462 F.2d 1142 | Ct. Cl. | 1972
Lead Opinion
This pro se petition is brought under 28 U.S.C. § 1491 and F.R.C.P. Rule 60(b). Plaintiffs allege they were owners of mining claims, that defendant built a dam and flooded their property, and thereafter filed a declaration of taking with a suit to condemn the property, brought in the United States District Court, District of Utah. Because of fraud on the court and misconduct of plaintiffs’ then attorney, plaintiffs were awarded only $20,000 though they then claimed their property was worth $16,000,000, and now demand as just compensation $56,100,000, with interest at six percent. Trial took place before a jury, in 1966. It appears that after the jury made its award, plaintiffs here (except Morrison, who came into the case later as an assignee) had their falling out with their counsel, one Oman, who filed a motion to establish an attorney’s lien against the $20,000 awarded. The plaintiffs responded pro se with a letter to the trial judge, filed in the case, and making against Mr. Oman many of the same accusations made in the petition herein. It concludes with a prayer that the court under Eule 60(b) grant a new trial. New counsel thereafter appeared for our plaintiffs in lieu of Oman and presumably he treated the
Defendant originally moved to dismiss, relying on res judicata and collateral estoppel. On authority of Advertising Checking Bureau, Inc. v. United States, 141 Ct. Cl. 430, 159 F. Supp 330 (1958), there can be no doubt these are good grounds absent plaintiffs’ invocation of F.R.C.P. Rule 60(b). Defendant originally disposed of this by advising us that the F.R.C.P. do not apply to cases in this court. However, we noted that F.R.C.P. 60(b) and our Rule 152(b) are virtually identical, and we thought a reference to the first by a pro se plaintiff here should be taken to mean the second. We concluded that plaintiffs intended to bring an “independent action” under Rule 152(b) “to relieve a party from a judgment, order, or proceeding, or to set aside a judgment for fraud upon the court.” Being, however, doubtful whether this was adequate authority to enable us to relieve a party from a judgment of a United States District Court, we entered an order directing the parties to furnish supplemental briefs on the question, and this they have diligently done. We conclude we lack jurisdiction to entertain such an “independent action.”
Our rules must be read in light of the principle that:
* * * the court cannot, through its acknowledged rule-making power, expand its jurisdiction beyond the limits prescribed by Congress. * * * Rolls Royce Ltd. v. United States, 176 Ct. Cl. 694, 701, 364 F. 2d 415, 419 (1966).
In that case we cited Graf v. United States, 87 Ct. Cl. 495, 24 F. Supp 54 (1938). This is a rule of construction that governs the application of all our rules. The quoted language of Rule 152(b) has its proper scope for application in cases where plaintiff seeks in this court relief against an earlier decision of this court. Thus in Haggar Co. v. United States (Nos. 48790 and 48791) 121 Ct. Cl. 891 (1952, erroneously 1942 in report), we adjudicated the claims there involved for
When the prior judgment attacked in the “independent action” is that of a different court, the new court must be one having “independent and substantive equity jurisdiction” because the action is equitable in nature. 7 Moore’s Federal Practice, § 60.36, quoted and followed in Bankers Mortgage Co. v. United States, 423 F. 2d 73, 78-79 (5th Cir), cert. denied, 399 U.S. 927 (1970). See also, Winfield Associates, Inc. v. Stonecipher, 429 F. 2d 1087, 1090 (10th Cir. 1970); Locklin v. Switzer Bros., Inc., 335 F. 2d 331 (7th Cir. 1964), cert. denied, 379 U.S. 962, reh. denied, 380 U.S. 926 (1965), among many that defendant cites. These decisions interpret and apply F.R.C.P. 60(b) but their bearing upon our practically identical Rule 152 (b) is obvious, particularly since, with respect to “independent actions,” both rules speak in terms of preserving a previously existing type of relief, not creating a new one.
