Court Opinion

ID: 9493428
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:07:41.881509+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:00.868787
License: Public Domain

MOORE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The majority affirms the district court’s denial of the appellants’ (“Wilderness Association’s”) motion to intervene as of right pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(a) on the ground that the motion was untimely. Because I believe that, considering all relevant circumstances, the Wilderness Association’s motion was timely, and because the Wilderness Association has satisfied the three other requirements for intervention of right, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s opinion.
I must first register my disagreement with the majority’s decision to affirm the district court on timeliness grounds. As both the majority and the plaintiffs-appel-lees recognize, the district court made no explicit conclusion with regard to the timeliness of the Wilderness Association’s motion to intervene. See ante, at 472; Br. of Appellees at 4 (“The district court made no specific findings as to the timeliness of the Wilderness Association’s Motion to Intervene.”). Nevertheless, the majority explains that the opinion reflects an “implie-it[ ] conclusion]” that the motion was not timely filed, and it reasons that the district court denied the motion at least in part based on timeliness grounds. Ante, at 472. Unlike the majority, I find no such implicit conclusion in the district court’s opinion; to the contrary, I believe that the district court could not have been more clear that its decision rested entirely on adequacy of representation. In summarizing its analysis, the district court wrote: “The Wilderness Association has not met its burden of showing that the government defendants will not adequately protect their interests. Accordingly, it is not entitled to intervention as of right under Rule 24(a)(2).” J.A. at 43 (D.Ct. Op.). The majority’s reliance on the fact that the parties discussed timeliness in their appellate briefs as support for its conclusion that the district court made a finding of untimeliness is unfounded. First, although the parties addressed this element in their briefs, they did not do so on the assumption that the district court found the motion to intervene untimely. In fact, the Wilderness Association argued that the district court impliedly found its motion to intervene timely. Second, I fail to see how the parties’ discussion of this element (in addition to the three other elements) provides any evidence of what the district court implicitly held.
In the absence of specific district court findings regarding timeliness, this court has previously assumed that the proposed intervenors satisfied the timeliness requirement. See Bradley v. Milliken, 828 F.2d 1186, 1191-92 (6th Cir.1987) (“The district court did not rely on untimeliness to deny the proposed intervenors’ motion, and we believe it would be improper to make findings on all the relevant criteria without the benefit of the district court’s insights. Therefore, for the remainder of our analysis, we will assume that the threshold requirement of timeliness has been met.”). Such an approach would have been appropriate in this case. At the very least, the majority should have reviewed this element de novo, rather than for abuse of discretion.
Moving to the merits, I disagree with the majority’s analysis of the five timeliness factors. First, although the Wilderness Association’s motion to intervene was not filed until nearly seven months after the filing of the complaint, and although the Wilderness Association arguably should have known that its interests were implicated from the outset, I do not believe that “it was very late in the course of the litigation, by every measure.” Ante, at 474. The motion to intervene was filed on December 11, 1998. While the discovery period was already closed at that time, no dispositive motions had yet been filed, and in fact that deadline was still nearly two months away. .The suit, therefore, had not *481progressed far in terms- of filings or rulings. Furthermore, the Wilderness Association did not seek intervention for the purpose of reopening discovery, which would undoubtedly have caused delay in the proceedings. Instead, the Wilderness Association sought to intervene primarily for the purposes of ensuring that its interests would be represented in the event of an out-of-court settlement, as well as ensuring that its interests would be protected in any additional litigation, including appellate proceedings.1 Considering all the circumstances and the purposes for which the Wilderness Association sought to intervene, I believe that the Wilderness Association did not unduly delay in filing its motion to intervene.
Most importantly, permitting the Wilderness Association to intervene at that time would not have caused any prejudice to the original parties. The Wilderness Association filed a proposed answer to the plaintiffs’ complaint along with its motion to intervene before the federal defendants had even made a filing, and it filed an amicus curiae brief in support of the federal defendants’ motion for summary judgment' just one day after the defendants filed their motion. The instant situation is similar to the one presented in Jansen v. City of Cincinnati, 904 F.2d 336 (6th Cir.1990), in which we held a motion to inter-ven^ timely based in part on the fact that “less than two weeks after moving to intervene! ] the proposed intervenors moved to file a memorandum in opposition to summary judgment and tendered the memorandum with the .motion,” which enabled the district court “to consider proposed intervenors’ interest without delaying a ruling on. the summary judgment motion.” Id. at 341. Because the Wilderness Association- submitted a brief in support of summary judgment just one day after the court-ordered deadline for the filing of dis-positive motions, it is difficult to understand how permitting the Wilderness Association to submit its brief as a party defendant rather than as an amicus curiae would have made any difference to the course of the proceedings. As in Jansen, in the instant case the original parties would not have been prejudiced by the timing of the motion to intervene-. The majority disagrees, explaining 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.” Ante, at 478. This is speculation. The Wilderness Association has steadfastly maintained, and it reiterated at oral argument, that it never intended to reopen discovery in the case; instead it sought to intervene in order to participate as a party on appeal and in any settlement negotiations that might occur. Although permitting intervention would have added additional parties' and attorneys to the case, there is simply no basis for the conclusion that intervention would have ■ delayed the proceedings or prejudiced the appellees.
