Court Opinion

ID: 9490302
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:39:51.888393+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:01.636884
License: Public Domain

EMILIO M. GARZA, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I agree with much of today’s majority opinion. I agree with the majority that the complaint is not a motion under Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b)(1) — (6), and that it should more properly be considered an independent action in equity, since Beggerly explicitly invoked the equitable jurisdiction of the district court in his complaint. I agree with the majority that the district court erred in dismissing the action as untimely, because there is no fixed limitations period for such equitable actions. And finally, I agree with the majority that the equities of this case favor Beggerly and his family. However, because we do not have jurisdiction to provide such relief, I must part company with the majority. As judges, we have equitable discretion to do justice within the limits of the law, but we can go no further. In this case, the government has not waived its sovereign immunity to suit, which bars our jurisdiction to provide relief.
As an initial matter, I would not treat an independent action in equity as a “continuation” of the underlying suit with ancillary jurisdiction from the original action. In a similar context, the Supreme Court appears to have foreclosed the notion of ancillary jurisdiction in eases such as this one, involving a challenge to a settlement agreement in federal court. Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 511 U.S. 375, 380, 114 S.Ct. 1673, 1676, 128 L.Ed.2d 391 (1994) (“No case of ours asserts, nor do we think the concept of limited federal jurisdiction permits us to assert, ancillary jurisdiction over any agreement that has as part of its consideration the dismissal of a case before a federal court.”).
Furthermore, the Fifth Circuit has long held that independent actions must have jurisdiction independent of the judgments they challenge. Bankers Mortgage Co. v. United States, 423 F.2d 73, 78 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 399 U.S. 927, 90 S.Ct. 2242, 26 L.Ed.2d 793 (1970); Jones v. Watts, 142 F.2d 575 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 323 U.S. 787, 65 S.Ct. 310, 89 L.Ed. 628 (1944); Zegura v. United *490States, 104 F.2d 34, 35 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 308 U.S. 586, 60 S.Ct. 109, 84 L.Ed. 490 (1939).1
West Virginia Oil & Gas v. George E. Breece Lumber, cited by the majority, appears to have created an exception to this general rule. West Virginia Oil was a federal diversity case in which the parties to the original action were diverse, but after judgment, sales of the property at stake defeated complete diversity. 213 F.2d 702, 704 (5th Cir.1954). In West Virginia Oil, we held that the district court had continuing diversity jurisdiction to correct errors in the original judgment. Id. at 706-07. The “ancillary jurisdiction” reasoning of West Virginia Oil has little or no precedential value in light of the Supreme Court’s holding in Kokkonen or in light of our prior cases, reflected most recently in Bankers Mortgage, in which we required that an independent action be “founded upon an independent and substantive equitable jurisdiction.” 423 F.2d at 78.
Moreover, to the extent that West Virginia Oil has any value as precedent, the case is inapposite here because it is on a completely different jurisdictional footing. West Virginia Oil was a case in which the parties could not review the judgment in federal court without ancillary jurisdiction. Beggerly, on the other hand, could have pursued this suit under several different statutes conferring federal jurisdiction independent of that in the original action. The federal courts would have had independent jurisdiction over a timely action under the Quiet Title Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2409a; the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1491; and probably general federal question jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (putting sovereign immunity to one side for the moment). Because there is no need to assert ancillary jurisdiction to review the underlying settlement in federal court, West Virginia Oil is not on point, even to the extent that it was ever good law in the first place.2
My concern over the characterization of this suit as independent or ancillary is not as serious as my other concerns: waiver of sovereign immunity and the proper reach of the majority opinion.
The United States is, of course, immune from suit without its consent, Loeffler v. *491Frank, 486 U.S. 549, 554, 108 S.Ct. 1965, 1969, 100 L.Ed.2d 549 (1988), and we are to construe waivers of sovereign immunity “strictly in favor of the sovereign.” United States Dep’t of Energy v. Ohio, 503 U.S. 607, 615, 112 S.Ct. 1627, 1633, 118 L.Ed.2d 255 (1992). Beggerly can cite no statutory waiver of sovereign immunity in this case, either in the original action or in the independent action. The majority bypasses the question of sovereign immunity by holding that “governmental consent is not required to bring an independent action in the same court as the original aetion[,]” citing the Second Circuit’s opinion in Weldon v. United States, 70 F.3d 1, 4 (2d Cir.1995). Regardless of the equities of any individual case, governmental consent is always required as a prerequisite to federal jurisdiction. Loeffler, 486 U.S. at 554, 108 S.Ct. at 1968-69.
The Second Circuit’s opinion in Weldon is not to the contrary. Although the Second Circuit in Weldon agrees with the majority that independent actions are “continuations” of the original actions they challenge, the court does not claim that waiver of sovereign immunity is unnecessary. In Weldon, the parties sued under the Federal Tort Claims Act in the original suit, which constituted a statutory waiver of sovereign immunity. 70 F.3d at 2. The Weldon court held that, because the independent action was essentially a continuation of the original suit, the government’s waiver of sovereign immunity in the original action should continue to bind the United States in the subsequent challenge. Id. Weldon does not suggest that waiver is unnecessary, only that it may be continued from the original suit. So even if we were to find in the instant case that independent actions should be considered a continuation of the original actions they challenge (a point I still dispute), there would still be no waiver of sovereign immunity in the original action for us to continue. Of course, we cannot equitably waive sovereign immunity on behalf of the government; therefore we do not have jurisdiction to consider this suit.3
My final concern is that the majority reaches issues not before us in this opinion. Even if there were a waiver of sovereign immunity in this case, we would have no jurisdiction to reach the merits of Beggerly’s cross motion for summary judgment, the validity of the Boudreau Grant, or the ownership of Horn Island, as the majority does. These issues are fraught with difficult fact questions that must be decided by the district court, which alone has jurisdiction to consider them. Moreover, the majority should not have reached those issues on the incomplete summary judgment record before us, but instead should have remanded them to the district court. Therefore I respectfully dissent.

