Jessica Jackson v. United States ( 2020 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAR 16 2020
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UPPER LAKE POMO ASSOCIATION, No. 18-16764
Plaintiff, D.C. No. 4:75-cv-00181-PJH
and
MEMORANDUM*
JESSICA JACKSON,
Movant-Appellant,
v.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA; DAVID
L. BERNHARDT, Secretary of the Interior;
CECIL ANDRUS, Former Secretary of the
Interior; AMY DUTSCHKE; TROY
BURDICK,
Defendants-Appellees,
and
ROGERS C.B. MORTON,
Defendant,
APRIL DIWALD,
Movant-Appellee.
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of California
Phyllis J. Hamilton, Chief District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted February 14, 2020
San Francisco, California
Before: RAWLINSON and CALLAHAN, Circuit Judges, and S. MURPHY,**
District Judge.
Plaintiff-Appellant Jessica Jackson appeals the district court’s denial of her
motion to hold federal officials in civil contempt of the district court’s 1979 Order
Granting Partial Summary Judgment (“Order”) and 1983 Order and Final
Judgment on Claims for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief (“Judgment”). The
Order and Judgment provided injunctive relief to members of the Upper Lake
Pomo Indian Tribe after the federal government converted their trust lands to
private property, in violation of substantive provisions of the California Rancheria
Act, Act of Aug. 18, 1958, Pub. L. 85-671, 72 Stat. 619, as amended by the Act of
August 11, 1964, Pub. L. 88-419, 78 Stat. 390. The Order and Judgment entitled
Tribe members—including Jackson’s mother, Amerdine Snow McCloud, now
deceased—to convey their deeded lands back to the United States via the Secretary
of the Interior (“Secretary”) to be held in trust for the benefit of the Tribe, subject
to certain conditions and procedural requirements discussed below.
**
The Honorable Stephen J. Murphy, III, United States District Judge
for the Eastern District of Michigan, sitting by designation.
2
The question presented in this appeal is not whether the Secretary’s failure
to restore McCloud’s property to trust status violated the district court’s Order and
Judgment. It is whether Jackson has shown that, in denying McCloud’s (and
Jackson’s) various requests to convey the property into trust, the Secretary (1)
violated the Order and Judgment, “(2) beyond substantial compliance, (3) not
based on a good faith and reasonable interpretation . . . , (4) by clear and
convincing evidence.” Labor/Cmty. Strategy Ctr. v. L.A. Cty. Metro. Transp.
Auth., 564 F.3d 1115, 1123 (9th Cir. 2009) (citation omitted). Furthermore,
Jackson must show that the district court, in denying her motion, abused its
discretion by “misapprehend[ing] the law or rest[ing] its decision on a clearly
erroneous finding of a material fact.” Hallett v. Morgan, 296 F.3d 732, 749 (9th
Cir. 2002).
We hold that Jackson has not met her burden.1 Her argument rests almost
entirely on the first sentence of paragraph i. of the Judgment, which recognizes the
Secretary’s “continuing obligation to restore to trust status lands of the Upper Lake
Rancheria . . . whenever possible.” She largely ignores the subparagraphs that
follow, which set forth conditions and procedures for how “[r]estoration of trust
status shall be accomplished.” But those subparagraphs are key here.
1
Because the parties are familiar with the facts of this case, we do not
discuss them at length here.
3
First, as the government points out, paragraph i.(3) of the Judgment
expressly gives the Secretary authority, “[b]efore accepting any instrument of
conveyance which has the effect of restoring trust status to lands within the
Rancheria, . . . to approve or reject said instrument as to form.” The district court
found that “the government had reason to refuse each attempted conveyance,”
including due to unnotarized grant deeds, unpaid property taxes, McCloud’s
erroneous listing of the wrong Parcel, and, after McCloud’s death, the state probate
matter. Jackson provides no counterargument that the Secretary’s refusals were
based on something other than “a good faith and reasonable interpretation of the
order.” Labor/Cmty. Strategy Ctr., 564 F.3d at 1123.
Second, paragraph i.(2) of the Judgment sets forth a one-year time limit for a
Tribe member “to convey his or her interest to the United States, to be held in
trust,” and paragraph i.(5) vests authority in the district court to modify “[t]he time
limits for restoring trust status to lands of the Rancheria . . . upon application of
any party to this action showing good cause for such action[.]” It is undisputed
that McCloud (1) failed to submit her desired grant deed within one year of the
Judgment, and (2) never asked the district court for an extension of the one-year
time limit for conveying her property to trust status.2
2
Though the district court did not explicitly address this issue, we may
affirm on “any ground supported by the record.” Thompson v. Paul, 547 F.3d
1055, 1059 (9th Cir. 2008).
4
We therefore agree with the district court that McCloud’s property was
neither actively nor constructively restored to trust status before she died intestate
in 2001. Once ownership of the property is determined by the state probate court,
the rightful owner is free to request restoration of the property to trust status at that
time. As the district court noted, “the government has represented repeatedly that,
notwithstanding the one-year limitation provided by the 1983 Order, it will accept
the Parcel into trust if petitioned to do so by its owners, once the state identifies the
true owners.” The district court also stated that it “will hold the government to that
promise.”
Jackson presents a sympathetic case. However, in light of the civil contempt
standard, the plain text of the Order and Judgment, and the district court’s “wide
latitude in making a determination of whether there has been contemptuous
defiance of its own orders,” Neebars, Inc. v. Long Bar Grinding, Inc., 438 F.2d 47,
48 (9th Cir. 1971), Jackson cannot show that the district court abused its discretion
in declining to hold federal officials in contempt. Accordingly, we AFFIRM.
5