge did not consider is that the filing of the Fifth Amended Complaint started the clock running as to the substance of that Amendment; the stage of the proceeding was now the initial stage of the proceeding with respect of NRDC's challenge to the 2009-10 specifications. The Fifth Amended Complaint challenged specifications for the first time in this case as to the 2009-10 specifications and quotas, rather than in a separate action as NRDC had done before without exception. Indeed, because NRDC did not file a separate action to challenge the 2009-10 specifications, the Fifth Amended Complaint challenged those specifications for the first time ever, in this case or any other. The magistrate judge therefore had not engagedmuch less substantially engagedthe 2009-10 specifications in any prior proceeding in this case. At the time WCSPA moved to intervene, this case was not at issue; NMFS had not even filed a responsive pleading to the Fifth Amended Complaint. See LULAC, 131 F.3d at 1303 (holding the stage of the proceedings supported a finding of untimeliness of the proposed intervention where the defendant had filed an answer). Thus, this case entered a new stage with the filing of the Fifth Amended Complaint. Here, I find instructive our opinion in Oregon, where the State of Idaho moved to intervene as of right in litigation over the extent to which two other states could, consistent with the treaty rights of several Indian tribes, regulate fishing in a river that runs through all three states. 745 F.2d at 551. The district court, which five years earlier had approved a plan between the parties for managing fisheries in the river, denied Idaho's motion as untimely. Id. at 552. It did so even though the motion was filed soon after two Indian tribes had withdrawn from the fisheries management plan and the district court had ordered the parties to renegotiate the plan. Id. at 552. We reversed, largely because the possibility of new and expanded negotiations between the parties regarding a modified fisheries management plan constituted a changed circumstance and suggested the litigation was entering a new stage. Id. Far from agreeing with the district court that the stage of litigation disfavored intervention, we held that the changed circumstance essentially had reset the clock on the time for filing a motion to intervene, such that the stage of the proceeding ... militate[d] in favor of granting Idaho's motion to intervene. See id. In this case, I would likewise hold that the filing of the Fifth Amended Complaint constituted a changed circumstance that reset the timeliness clock. Even if, prior to WCSPA's motion to intervene in this case, a lot of water had already passed underneath [the] litigation bridge as to Plan amendments, LULAC, 131 F.3d at 1303, no water had passed underneath that bridge as to the 2009-10 specifications. The 2001 specifications case, which had been consolidated with this case, was dismissed following our opinion in NRDC, 316 F.3d at 913; and none of the actions that challenged the 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005-06 specifications/quotas were ever consolidated with this case. Significantly, WCSPA intervened as a full-fledged party in each of those actions. Thus, the magistrate judge's finding that WCSPA's motion to intervene came too late in the proceedings is without support in inferences that may be drawn from facts in the record.