Case Information
*2 Before N EWMAN , L OURIE , and P ROST , Circuit Judges . P ROST , Circuit Judge .
Central Pines Land Company, L.L.C., D, S, & T, INC., Drost & Brame, INC., Linda Lew Lawton Drost, Evalyn Gay Lawton Duhon, Jack E. Lawton, JR., Tower Minerals Company, L.L.C., Jack E. Lawton, SR., and William B. Lawton Company, L.L.C. (collectively, “Central Pines” or “plaintiffs”) appeal the decision of the United States Court of Federal Claims (“Claims Court”) to dismiss their tak- ings claims for lack of jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1500. Central Pines Land Co. v. United States , 99 Fed. Cl. 394 (2011). Because § 1500 barred the Claims Court frоm having jurisdiction over this action, we affirm.
B ACKGROUND
The progression of Central Pines’s two suits informs the § 1500 issue before us. On August 22, 1996, Central Pines and others, some of whom are not party to the current action, filed suit against the United States, et al., in the U.S. District Court for the District of Louisiana. Central Pines alleged it was the owner of all oil, gas, and other minerals underlying propеrty in Vernon Parish, Louisiana, which it subdivided into Group A, Group B, and Group C mineral servitudes. It claimed that between 1943 and 1978, the United States imposed a drilling and operations moratorium on the three groups and that the surface has continually been used for bombing and artil- lery practice. It further alleged that starting in 1992, the United States, claiming ownership ovеr the mineral rights, has granted a series of oil and gas leases covering the property in interest. Based on these factual allega- tions, Central Pines filed for declaratory judgment quiet- ing title to the property. In the alternative, it alleged an unconstitutional taking without just compensation in violation of the Fifth Amendment.
In a pair of decisions issued on April 7, 1999 and July
28, 2008, the district court granted summary judgment to
the United States with regards to Group A and Group B
mineral servitudes because the Louisiana prescription
period was not suspended by the government’s moratori-
ums. With regards to Group C, the district court granted
summary judgment to Central Pines, finding that the
Group C servitude was imprescriptible. On November 28,
2001, thе Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court.
Cen-
tral Pines Land Co. v. United States
, 274 F.3d 881 (5th
Cir. 2001). On October 7, 2002, Central Pines’s petition
for writ of certiorari was denied.
Central Pines Land Co.
v. United States
,
On April 3, 1998, while summary judgment motions were pending in district court, Central Pines filed a complaint in the Claims Court, alleging a taking without just compensation in violation of the Fifth Amendment. As in its district court complaint, Central Pines alleged it was the owner of all oil, gas, and other minerals underly- ing property in Vernon Parish, Louisiana, which it subdi- vided into Group A, Group B, and Group C mineral servitudes. It claimed that between 1943 and 1978, the United States imposed a drilling and operations morato- rium on the three groups and that the surface has con- tinually been used for bombing and artillery practice. It further alleged that starting in 1992, the United Stаtes, claiming ownership over the mineral rights, has granted a series of oil and gas leases covering the property in inter- est. Central Pines acknowledged that it had filed suit against the United States, et al., in district court for quiet title and, alternatively, for an unconstitutional taking in violation of the Fifth Amendment. Central Pines ex- plained that its Claims Court suit was brought in the alternative of its district court action, and requested that its Claims Court suit be stayed pending resolution in the district court.
The Claims Court granted the stay, which remained
in place until November 12, 2002. Upon lifting the stay,
the Claims Court ordered plaintiffs to amend their com-
plaint, and on January 6, 2003, plaintiffs filed a First
Amended and Restated Complaint. They alleged a tеm-
porary taking of the Group C mineral servitude and
permanent taking of Group A and Group B mineral
servitudes. The complaint reiterated the same factual
allegations to title and the same government conduct
made in the original complaint, and added allegations
based on the resolution of the district court action. Liti-
gation with regard to these three mineral servitudes
proceeded. In 2004, the Claims Court dismissed the
Group A and Group B claims and limited the Group C
claim to post-1992 action.
Central Pines Land Co. v.
