Court Opinion

ID: 9366222
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-01-26 15:02:57.224241+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:15:50.814278
License: Public Domain

Case: 21-60749     Document: 00516400964          Page: 1     Date Filed: 07/20/2022

              United States Court of Appeals
                   for the Fifth Circuit                               United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                Fifth Circuit

                                                                              FILED
                                                                          July 20, 2022
                                   No. 21-60749                          Lyle W. Cayce
                                                                              Clerk

   John Quincy Adams, on behalf of themselves and all others situated;
   Alean Adams, on behalf of themselves and all others situated,

                                                            Plaintiffs—Appellants,

                                       versus

   Pearl River Valley Water Supply District; Jennifer
   Hall; Ben Evans; Billy Cook; Jack Winstead; Samuel
   Mitchell; Lonnie Johnson; Tedrick Ratcliff; Kenny
   Windham; Bruce Brackin; Phillip Crosby; John Pittman;
   Kenny Latham; W. C. Gorden,

                                                         Defendants—Appellees.

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                    for the Southern District of Mississippi
                            USDC No. 3:20-CV-469

   Before King, Elrod, and Southwick, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam:*

          *
            Pursuant to 5th Circuit Rule 47.5, the court has determined that this
   opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited
   circumstances set forth in 5th Circuit Rule 47.5.4.
Case: 21-60749       Document: 00516400964             Page: 2      Date Filed: 07/20/2022

                                        No. 21-60749

           Two Mississippi residents sued a state agency and its directors. They
   alleged violations of federal and state law arising out of that agency’s failure
   to notify them of the sale of property they formerly owned. The plaintiffs
   cannot show an imminent threat of injury. We AFFIRM the dismissal but
   conclude that the dismissal must be revised to one without prejudice. Thus,
   we also VACATE and REMAND.
               FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
          John Quincy Adams and Alean Adams are Mississippi residents who
   once owned and lived on a parcel of land near what is now the Ross Barnett
   Reservoir. The Reservoir is the second largest lake in the state. Caleb
   Smith, Lakes, Miss. Enc. 702–03 (2017). In 1958, the Mississippi
   Legislature created the Pearl River Valley Water Supply District, tasking it
   with acquiring necessary real property, creating the Reservoir by
   constructing a dam on the Pearl River, and then managing the lake and
   adjacent acquired land. 1 Miss. Code. Ann. § 51-9-103. The waters
   released from the dam flow unvexed to the Gulf of Mexico, first along the
   eastern limits of the nearby city of Jackson, then southerly until forming, for
   the last 100 miles or so, the boundary between Mississippi and Louisiana.
          The District is empowered “[t]o acquire by condemnation all
   property of any kind . . . within the project area.” Miss. Code. Ann. § 51-
   9-121(f). If the District decides that any of the land it has acquired is to be
   “rented, leased, or sold . . . for the purpose of operating recreational facilities

           1
             The District describes itself this way: “The Pearl River Valley Water Supply
   District is the state agency created to construct and manage the 33,000-acre Barnett
   Reservoir and the 17,000 acres surrounding the lake. . . . A Board of Directors approves
   plans and projects for the District. The board members represent four state agencies and
   five counties that it serves in Central Mississippi.” About Us, Barnett Reservoir,
   Pearl River Valley Water Supply District, https://www.the
   rez.ms.gov/Pages/About.aspx.

                                              2
Case: 21-60749      Document: 00516400964           Page: 3     Date Filed: 07/20/2022

                                     No. 21-60749

   thereon for profit,” the District must solicit bids, determine the highest bid,
   then notify the former owner of the “amounts, terms, and conditions” of that
   bid. Id. A former owner then will “have the exclusive right at his option, for
   a period of thirty (30) days after the determination of the highest and best bid
   by the board, to rent, lease, or purchase said site or plot of land by meeting
   such highest and best bid and by complying with all terms and conditions of
   the renting, leasing, or sale as specified by the board.” Id.
          In July 2020, the Adamses filed their complaint in the United States
   District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. Six weeks later they
   filed an amended complaint. The defendants include the thirteen directors of
   the District in their official capacities, and the complaint alleged numerous
   federal and state law claims.
          According to the amended complaint, the District acquired the
   relevant land in two separate deeds from the plaintiffs and other family
   members in 1960. One transaction involved 2 acres on which the plaintiffs
   lived, while the other was a conveyance of 118 acres to the District by John
   Quincy Adams’s father. Later in his father’s will, John Quincy Adams
   received a 1/11 share of any property in which his father “may have [had] an
   interest.” The amended complaint sets out claims for a class of all former
   owners of property that was acquired by the District. No motion to certify
   the class was ever filed. In general terms, without ever identifying any
   particular transaction, the amended complaint alleged that the District has
   failed to provide the requisite notice to former owners when it sells or leases
   property that it acquired.
          The Adamses claim that the District violated Section 51-9-121(f) when
   it failed to give them notice of pending sales or leases of their former property.
   The Adamses further alleged that these violations form the basis of
   Fourteenth Amendment procedural and substantive due process violations

