Court Opinion

ID: 9486958
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:04:47.544388+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:01.751600
License: Public Domain

MAYER, Circuit Judge,
with whom NIES * and RADER, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting.
Because I see no reason to reconsider our recent in bane decision in UNR v. United States, 962 F.2d 1013 (Fed.Cir.1992), aff'd sub nom. Keene Corp. v. United States, 508 U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 2035, 124 L.Ed.2d 118 (1993), I dissent.
I.
A court is free to reverse itself when it sits in banc, of course, but “any departure from the doctrine of stare decisis demands special justification,” which is missing from today’s undertaking. Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U.S. 164, 172, 109 S.Ct. 2363, 2370, 105 L.Ed.2d 132 (1989) (citation omitted). This is especially so “in the area of statutory interpretation, for here, unlike in the context of constitutional interpretation, the legislative power is implicated, and Congress remains free to alter what we have done.” Id.
This case revolves around the authority of the Court of Federal Claims to hear petitioners who have a suit against the government relating to the same claims pending in another court. 28 U.S.C. § 1500 (Supp. IV 1992).1 Like all federal courts, the Court of Federal Claims has limited jurisdiction, with a range of authority extending only so far as Congress, by statute, permits; the statutes that define the court’s jurisdiction must be strictly construed. Keene, — U.S. at —, 113 S.Ct. at 2040. Though this may work injustice in a particular case, we cannot, in the interest of justice or equity, presume to expand jurisdiction beyond these narrow bounds. Christianson v. Colt Indus. Operating Corp., 486 U.S. 800, 818, 108 S.Ct. 2166, 2178, 100 L.Ed.2d 811 (1988).
In UNR we addressed the meaning of “claim” under section 1500. 962 F.2d at 1023. The claims heard by the Court of Federal Claims generally involve requests for monetary relief. But it does not follow that only suits brought in other courts for money damages can give rise to section 1500’s jurisdictional bar. Section 1500 divests the Court of Federal Claims of jurisdiction over such a claim where the plaintiff has a suit for the claim pending in another court or where the one in the Court of Federal Claims relates to — is “in respect to” — another suit. The jurisdictional question raised by section 1500 is thus not simply whether the claims are the “same,” but whether they are sufficiently related to invoke the bar. In UNR, the in banc court reaffirmed that the answer lies in a comparison of the operative facts from which the suits arise. “[Cjorrectly construed, section 1500 applies to all claims on whatever theories that ‘arise from the same operative facts.’ ” 962 F.2d at 1023 (citation omitted).
*1557UNR was “a comprehensive effort to set out the proper interpretation of a jurisdictional statute, a matter that does not require a pointed dispute between parties. Courts are obliged to resolve jurisdictional questions on their own even if parties do not raise them. In the course of this interpretive effort, if prior cases are seen as inconsistent, it is incumbent on the court to acknowledge their nonviability.” 962 F.2d at 1028. At issue were the indemnification claims of corporations who manufactured and supplied asbestos products in the course of contract work for the government. When workers filed personal injury suits against the corporations arising from exposure to their products, the defendants sought indemnification from the government in district court, alleging tort theories, and in the Court of Federal Claims on contractual theories.
We confirmed the trial court’s dismissal of the claims, holding that section 1500 applied regardless of which action was first filed, and that “claim”, as it appears in the statute, refers not to the legal theory of the suit but to the operative facts supporting the petitioners’ various actions. Thus, we held that the petitioners’ claims in the Court of Federal Claims were claims for or in respect to which they had suits pending in the district court, even though the former were based on contractual theories of recovery and the latter on tort theories, because they arose from the same personal injuries. Id. at 1023.
We also considered the exception to this rule set out in Casman v. United States, 135 Ct.Cl. 647 (1956), which excused adherence to section 1500 where the claims in question seek different forms of relief. We all knew a factual predicate for a Casman exception was not before us in UNR, but during the course of our consideration of the statute, it was plain that we could not square that and like cases with the clear meaning of the jurisdictional statute. That statute, as a whole, was before us in UNR; there is no requirement that a factual predicate underlay every jot and tittle of it before a court can explain what it means.
The history of section 1500 is replete with instances where courts sought to temper perceived inequity by inventing exceptions to the rule. See 962 F.2d at 1020. In Casman, the injustice was thought to arise because no court was able to simultaneously grant complete relief to the petitioner: he sought restoration to his position, available only in the district court, and back pay, which he could only recover in the Court of Claims. Cas-man held section 1500 inapplicable because it was thought unfair to force the plaintiff to choose between the two courts. 135 Ct.Cl. at 650.