We may exercise equitable powers as an incident to our general jurisdiction, for example, reforming a contract and enforcing it as reformed in an action at law. Chernick v. United States, 178 Ct. Cl. 498, 372 F. 2d 492 (1967). But our general jurisdiction under the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1491, does not include an action for “specific equitable relief” such
So far as the suit would relitigate the condemnation in the Utah District it is barred by collateral estoppel and res judicata unless we can grant relief as plaintiff would have us do, under Eule 152(b), and we cannot do that without stepping outside our jurisdiction, granting “specific equitable relief.”
In our order of November 24th, 1971, we also sought to be advised as to the possible transfer of this case to the Utah District Court, under 28 U.S.C. § 1506. Neither party will have any part of this, and it now appears, what we did not know on the date of the order, that plaintiffs Carney and St. John sued in the District Court, for the District of Utah, on June 1, 1970, joining the trial judge with the United States as defendant. The relief sought was essentially the same as here, i.e., to relitigate the original condemnation in an “independent action.” Plaintiffs specifically referred to F.E.C.P. 60(b). The defendant, United States, moved to dismiss the complaint for want of jurisdiction and another judge, than the one sued, granted the motion on October 22nd, 1971. The papers furnished us do not show the grounds of want of jurisdiction asserted, but defendant here says that the Dis
Defendant would undertake to show that the preconditions for an “independent action” do not exist. It discusses and would rely on defenses, including laches, if we took jurisdiction. Since we do not, it is unnecessary to consider them.
We reserved the right in our November 24th, 1971, order to decide the case without oral argument. Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment is denied. Defendant’s motion for summary judgment is allowed. The petition is dismissed.
Concurrence Opinion
concurring in the result:
My difficulty with the court’s opinion is that I am far from sure that we are without statutory jurisdiction in this case since the plaintiffs are simply seeking a monetary judgment for a “taking” (a claim over which we clearly have normal cognizance), and they ask us to set aside the Utah judgment simply as one step toward obtaining the money judgment they desire for this “taking”. They do not seek a declaration setting aside the prior judgment as an end in itself, but merely as an intermediate step on the way to a money judgment on a claim within our ordinary jurisdiction. In this respect, there does seem an analogy in the reformation and rescission, cases in which we set aside or reform a contract on the way toward granting a money judgment which is otherwise within our statutory authority. As we said recently in Quinault Allottee
Defendant repeats the ancient but inaccurate shibboleth that this court has no “equity jurisdiction”, and then argues that since the class suit was originally a creature of equity we cannot use it. The correct premise is, not that we are without equity jurisdiction, but that we cannot grant nonmonetary equitable relief such as an injunction (United States v. Jones, 131 U.S. 1 (1889)), a declaratory judgment (United States v. King, 395 U.S. 1 (1969)), or specific performance. Where the relief is monetary, we can call upon such equitable concepts as rescission and reformation to help us reach the right result. United States v. Milliken Imprinting Co., 202 U.S. 168, 173-74 (1906), confirming on this point, 40 Ct. Cl. 81, 98-99 (1904). If procedural techniques which are the children of equity were forbidden to this court, we could not utilize such common and useful practices as intervention, depositions and discovery, all of which have become integral to our practice.
Perhaps the rescission and reformation cases are fundamentally different, but I am not prepared to say so definitively.
I concur in the result because I interpret that part of our Eule 152(b) which says, “This rule does not limit the power of the court to entertain an independent action to relieve a party from a judgment, order, or proceeding, or to set aside a judgment for fraud upon the court”, as not applying to this kind of case but only to a truly “independent action” challenging one of our own orders, judgments or proceedings. This reading seems to me called for by our past practice (cited by the court) as well as by the serious doubt (discussed in the court’s opinion) as to our statutory jurisdiction to entertain an “independent action” to set aside the judgment of another court. The result, in my view, is that plaintiffs are barred at the threshold by the prior Utah judgment, and cannot avail themselves, in this court, of the charge of fraud since, as I see it, Eule 152(b) applies only to a truly “independent action” ¡to set aside a judgment of our own. This is not such an “independent action”; there is no “independent” action at all, and the suit does not involve a judgment of this court.