                                           3
Case: 21-60749      Document: 00516400964           Page: 4    Date Filed: 07/20/2022

                                     No. 21-60749

   and Fifth Amendment Takings Clause violations, enforceable under 42
   U.S.C. § 1983. The Adamses requested a declaratory judgment that the
   District’s sales and leases of property without notice were ongoing
   constitutional violations and asked the court to fashion whatever injunctive
   relief it deemed necessary to correct the violations going forward, including
   ancillary monetary relief.
          In September 2020, the District moved to dismiss.             With their
   opposition filed in October, the plaintiffs included ten exhibits reflecting
   some past advertisements by the District for bids on property (there is no
   assertion this was the plaintiffs’ property) along with other evidence. In
   October 2020, counsel for the plaintiffs filed a response which contains, as
   far as we can tell, the only reference to the District’s sale or lease of part of
   the 118 acres. The claim was that a residential subdivision is on part of the
   former family tract. In February 2021, an affidavit from each named plaintiff
   was filed. The affidavits gave more details on the family’s sale of property to
   the District, including their doing so only on threat of condemnation, and also
   some details on the probate of the will of John Quincy Adams’s father. The
   only allegation about a specific sale or lease by the District is in John Quincy
   Adams’s affidavit. In one sentence, he claims that at some point after the
   sale, a church “was built on or near our land deeded” to the District
   (emphasis added.) The affidavit also asserts that the District never notified
   them of an opportunity to match the highest bid on the property. There is
   nothing in the affidavits about a subdivision on any of the father’s former land
   nor when the District offered any of their former property for public bidding.
          In September 2021, the district court dismissed the lawsuit on the
   basis that there was no jurisdiction. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1). The
   court concluded that the District was entitled to sovereign immunity and that
   the plaintiffs failed to show that an exception for injunctive relief announced

                                          4
Case: 21-60749      Document: 00516400964          Page: 5    Date Filed: 07/20/2022

                                    No. 21-60749

   in Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908), applied here. Consequently, the
   action was dismissed. The Adamses timely appealed.
                                 DISCUSSION
          This    court    “review[s]     Eleventh     Amendment        immunity
   determinations, like other questions of subject matter jurisdiction, de novo as
   a question of law.” United States v. Texas Tech Univ., 171 F.3d 279, 288 (5th
   Cir. 1999). The plaintiffs filed several exhibits and also two affidavits. The
   district court did not explicitly rely on any of that evidence when dismissing
   the case. If the court did rely in some manner, there was no error in doing so.
   When considering a Rule 12(b)(1) motion, a district court may go beyond the
   pleadings to affidavits and other evidence to determine its jurisdiction. See
   Williamson v. Tucker, 645 F.2d 404, 413–14 (5th Cir. 1981).
          At the 12(b)(1) stage, the plaintiffs bear the burden of demonstrating
   jurisdiction. See Menchaca v. Chrysler Credit Corp., 613 F.2d 507, 511 (5th Cir.
   1980). This court, though, can affirm “on any grounds supported by the
   record, including a party’s lack of standing.” Hosein v. Gonzales, 452 F.3d
   401, 403 (5th Cir. 2006). Although the district court analyzed the case on the
   basis of sovereign immunity, we instead will analyze standing, which can
   “significantly overlap” that analysis. See City of Austin v. Paxton, 943 F.3d
   993, 1002 (5th Cir. 2019) (quotation marks and citation omitted).
          A litigant seeking redress in federal court must show that he has
   standing to pursue his claims. See, e.g., Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504
   U.S. 555, 560–61 (1992). To establish standing, a plaintiff must demonstrate
   an injury that is “concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent; fairly
   traceable to the challenged action; and redressable by a favorable
   ruling.” Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms, 561 U.S. 139, 149 (2010).
          Litigants must also demonstrate standing with respect to the type of
   relief they seek. See City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 111 (1983). The

