Opinion ID: 770390
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Prejudice to the Original Parties.

Text: 67 In their brief in opposition to intervention filed with the district court, the plaintiffs-appellees wrote: 68 Adding additional parties to this action will delay the proceedings by making the action more complex. Plaintiffs have served their expert reports. Dispositive motions are due to be completed soon. A trial date has been set. It strains credulity to assert that adding four additional parties and five attorneys to a case so far along will not delay and prejudice Plaintiffs. 69 J.A. at 97. The appellants, essentially conceding that intervention without delay and resulting prejudice would have been incredible, did not even attempt to assert a counter-argument before the district court. 70 On appeal, the appellants do argue that allowing intervention would not carry with it any prejudice or undue delay. But appellants' arguments are unpersuasive. The appellants first insist that intervention would not have caused any delay, as shown by their having timely filed an amicus brief before the district court. This argument, of course, ignores the fact that, if the district court had allowed the appellants to become parties, appellants would certainly have sought to obtain discovery, submit expert reports, and so on; if the appellants sought to intervene only in order to submit briefs on the issues, then their participation as amici curiae should have been sufficient. 71 Indeed, if the district court had allowed intervention only on the condition that the existing case-specific deadlines remained intact - thereby protecting the original parties from delay and undue prejudice, and conforming with Congress's mandate to adopt and adhere to a delay reduction plan - the appellants surely would be complaining now that the district court should have allowed them to conduct some discovery and submit their own expert reports. It is more likely that allowing intervention would have substantially interfered with the orderly processes of the district court. 72 The appellants also insist that allowing them to intervene would not cause the plaintiffs any prejudice, undue or otherwise. But this bald statement disregards the economic realities of this case. Each day that the Federal Defendants' regulations governing Crooked Lake are upheld translates as another day of lost income to the plaintiffs. See Stupak-Thrall II, 988 F. Supp. at 1059 ([p]otential renters have told Stupak-Thrall that they will not rent [her Crooked Lake properties] if they cannot use gas powered motor boats; and [a]fter news was received about the passage of Amendment No. 5 and the ban on gas motors, Mr. Gajewski noticed an immediate decline in reservations [at his Crooked Lake Resort], so that he fears his business will not survive). Allowing intervention would, indeed, cause delay and undue prejudice to the plaintiffs. This factor weighs against intervention. 73