Hooten v. Ikard Servi Gas

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT May 3, 2013
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
JOSEPH E. HOOTEN,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v. No. 12-2179
(D.C. No. 2:11-CV-00743-LH-GBW)
IKARD SERVI GAS, d/b/a Heritage (D. N.M.)
Propane; ALLEN DIXION,
Defendants-Appellees.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT*
Before KELLY, Circuit Judge, PORFILIO, Senior Circuit Judge, and HOLMES,
Circuit Judge.
Joseph E. Hooten appeals from the district court’s orders dismissing his
complaint without prejudice for lack of federal subject matter jurisdiction. We have
jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and affirm.
*
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist the determination of this
appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore
ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding
precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral
estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with
Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
I. BACKGROUND
Mr. Hooten filed a complaint against his former employer, Ikard Servi Gas,
d/b/a Heritage Propane, and the person who hired and fired him, Allen Dixion.1 The
complaint’s preamble “allege[d] age and disability discrimination in violation of Title
VII and state law and negligent training and supervision.” Aplt. App. at 7. After a
series of factual allegations, the complaint asserted a claim of “age and disability
[discrimination] in violation of [the] New Mexico Human Right[s] Act [(NMHRA)]
and more particularly [N.M. Stat.] § 28-1-7A.” Id. at 9, ¶ 12 (italics omitted). The
complaint also set out the state-law claim for negligent training and supervision
mentioned in the preamble.
Before defendants filed an answer, Mr. Hooten filed a First, Second, Third,
and Fourth Amended Complaint, apparently to iron out service issues. The First and
Second Amended Complaints alleged that defendants’ acts constituted age and
disability discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
(Title VII), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e to 2000e-17, and the Americans with Disabilities Act
of 1990 (ADA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 12101-12213, and asserted the same state-law claim for
negligent training and supervision as the original complaint. In contrast, the Third
and Fourth Amended complaints largely reverted back to the original complaint,
asserting claims of age and disability discrimination in violation of Title VII and
1
According to defendants’ answer, Allen Dixion is in fact Allen Dickson but
was incorrectly referred to in Mr. Hooten’s complaint.
-2-
state law in the preamble, later stating that those claims were brought under the
NMHRA, and reiterating the state-law claim for negligent training and supervision.
None of the five complaints mentioned the Age Discrimination in Employment Act
of 1967 (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. §§ 621-634.
Mr. Hooten served only the Fourth Amended Complaint on defendants, and
they answered it. Thereafter, the parties filed a Joint Status Report and Provisional
Discovery Plan that, in relevant part, contained the parties’ stipulation as to the
governing law: the ADA, the ADEA, the NMHRA, and New Mexico common law.
A magistrate judge issued a scheduling order setting an April 22, 2012 deadline for
Mr. Hooten to amend his pleadings.
On April 23, one day after the deadline, Mr. Hooten filed a motion for leave to
file his fifth amended complaint (First Motion For Leave). The proposed amended
complaint asserted claims of age and disability discrimination in violation of the
ADA, the ADEA, and the NMHRA. It also reiterated the state-law negligent
supervision/training claim and added a new claim for retaliatory discharge under the
NMHRA, Title VII, and New Mexico common law. On April 25, the magistrate
judge denied the motion because it did not contain a recitation that Mr. Hooten had
made a good-faith request for defendants’ concurrence and therefore the motion did
not comply with a provision of the court’s local civil rules, 7.1(a), which states:
“Movant must determine whether a motion is opposed, and a motion that omits
-3-
recitation of a good-faith request for concurrence may be summarily denied.”
D.N.M.LR-Civ 7.1(a).
On May 4, 2012, Mr. Hooten filed another motion for leave to file a fifth
amended complaint (Second Motion for Leave). In that motion, Mr. Hooten
generally advanced reasons why his First Motion for Leave should have been
granted. Defendants filed a brief in opposition. The magistrate judge denied the
Second Motion for Leave because Mr. Hooten failed to make any showing of good
cause for filing it twelve days after the scheduling order’s April 22 deadline.