But it is axiomatic that courts cannot extend their jurisdiction in the interest of equity. Christianson, 486 U.S. at 818, 108 S.Ct. at 2178. Faced with a jurisdictional statute riddled with judicially created loopholes, in UNR we concluded that section 1500 should be applied according to its plain words, and that instrumental to such application was a single, coherent definition of the word “claim” as referring only to the facts underlying the petitioner’s action against the government. This construction is consistent with precedent stretching back sixty years or more. UNR, 962 F.2d at 1023; Johns-Manville Corp. v. United States, 855 F.2d 1556, 1563 (Fed.Cir.1988); British American Tobacco Co. v. United States, 89 Ct.Cl. 438, 440 (1939).2 We overruled Casman because it was in conflict with this interpretation.
The Supreme Court agreed that “the comparison of the two cases for purposes of possible dismissal would turn on whether the plaintiffs other suit was based on substantially the same operative facts as the Court of Claims action, at least if there was some overlap in the relief requested.” — U.S. at —, 113 S.Ct. at 2042. Finding that the Casman exception was not implicated by the facts of the case before it, the Court chose not to decide whether two actions seeking different relief would require dismissal under *1558the statute. Id. — U.S. at — n. 6, 113 S.Ct. at 2043 n. 6. The Court said nothing by way of disapproval of our ruling on Cas-man. But nine of the ten judges hearing that case here said that Casman was unsound and inconsistent with section 1500. One wonders why six of them now think otherwise.
Be that as it may, now, only one year later, the court resurrects Casman, scrambling once more down the path of judicial revision of the statute. Normally, “[i]n cases where statutory precedents have been overruled, the primary reason for the Court’s shift in position has been the intervening development of the law, through either the growth of judicial doctrine or further action taken by Congress.” Patterson, 491 U.S. at 173, 109 S.Ct. at 2370. To my knowledge, no laws have changed in the short time since we decided UNR. Departing from stare decisis demands more than cursory distinctions — at the very least, one would expect reversal of our so recent in banc precedent to be supported by some compelling reason.
“[A] traditional justification for overruling a prior case is that a precedent may be a positive detriment to coherence and consistency in the law....” Id. This was the justification which supported the overruling of Casman in UNR. We said there that section 1500, which had become a judicial embarrassment, a monument to cynicism, “is now so riddled with unsupportable loopholes that it has lost its predictability and people cannot rely on it to order their affairs.” 962 F.2d at 1021. In fact, only the other day we unanimously agreed that “fail[ure] to adhere to a statutory mandate over an extended period of time does not justify ... continuing to do so.” In re Donaldson, 16 F.3d 1189, 1194 (Fed.Cir.1994) (in banc).
I agree that plaintiffs should have access to the full range of remedies which the Constitution and statutes provide, especially in light of the important public interest in controlling government excesses. Indeed, the claims of these property owners might well be valid on the merits, if only it were appropriate to reach them. When the government takes private property it must pay just compensation. But Congress set out just how such plaintiffs may bring their suits; we have no right to second guess in the absence of congressional transgression of the Constitution.
It cannot seriously be doubted that Congress has the power to order that the government need not defend claims arising from the same operative facts simultaneously in several forums. That a commonly based suit is pending in the district court does not necessarily forever divest the Court of Federal Claims of jurisdiction over a claim; section 1500 decrees only that a party cannot maintain actions in both courts at the same time. It may sometimes happen that the district court challenge is not finished within six years, after which any Court of Federal Claims action would be barred. See 28 U.S.C. § 2501 (1988 & Supp. IV 1992). But statutes limiting courts’ jurisdiction will always work injustice in particular cases. Christianson, 486 U.S. at 818, 108 S.Ct. at 2178. See also Keene, — U.S. at —, 113 S.Ct. at 2045. This is not such a case, however, for Loveladies’ district court action, including its appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, was resolved within three years. See Loveladies Harbor, Inc. v. Baldwin, Civ. No. 82-1948 (D.N.J. March 12, 1984), aff'd, 751 F.2d 376 (3d Cir.1984). Loveladies still would have had three years in which to file its claim in the Court of Federal Claims for compensation after the resolution of its challenge to the permit denial.
As we said in UNR, “[i]t may have seemed unfair ‘to deprive plaintiffs of the only forum they [had] in which to test their demand,’ but that does not justify rewriting the statute.” 962 F.2d at 1022 (citation omitted). “Our individual appraisal of the wisdom or unwisdom of a particular course consciously selected by the Congress is to be put aside in the process of interpreting a statute. Once the meaning of an enactment is discerned and its constitutionality determined, the judicial process comes to an end.” TVA v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153, 194, 98 S.Ct. 2279, 2301, 57 L.Ed.2d 117 (1978).3 In Keene, the Supreme Court *1559suggested that efforts to reform section 1500 should be addressed to Congress. — U.S. at —, 113 S.Ct. at 2045. That was the point of UNR, and I still think so. In fact, a bill to do just that has been introduced. S. 1355, 103d Cong., 1st Sess. (1993).
II.
Finally, the court’s resurrection of Casman is not even supported by the facts of this case. The government argues that in both the district court and the Court of Federal Claims the complaints sought relief “[d]eclar-ing that the action of the defendant in denying the permit application of plaintiffs constitutes a taking of property in violation of plaintiffs’ rights under the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution.” This is sufficient overlapping relief to make the question one of operative facts alone, even under this court’s imaginative reading of Keene. See — U.S. at —, 113 S.Ct. at 2043 (relying on operative facts when there is “some overlap in the relief requested”).