United States
,
On May 26, 2011, while the parties were briefing the question of attorneys fees and costs and prior to the entry of final judgment, the United States filed a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1500, in light of the Supreme Court’s recent decisiоn in United States v. Tohono O’Odham Nation , 131 S. Ct. 1723 (2011). On September 7, 2011, the Claims Court granted the United States’ motion to dismiss. Central Pines Land Co. v. United States , 99 Fed. Cl. 394 (2011). The Claims Court compared the district court complaint and the original Claims Court complaint line- by-line, finding that the operative facts alleged in the two complaints were nearly identical. Id. at 400-02. Because these two complaints shared the same operative facts and thus were “for or in respect to” the same claim, § 1500 precluded the Claims Court from exercising jurisdiction over the plaintiffs’ original Claims Court complaint, which was filed while the district court action was pend- ing. Id. The Claims Court also rejected plaintiffs’ argu- ment that their First Amended and Restated Complaint was a supplemental cоmplaint that vested the Claims Court with jurisdiction previously lacking over the origi- nal complaint. Id. at 402-03.
Central Pines appeals the dismissal of its Claims Court action. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(3).
D ECISION
We review the Claims Court’s decision to dismiss a
case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction de novo.
Trusted Integration, Inc. v. United States
,
The United States Court of Federal Claims shall not have jurisdiction of any claim 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 or any person who, at the time when the cause of аction alleged in such suit or process arose, was, in respect thereto, acting or professing to act, directly or indirectly under the authority of the United States.
28 U.S.C. § 1500. Because subject matter jurisdiction
depends on the state of things at the time of the Claims
Court action that was brought, we look to the facts as
they exist when a plaintiff filеd his Claims Court com-
plaint to determine if § 1500 applies.
Keene Corp. v.
United States
,
On appeal, plaintiffs do not dispute that the district
court action was pending when they filed their Claims
Court action in 1998. Rather, plaintiffs argue that § 1500
does not bar their Claims Court action because the
Claims Court action and district court action were
decided
on different facts—specifically, different time periods. In
essence, plaintiffs are advocating a comparison of the
state of the two suits at the time the motion to dismiss
was filed by the government or considered by the Claims
Court. The problem for plaintiffs, though, is that this
argument has been soundly rejected time and again.
Keene
,
To determine whether the § 1500 bar attached when
plaintiffs filed their Claims Court action, we compare the
operative fаcts asserted at the time the two complaints
were filed.
See Tohono O’Odham
, 131 S. Ct. at 1731;
Trusted Integration
, 659 F.3d at 1169. A review of the
complaint filed by plaintiffs at the district court and at
the Claims Court reveals that the factual allegations are
very similar, save the captions, sections related to relief,
and acknowledgement of the district court action in the
jurisdiction can be raised by any party or the court at any
stage of litigation, including after trial and the entry of
judgment.
Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp.
,
Claims Court complaint. Both complaints describe, using
identical language, the same three groups of mineral
servitudes, the same history of conveyances of the land
from the 1920s through the 1980s, the same military and
Forest Service use of the land, the same drilling and
operations moratorium, and the same claim by the United
States of ownership over the mineral leases. Both com-
plaints allege that the government had recognized plain-
tiffs as mineral owners but had been continuously using
the land overlaying the mineral interests for heavy mili-
tary use since 1943, and that the government had granted
leаses to the mineral servitudes as early as 1992. These
are not mere background facts; they are critical to plain-
tiffs’ claims in both actions. In fact, both complaints
allege these facts within the context, inter alia, of a
takings claim. The district court complaint also alleges a
quiet title action in which plaintiffs’ claim of rightful
ownеrship to the mineral servitudes is based on these
same exact facts. Because plaintiffs filed two nearly
identical complaints that, at best, repackaged the same
conduct into two different theories, and at worst, alleged
the same takings claim, we find that there is a substan-
tial overlap of operative facts that imрlicates the § 1500
bar.
See, e.g.
,
Tohono O’Odham
,
But, we disagree with plaintiffs that their supplemen-
tal complaint can cure the § 1500 jurisdictional bar pre-
cluding their original complaint. Generally, “‘jurisdiction
of the court depends upon the state of things at the time
of the action brought.’”
Grupo Dataflux v. Atlas Global
Grp.
, 541 U.S. 567, 570 (2004) (quoting
Mollan v. Tor-
rance
, 9 Wheat. 537, 539 (1824)). While we have held
that certain circumstances may exist in which a supple-
mental complaint can cure a defect in subject matter
jurisdiction, these circumstances “depend[] on a careful
reading of the substantive provision at issue.”
Black v.
Sec’y of Health & Human Servs.