Next the magistrate judge issued a sua sponte order for supplemental briefing
on whether the court had subject matter jurisdiction given that the operative
complaint, the Fourth Amended Complaint, (1) asserted that the age- and
disability-discrimination claims were brought under the NMHRA; (2) there was only
a “fleeting and incomplete reference to a federal statute,” Title VII, in the preamble,
Aplt. App. at 114 n.1; and (3) Mr. Hooten indicated that his state-law claim of
negligent training/supervision was independent of his discrimination claims.
After the parties responded, the magistrate judge issued proposed findings and
recommended that the court dismiss the Fourth Amended Complaint for lack of
subject matter jurisdiction. The magistrate judge observed that there was no
allegation of diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332, as Mr. Hooten and
Mr. Dickson were both New Mexico residents. As to federal-question jurisdiction
under 28 U.S.C. § 1331, the magistrate judge reasoned that the preamble’s passing
-4-
reference to Title VII, which does not provide a cause of action for age or disability
discrimination, did not support jurisdiction. The magistrate judge rejected
Mr. Hooten’s request to consider other documents supporting federal-question
jurisdiction: the complaint he filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission, which expressly mentioned the ADA and the ADEA; his civil cover
sheet, where he asserted federal question jurisdiction but gave no basis for it; and the
earlier complaints that were never served on defendants. Considering such evidence,
the magistrate judge said, “would appear to violate the directive that jurisdiction be
determined . . . ‘[on] the face’ of the complaint.” Aplt. App. at 145-46 (quoting
Nicodemus v. Union Pac. Corp., 318 F.3d 1231, 1235 (10th Cir. 2003)). The
magistrate judge also considered Mr. Hooten’s attempts to file a fifth amended
complaint asserting discrimination claims under the ADEA and the ADA as further
evidence that the Fourth Amended Complaint did not contain federal claims. Finally,
the magistrate judge considered Mr. Hooten’s arguments that he filed his First
Motion for Leave a day after the scheduling-order deadline because the court’s
electronic filing (ECF) system was inoperative on the due date, which was a Sunday.
The magistrate judge reminded Mr. Hooten that the First Motion to Amend was
denied for failure to comply with Local Rule 7.1(a), not because it was untimely.
The magistrate judge further noted that the Second Motion to Amend was denied as
untimely and Mr. Hooten had made no argument in his supplemental brief that there
was good cause for the delay.
-5-
Mr. Hooten timely filed objections, which the district judge overruled. The
court agreed that the Fourth Amended Complaint superseded the prior complaints, so
any reference to federal law in the previous complaints was irrelevant. The court
further concluded that the factual references in the Fourth Amended Complaint were
insufficient to invoke the “arising under” doctrine, which “requires a federal court to
assert jurisdiction over a state law claim where that claim ‘implicates significant
federal issues.’” Id. at 174 (brackets omitted) (quoting Grable & Sons Metal
Products, Inc. v. Darue Eng’g & Mfg., 545 U.S. 308, 312 (2005)). The court
concluded that in the Fourth Amended Complaint, Mr. Hooten elected to pursue his
age discrimination claim under state law, and that claim neither raised a significant
issue of federal law nor depended on the construction or application of federal law
for relief.
Finally, the district court concluded that the magistrate judge did not abuse his
discretion in denying Mr. Hooten’s First or Second Motion for Leave to file his fifth
amended complaint. As to the First Motion for Leave, the court rejected
Mr. Hooten’s argument that Local Rule 7.1(a) conflicted with Fed. R. Civ.
P. 15(a)(2), which permits a party to amend a complaint after a responsive filing
“only with the opposing party’s written consent or the court’s leave.” The court
stated that the local rule only adds a requirement as to the form of the motion and the
court can grant a motion for leave to amend regardless of whether it is opposed.
Regarding the Second Motion for Leave, the court observed that Mr. Hooten failed to
-6-
show good cause, apparently under Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b)(4), for filing it after the
deadline in the scheduling order.