In sum, a consideration of the five timeliness factors leads me to the conclusion that the Wilderness Association’s motion was timely for purposes of intervention of right.
*482Furthermore, I believe that the Wilderness Association has satisfied each of the three additional elements required for intervention of right pursuant to Rule 24(a): a substantial legal interest in the case; impairment of the ability to protect that interest in the absence of intervention; and inadequate representation of that interest by the parties before the court. See Grutter v. Bollinger, 188 F.3d 394, 397-98 (6th Cir.1999). It is beyond doubt that the Wilderness Association’s interests in preserving and protecting the Sylvania Wilderness and its participation in the process leading to the designation of the Sylvania Wilderness are sufficient to support intervention of right, and that these interests will be impaired if the appellees prevail in the instant action. The significant question is whether the interests of the Wilderness Association are adequately represented by the federal defendants.
With regard to this final element, ordinarily a proposed intervenor need only show that representation of its interests “ ‘may be’ inadequate; and the burden of making that showing should be treated as minimal.” Trbovich v. United Mine Workers, 404 U.S. 528, 538 n. 10, 92 S.Ct. 630, 30 L.Ed.2d 686 (1972). “It has been said that, given this standard, the applicant should be treated as the best judge of whether the existing parties adequately represent his or her interests, and that any doubt regarding adequacy of representation should be resolved in favor of the proposed intervenors.” 6 MooRe’s Federal Practice § 24.03[4][a], at 24-42 (3d ed.) (footnote omitted). The district court, relying on the parens patriae doctrine, held that the Wilderness Association had failed to make “a strong affirmative showing” that the federal defendants were inadequate representatives of its interests. J.A. at 43 (D.Ct. Op.) (internal quotation marks omitted). The majority correctly notes that the district court’s reliance on the parens patriae doctrine was erroneous, as we have previously rejected this doctrine. See Grutter, 188 F.3d at 400.
It is clear that with regard to wilderness management issues, the interests of the federal defendants and the Wilderness Association are likely to diverge; while both parties’ broad goal is to preserve the wilderness character of the Sylvania Wilderness, the Wilderness Association has often advocated for greater management restrictions than the federal defendants think appropriate. The instant litigation, however, is not a challenge to particular management restrictions, but is rather a challenge to the federal defendants’ authority to include Crooked Lake within the boundaries of the Sylvania Wilderness. On this issue the interests of the Wilderness Association and the federal defendants are largely coextensive; both maintain that the boundaries of the Sylvania Wilderness as originally designated are proper.
Nevertheless, the Wilderness Association argues that its interests would not be adequately represented in any settlement negotiations that may take place between the parties. Unlike the majority, I believe that the Wilderness Association’s concerns are valid. The litigation between these parties has spanned five years, and there are currently two other appeals related to the instant case pending in this court. The federal defendants have appealed the decision in Stupak-Thrall II, in which the district court held invalid certain motor boating restrictions. That appeal has Been stayed pending resolution of the plaintiffs appeal of the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the federal defendants in this case, which itself has been stayed pending the outcome of this appeal. The possibility is real that the federal defendants may be willing to enter into settlement negotiations in order to resolve these issues; and if the parties do begin settlement negotiations, this would present the very conflict in interest between the federal defendants and the Wilderness Association regarding wilderness management issues that was outlined above. Cf. Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians v. Minnesota, 989 F.2d 994, 1001 (8th Cir.1993) *483(“Although the Band notes that the counties’ and the landowners’ proposed answers are almost identical to the answer filed by the state, there is no assurance that the state will continue to support all the positions taken in its initial pleading. Moreover, if the case is disposed of by settlement rather than by litigation, what the state perceives as being in its interest may diverge substantially from the counties’ and the landowners’ interests.”).
I therefore believe that the Wilderness Association has sufficiently demonstrated that representation of its interests may be inadequate. Accordingly, I would reverse the district court’s denial of the Wilderness Association’s motion to intervene.

. The majority explains that the purposes for which the Wilderness Association sought to intervene "provide, at most, only lukewarm support for their motion.” Ante, at 477. The majority rests this conclusion on the fact that the views of the Wilderness Association are largely in accord with those of the federal defendants on the central substantive question presented in the case. The majority rejects, as too speculative, the Wilderness Association’s argument that its interests would not adequately be protected in the event of a settlement or in the event that the federal defendants were to abandon the litigation. I believe that the majority’s discussion of adequacy of representation is inappropriate in the timeliness analysis; the point of looking to the purposes of intervention as a factor in the timeliness analysis is to determine whether the proposed intervenors acted promptly in light of the purposes for which intervention was sought. In any event, as I will explain below, I do not believe that the interests of the Wilderness Association are adequately represented by the federal defendants.