. I recognize that there is a conflict among the other circuits regarding whether independent actions require independent jurisdiction. Compare Weldon v. United States, 70 F.3d 1, 4 (2d Cir.1995) (holding that independent actions are ancillary to original suit) and Crosby v. Mills, 413 F.2d 1273, 1275 (10th Cir.1969) (same) with In re Hunter, 66 F.3d 1002, 1005-06 (9th Cir.1995) (rejecting notion of ancillary jurisdiction in independent actions); United States v. Timmons, 672 F.2d 1373, 1378-79 (11th Cir.1982) (same); and Andrade v. United States, 202 Ct.Cl. 988, 485 F.2d 660, 664 (1973) (same), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 831, 95 S.Ct. 55, 42 L.Ed.2d 57 (1974). See also 11 Charles A. Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Mary Kay Kane, Federal Practice & Procedure; Civil § 2868 at 403 (2d ed.1995) (supporting notion of ancillary jurisdiction, citing generally Pacific R. Co. v. Missouri Pac. Ry. Co., 111 U.S. 505, 522, 4 S.Ct. 583, 592-93, 28 L.Ed. 498 (1884)); 7 James W. Moore, Moore’s Federal Practice V 60.38[1], at 60-399 (2d ed.1995) (same).

. Our West Virginia Oil opinion relies solely on an apparent misreading of Supreme Court precedent. In West Virginia Oil, the court confused the history of independent actions and the common law predecessors to the separate actions of Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b). Independent actions are distinct, and "should under no circumstances be confused with ancillary common law and equitable remedies, or their modem substitute, the 60(b) motion." Bankers Mortgage, 423 F.2d at 78. The West Virginia Oil court simply cited a Supreme Court case that found ancillary jurisdiction for the precursor to Rule 60(b) motions, and held that there was similar ancillary jurisdiction in independent actions.
The West Virginia Oil court relied on Pacific Railroad of Missouri v. Missouri Pacific Railway Co., 111 U.S. 505, 522, 4 S.Ct. 583, 592, 28 L.Ed. 498 (1884), which involved a bill in equity to vacate a judgment on the basis of fraud. The bill in equity in that case was a bill of review (one of the forebears of Rule 60(b)), not an independent action in equity. Zegura, 104 F.2d at 35 (characterizing the bill in Pacific Railroad as a "bill of review"). Therefore Pacific Railroad has little or no precedential force for independent actions. A bill of review, like a Rule 60(b) motion, had to be brought in the court that rendered judgment and was essentially a request that the court reopen the judgment to reverse or correct a final decree. Wright, Miller & Kane, Federal Practice & Procedure; Civil § 2867 at 394. The unremarkable fact that a motion to reopen a judgment enjoys ancillary jurisdiction therefore should not disturb our precedents holding that independent actions in equity are founded upon an independent and substantive equitable jurisdiction. Bankers Mortgage, 423 F.2d at 78. I agree with the Bankers Mortgage court, and apparently the Supreme Court in Kokkonen, that it is important not to confuse the two conceptually distinct avenues for review.

. Presumably a timely challenge to the original action under the Quiet Title Act or the Tucker Act, each of which involves a statutory waiver of immunity, would not suffer from this infirmity of the independent action in equity.