II. DISCUSSION
A. Denial of First Motion for Leave
We begin our analysis with the district court’s denial of Mr. Hooten’s First
Motion for Leave.2 We review that decision for abuse of discretion. Minter v. Prime
Equip. Co., 451 F.3d 1196, 1204 (10th Cir. 2006). Mr. Hooten makes an extensive
argument that the April 22 deadline for amendment of pleadings should be tolled
because the district court’s ECF system was not available that day. But untimeliness
was not the basis for denying the motion, so this argument is irrelevant.
Mr. Hooten next argues that Local Rule 7.1(a) conflicts with Fed. R. Civ.
P. 15(a)(2) and therefore cannot stand because Fed. R. Civ. P. 83(a)(1) requires local
court rules to be consistent with federal statutes and rules. He claims that requiring a
movant to obtain the opposing party’s consent to the filing of an amended complaint
eviscerates a plaintiff’s ability to amend with the court’s leave under Rule 15(a)(2).
He also suggests that it was error to rely on noncompliance with Local Rule 7.1(a)
because defendants never objected when his attorney presented them with a copy of
the First Motion for Leave and the proposed Fifth Amended Complaint on April 22,
2
Mr. Hooten has not taken issue in his opening brief with the district court’s
denial of his Second Motion for Leave for failure to show good cause. Therefore, he
has forfeited our consideration of that ruling. See Bronson v. Swensen, 500 F.3d
1099, 1104 (10th Cir. 2007) (“[T]he omission of an issue in an opening brief
generally forfeits appellate consideration of that issue.”).
-7-
which was the scheduling-order deadline for amendment of pleadings and one day
before the First Motion for Leave was filed.
These arguments appear to rest on a fundamental misunderstanding of Local
Rule 7.1(a). As the magistrate judge pointed out, the purpose of Local Rule 7.1(a) is
“to promote judicial efficiency and economy by precluding the unnecessary filing of
motions, responses, and orders.” Aplt. App. at 76. To that end, the rule does not
require the adverse party’s consent but only a recitation in the motion that a
good-faith request has been made for the opposing party’s concurrence. The court is
free to grant the motion over the adverse party’s objection. We therefore conclude
that Local Rule 7.1(a) does not conflict with Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2).3 Accordingly,
Mr. Hooten has not shown that the district court abused its discretion in denying the
First Motion for Leave for failure to recite that a good-faith request was made for
defendants’ concurrence.
B. Dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction
We discern three arguments in Mr. Hooten’s opening brief regarding the
dismissal of his complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Our review is
3
Because Mr. Hooten’s argument is limited to whether Local Rule 7.1(a)
conflicts with Rule 15(a)(2), we need not determine whether Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b)(4),
which requires a showing of “good cause” and a “judge’s consent” for modification
of a scheduling order, bears on the analysis. See U.S. ex rel. Ritchie v. Lockheed
Martin Corp., 558 F.3d 1161, 1166 (10th Cir. 2009) (noting that our circuit “has not
yet considered whether Rule 16(b)(4) must be met when motions to amend pleadings
would necessitate a corresponding amendment of scheduling orders”).
-8-
de novo. Devon Energy Prod. Co., L.P. v. Mosaic Potash Carlsbad, Inc., 693 F.3d
1195, 1201 (10th Cir. 2012).
Mr. Hooten first points to the parties’ stipulation in their Joint Status Report
and Provisional Discovery Plan that the controlling law was the ADA, the ADEA, the
NMHRA, and New Mexico common law. Although he acknowledges the general
rule that parties cannot confer jurisdiction by stipulation or consent, he claims that a
court can rely on factual stipulations in order to find jurisdiction. This may be so.
See, e.g., Railway Co. v. Ramsey, 89 U.S. 322, 327 (1874) (“Consent of parties
cannot give the courts of the United States jurisdiction, but the parties may admit the
existence of facts which show jurisdiction, and the courts may act judicially upon
such an admission.”). But the exception to the rule does not apply here because
defendants did not stipulate to facts showing jurisdiction. Instead, they stipulated to
the controlling law. It remained the province of the district court to determine
whether the Fourth Amended Complaint set forth a basis for federal-question
jurisdiction. Accordingly, we cannot conclude that the stipulation as to the
controlling law was sufficient to establish federal-question jurisdiction.