The court elides this argument by saying that we should ignore the words of the complaints — language expressly requesting a declaration of a taking — and substitute instead its understanding of what Loveladies must have intended by the several suits. It concludes that Loveladies did not seek overlapping relief because it must not have intended to request a “formal” declaration under the Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2201 (1988). For support, the court notes that Loveladies also requested damages in the Court of Federal Claims, while it requested none from the district court. It then cites the absence of any express reference to the Declaratory Judgment Act, and the lack of any evidence that the proceedings were conducted according to the rules governing proceedings under that act. Finally, the court points out that Loveladies had adequate remedies in both the district court and the Court of Federal Claims without either court declaring anything. From this, it supposes that Loveladies could not really have been requesting declaratory relief at all.
But declaratory relief is not some special, exclusive remedy; it is an additional form of relief, readily available even when it would be cumulative of other requested relief. 28 U.S.C. § 2201 (allowing declaration of rights “whether or not farther relief is or could be sought”); Fed.R.Civ.P. 57 (“The existence of another adequate remedy does not preclude a judgment for declaratory relief_”). It is simply irrelevant that Loveladies asked for monetary relief in one forum and not in the other, and that either court could grant adequate relief aside from any declaration.
Nor is it surprising that Loveladies did not rely on the Declaratory Judgment Act as a basis for jurisdiction, since that act is not an independent source of federal jurisdiction. Skelly Oil Co. v. Phillips Petroleum Co., 339 U.S. 667, 671, 70 S.Ct. 876, 878, 94 L.Ed. 1194 (1950); Speedco, Inc. v. Estes, 853 F.2d 909, 911 (Fed.Cir.1988). Indeed, there is no special set of procedures governing declaratory judgment actions; they are controlled by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Fed.R.Civ.P. 57. Under those rules, Lovela-dies needed only to state facts adequate to support its request for relief; no ritualistic citation to the Declaratory Judgment Act was necessary.
That said, the court’s position reduces to a decision to ignore Loveladies’ request for overlapping relief because it resulted from imprecise pleading, a mere oversight that we should excuse since the district court had no jurisdiction to address the takings allegation. But it makes no difference under section *15601500 whether there is subject matter jurisdiction in the district court, or not. See Frantz Equipment Co. v. United States, 98 F.Supp. 579, 580, 120 Ct.Cl. 312 (1951) (“The applicability of Sec. 1500 to the first claim of plaintiff, asserted in its petition herein, is not conditioned upon the question of whether the District Court had jurisdiction of the claim asserted by the plaintiff therein....”). All that matters even under the court’s new rule is that Loveladies had a suit pending in the district court seeking relief overlapping that requested in the Court of Federal Claims. That the district court ultimately dismissed the first count is irrelevant; it was pending when Loveladies filed suit in the Court of Federal Claims, so section 1500 applies.
The result of the court’s machinations is to revive Brown v. United States, 358 F.2d 1002, 1005, 175 Ct.Cl. 343 (1966), which said, “Section 1500 was not intended to compel claimants to elect, at their peril, between prosecuting their claim in this court (with conceded jurisdiction, aside from Section 1500) and in another tribunal which is without jurisdiction.” But we overruled Brown in UNR, 962 F.2d at 1022, and in Keene the Supreme Court expressly agreed, — U.S. at — & n. 12, 113 S.Ct. at 2045 & n. 12.

 Circuit Judge Nies vacated the position of Chief Judge on March 17, 1994.

. The United States Court of Federal Claims shall not have jurisdiction of any claims for or in respect to which the plaintiff or his assignee has pending in any other court any suit or process against the United States....

Id.

. The court tells us that we have always applied section 1500 pursuant to a two pronged test, operative facts and relief requested. But there is no evidence of this before the Casman departure in 1956, a period of some 88 years after the statute was enacted. We did not notice this phenomenon in our UNR exercise, and the Supreme Court apparently missed it in Keene, as well. See - U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2043.

. In words worthy of our consideration, the Court continued: "The lines ascribed to Sir *1559Thomas More by Robert Bolt are not without relevance here:
The law, Roper, the law. I know what's legal, not what’s right. And I’ll stick to what's legal .... I'm not God. The currents and eddies of right and wrong, which you find such plain-sailing, I can't navigate, I'm no voyager. But in the thickets of the law, oh there I’m a forester.... What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? ... And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws being flat? ... This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast — Man's laws, not God's — and if you cut them down ... d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow them? ... Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.”
437 U.S. at 195, 98 S.Ct. at 2302 (quoting R. Bolt, A Man for All Seasons, Act I, p. 147 (Three Plays, Heinemann ed. 1967)).