                                          5
Case: 21-60749      Document: 00516400964          Page: 6    Date Filed: 07/20/2022

                                    No. 21-60749

   Adamses recognize that they must seek prospective injunctive relief to even
   attempt to escape the state’s sovereign immunity defense. To proceed with
   such a claim for prospective injunctive or declaratory relief, a plaintiff must
   demonstrate continuing harm or a “real and immediate threat of repeated
   injury in the future.” Society of Separationists, Inc. v. Herman, 959 F.2d 1283,
   1285 (5th Cir. 1992).      The threat of future injury must be “certainly
   impending”; mere “[a]llegations of possible future injury” do not suffice.
   Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA, 568 U.S. 398, 409 (2013) (emphasis omitted)
   (quotation marks and citations omitted). Past wrongs, of course, can be
   “evidence bearing on whether there is a real and immediate threat of
   repeated injury,” but alone they may be insufficient to establish standing for
   prospective relief. See Crawford v. Hinds Cnty. Bd. of Supervisors, 1 F.4th 371,
   376 (5th Cir. 2021) (quoting Lyons, 461 U.S. at 102).
          Lyons is particularly relevant to our analysis. There, the Supreme
   Court considered whether a plaintiff had standing to pursue prospective
   relief against police officers who had performed an illicit chokehold on him.
   See Lyons, 461 U.S. at 105. The Court noted that his standing to pursue that
   relief “depended on whether he was likely to suffer future injury from the use
   of the chokeholds by police officers.” Id. In concluding that he could not
   make such a showing, the Court noted that the alleged incident — which
   occurred only five months earlier — did “nothing to establish a real and
   immediate threat that he would again be stopped” and subjected to that
   method of restraint. Id.
          Here, although the Adamses purport to act on behalf of a class, no
   motion to certify was filed. The Adamses must demonstrate that they have
   been injured, regardless of any class certification, and we will consider the
   allegations only as to them. See Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330, 338 n.6
   (2016). We identify two relevant assertions. First, John Quincy Adams
   submitted an affidavit stating that the two acres sold to the district in 1960

                                          6
Case: 21-60749      Document: 00516400964           Page: 7    Date Filed: 07/20/2022

                                     No. 21-60749

   were subsequently sold or leased and notice was not given. Second, the
   plaintiffs allege that John Quincy Adams’s father, Joseph, sold 118 acres of
   land to the District, some of which were later sold or leased. Further, 15
   named heirs, including John Quincy Adams, were not given notice.
          The Adamses’ response in opposition to the District’s motion to
   dismiss contains only nonspecific allegations of “ongoing present and future
   development” of the District’s land. We are not required, though, to accept
   “a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation,” and we instead look to
   the actual facts alleged. See Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555
   (2007) (quoting Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 286 (1986)). The Adamses
   identify only a possible past wrong: they “have suffered and been deprived of
   statutory notice of the impending lease or sale” of their former property.
   They do not allege, plausibly or otherwise, that there is a real and immediate
   possibility that the property will be leased or sold in the future.
          Once any claims for monetary relief were properly dismissed because
   of sovereign immunity, all that remains was in essence a demand for the court
   to order the District to comply with state law in the future as to any of the
   family’s former land. Even if the Adamses’ rights were violated in the past,
   the Adamses have at best offered “[a]llegations of possible future injury” that
   they have not claimed is imminent, or “certainly impending,” or anything
   other than speculative. See Clapper, 568 U.S. at 409 (quotation marks and
   citation omitted).
          We uphold the dismissal of the complaint for lack of standing. The
   complaint, though, should not have been dismissed with prejudice. The suit
   was dismissed on a Rule 12(b)(1) motion.           If the court did not have
   jurisdiction, it could not enter an order on the merits; declaring that the
   plaintiff cannot bring another suit is a merits decision. Heaton v. Monogram
   Credit Card Bank of Ga., 231 F.3d 994, 1000 (5th Cir. 2000).

                                           7
Case: 21-60749     Document: 00516400964          Page: 8   Date Filed: 07/20/2022

                                   No. 21-60749

         We AFFIRM the dismissal but VACATE and REMAND for the
   limited purpose of allowing the district court to enter a revised order
   dismissing the claims without prejudice.

                                        8