The next argument we discern is that the district court should have considered
the Fourth Amended Complaint in the context of the previous complaints in order to
determine whether the claims arose under federal law. Mr. Hooten states that the
citations establishing federal-question jurisdiction that were in the Second Amended
Complaint (the ADA and Title VII) were inadvertently omitted through a clerical
-9-
copying error when the Fourth Amended Complaint was drafted and filed. We reject
this argument. An amended pleading “supersedes the pleading it modifies and
remains in effect throughout the action unless it subsequently is modified.” Gilles v.
United States, 906 F.2d 1386, 1389 (10th Cir. 1990) (internal quotation marks
omitted). And although “[a] statement in a pleading may be adopted by reference
elsewhere in the same pleading or in any other pleading or motion,” Fed. R. Civ.
P. 10(c), the Fourth Amended Complaint did not adopt any part of the prior pleadings
by reference. Thus, the Fourth Amended Complaint superseded the prior complaints,
none of which were ever served on defendants, and left the prior complaints “without
legal effect,” Mink v. Suthers, 482 F.3d 1244, 1254 (10th Cir. 2007). Accordingly,
the district court properly confined its jurisdictional analysis to the Fourth Amended
Complaint.
The final jurisdictional argument we see in Mr. Hooten’s opening brief is that
even though the Fourth Amended Complaint contains no citation to any specific,
applicable federal statutory basis for jurisdiction, its factual allegations present a
substantial question of federal law, and therefore the discrimination claims arise
under federal law. See Aplt. Opening Br. at 7, 11-14. We reject this argument. “To
determine whether a claim arises under federal law, courts examine the well-pleaded
allegations of the complaint . . . .” Devon Energy Prod. Co., L.P., 693 F.3d at 1202
(brackets and internal quotation marks omitted). “A case ‘arises under’ federal law
under two circumstances: ‘a well-pleaded complaint establishes either that federal
- 10 -
law creates the cause of action or that the plaintiff’s right to relief necessarily
depends on resolution of a substantial question of federal law.’” Gilmore v.
Weatherford, 694 F.3d 1160, 1170 (10th Cir. 2012) (quoting Empire Healthchoice
Assurance, Inc. v. McVeigh, 547 U.S. 677, 690 (2006)). Mr. Hooten’s argument that
his factual allegations present a substantial question of federal law appears to rest on
the second half of this formulation, “[t]he ‘substantial question’ branch of federal
question jurisdiction,” which is “exceedingly narrow.” Id. at 1171. The difficulty for
Mr. Hooten lies in the fact that both federal law (the ADEA and the ADA) and New
Mexico law (the NMHRA) create causes of action for age and disability
discrimination, so Mr. Hooten’s right to relief on the state-law claims asserted in the
Fourth Amended Complaint do not “necessarily depend[] on the resolution of a
substantial question of federal law.” Id. at 1170 (internal quotation marks omitted).
In other words, Mr. Hooten’s discrimination claims do not meet the first requirement
necessary to establish “substantial-question” jurisdiction: They do not “necessarily
raise a federal claim.” Devon Energy Prod. Co., L.P., 693 F.3d at 1208 (discussing
four requirements of substantial-question jurisdiction under Grable & Sons Metal
Products, Inc., 545 U.S. 308). Simply put, Mr. Hooten could have asserted his age-
and disability-discrimination claims under either state or federal law. In the Fourth
Amended Complaint, he pleaded them as state-law claims. He cannot convert the
state-law claims to federal claims by resorting to the “substantial-question” branch of
federal-question jurisdiction. That branch of the arising-under doctrine is
- 11 -
inapplicable, and the Fourth Amended Complaint does not assert any valid basis for
federal-question jurisdiction.
III. CONCLUSION
The judgment of the district court is affirmed.
Entered for the Court
Jerome A. Holmes
Circuit Judge
- 12 -