,
Section 1500 falls squarely within the latter category;
it serves as an “express prohibition against filing claims
for which another suit [is] pending.”
Keene
, 508 U.S. at
208-09;
see Black
, 93 F.3d at 791. The statute exрlicitly
states that the Claims Court “shall not have jurisdiction”
over “any claim” that a party has pending in another
court. 28 U.S.C. § 1500. This language creates a manda-
tory prohibited period—the duration of the district court
action for the same claim—during which the Claims
Court cannot have jurisdiction over any action initiated
by plaintiff for the claim.
Keene
, 508 U.S. at 509;
UNR
Indus.
, 962 F.2d at 1021 (“By the plain language of sec-
tion 1500, if the same claim is pending in another court
while the plaintiff files his complaint in the Claims Court,
there is no jurisdiction, period
, even if the conflicting
claim is no longer pending . . .” (emphasis added));
cf. Nat’l Ass’n of Home Builders v. Defenders of Wildlife
, 551
U.S. 644, 661-62 (2007) (collecting cases that note Con-
gress’s use of “shall” indicates a mandatory requirement
void of judicial discretion). The predecessor statute
confirms that § 1500 bars jurisdiction over a Claims Court
action initiated during the prohibited period. That stat-
ute (which has changed in phraseology only) states that
“no person
shall file
. . . any claim . . . for or in respect to
which he . . . has pending any suit or process in any other
court.” Act of Mar. 3, 1911, ch. 231, § 154, 36 Stat. 1138
(emphasis added);
see Keene
, 508 U.S. at 209 (holding
amending of “shall file or prosecute” to “shall not have
jurisdiction” was not substantive). Together, the plain
language of the statute and legislative history leave “no
doubt that at least a time-of-filing rule applie[s]” such
that jurisdiction under § 1500 is dependent on the state of
things when the action is brought, and cannot be rescued
by subsequent action of either party or by resolution of
the co-pending litigation.
See Keene
, 508 U.S at 207-09;
UNR Indus.
, 962 F.2d at 1021-22 (holding it readily
apparent that “any suit
filed
in the Court of Claims when
the same claim was pending in another court . . . had to
be dismissed, . . .
regardless
of intervening actions in the
conflicting case” (emphases added));
British Am. Tobacco
Co. v. United States
,
Because plaintiffs filed a complаint in the Claims Court “for or in respect to” the same claim as their pend- ing district court action, their Claims Court action lacked jurisdiction under § 1500. Their supplemental complaint did not create jurisdiction where none existed at the time the suit was filed. We affirm the Claims Court’s dis- missal for lack of jurisdiction.
AFFIRMED
count for such hardship.
Tohono O’Odham
, 131 S. Ct. at
1731 (“Even were some hardship to be shown, considera-
tions of policy divorced from the statute’s text and pur-
pose could not override its meaning.”);
Keene
, 508 U.S. at
217-218;
Corona Coal Co. v. United States
,
Notes
[1] As a corollary to this argument, plaintiffs dispute whether Rule 12(b)(1) of the Rules of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims (“RCFC”) was the proper mechanism for the government to move for dismissal at the late stage of litigation. It was. An objection to a court’s subject matter
[2] In the district court complaint, Central Pines al- leges a takings claim as an alternative to the quiet title action. Although Central Pines subsequently filed the same takings claim in the Claims Court, it never moved to dismiss the takings claim before the district court, and thus a takings claim was pending when Central Pines filed its complaint at the Claims Court.
[3] To the extent plaintiffs rely on the discussion in Rockwell International Corp. v. United States , 549 U.S. 457, 474 (2007), to aid their argument, that case is distin- guishable. In that case, jurisdiction existed when the case was filed and the question was whether the amended complaint subsequently divested the court of jurisdiction; here, plaintiffs argue the inverse. Id. Similarly, several other cases relied on by plaintiffs relate to amended rather than supplemental complaints, and thus are not on point.
[4] Recent cases bring into question whether the
statutory limitations implicated in these cases are truly
jurisdictional or are “nonjurisdictional ‘claim-processing
rules.’”
See Gonzalez v. Thaler
,
[5] See H.R. Rep. No. 308, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., A140 (1947).
[6] To the extent that § 1500 may impose hardship upon plaintiffs, the Supreme Court has made clear that the statutory language of § 1500 leaves no room to ac-