Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper Fund, Inc. v. City of Atlanta

Case: 10-10711 Date Filed: 11/19/2012 Page: 1 of 24
[PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
Nos. 10-10711; 10-10718
________________________
D.C. Docket Nos. 1:95-cv-02550-TWT; 1:98-cv-01956-TWT
UPPER CHATTAHOOCHEE RIVERKEEPER FUND, INC., et al.,
lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiffs,
versus
CITY OF ATLANTA,
lllllllllllllllllllllDefendant-Third-Party-Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
CITY OF SANDY SPRINGS,
llllllllllllllllllllllThird-Party-Defendant-Appellant.
________________________
Appeals from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Georgia
________________________
(November 19, 2012)
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Before CARNES, KRAVITCH, and FARRIS,* Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
A federal Clean Water Act lawsuit filed against the City of Atlanta in 1995
resulted in two consent decrees requiring Atlanta to clean up its sewer system.
Ten years later Sandy Springs incorporated, which led to state court proceedings
to determine whether Atlanta would be allowed to continue to supply Sandy
Springs with water. Atlanta had pledged its water service revenue as part of the
collateral for bonds that were issued to finance its compliance with the sewer
system consent decrees. Atlanta persuaded the same district court that had issued
the sewer system consent decrees to enjoin the parties from pursuing the state law
proceedings and to take over supervision of those proceedings. The question is
whether the district court had jurisdiction to do that.
I.
For more than a decade the United States District Court for the Northern
District of Georgia has been monitoring the City of Atlanta’s compliance with two
consent decrees that the court issued in September 1998 and December 1999.
Those consent decrees resolved complex, multi-party litigation arising from
*
Honorable Jerome Farris, United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit, sitting by
designation.
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Atlanta’s violation of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. §§ 1251 et seq., and
required Atlanta to bring its sewer system into compliance with federal
environmental laws. See Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper Fund, Inc. et al. v.
City of Atlanta, 1:95-cv-2550-TWT; United States et al. v. City of Atlanta,
1:98-cv-1956-TWT. The decrees, however, did not specify how compliance with
them is to be financed. Atlanta decided to fund its compliance efforts by issuing
bonds, pledging as collateral for them the assets and revenues from its water and
sewer system.1
The consent decrees specifically state that the district court “shall retain
jurisdiction of this matter for the purposes of implementing and enforcing the
terms and conditions” of the decrees. Cf. Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of
Am., 511 U.S. 375, 381–82, 114 S.Ct. 1673, 1677 (1994) (explaining that a
district court may “retain jurisdiction” over a “dismissal-producing settlement
agreement” at the parties’ request). And the court has done so. The court’s
traditional equitable powers also give it ongoing jurisdiction to supervise Atlanta’s
compliance, to enforce the terms of the consent decrees, and to protect its
1
Atlanta has spent approximately $1.3 billion on capital improvements required by the
consent decrees. Almost all of this amount was financed by water and sewer revenue bonds,
under which Atlanta pledged the value of its drinking and wastewater system, as well as current
and future revenues from operating that system. Atlanta’s indebtedness under these bonds was
$3.2 billion at the time the district court’s order was entered in the present case.
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jurisdiction over the decrees from collateral threats. See, e.g., United States v.
Swift & Co., 286 U.S. 106, 114, 52 S.Ct. 460, 462 (1932); Wesch v. Folsom, 6
F.3d 1465, 1470 (11th Cir. 1993).
In December 2005, while Atlanta’s compliance efforts and the district
court’s monitoring of them continued, Sandy Springs, which is located in Fulton
County, Georgia, was incorporated as a municipality. Both before and after Sandy
Springs was incorporated, Fulton County provided its sewer service and Atlanta
provided its water service.2
2
Atlanta describes its water and sewer system as functionally and financially unified:
For over a century, drinking water and wastewater treatment have been developed
as complementary components of Atlanta’s regional utility, in recognition of the
fact that the provision of potable water must be accompanied by treatment of
wastewater prior to its return to the area’s rivers and streams. One component
cannot function without the other, as the services are inextricably linked. In
addition to their functional and environmental linkage, drinking water and
wastewater are linked financially, as both components have been pledged by
Atlanta to secure the funding needed to meet its obligations under the Consent
Decrees.
Br. of Appellee at 8–9 (record citations omitted). Robert Hunter, Atlanta’s Commissioner for the
Department of Watershed Management, testified at the motion hearing before the district court
that Atlanta’s water and sewer systems are bound together by bonds: “[T]his is one system, water
and wastewater. It’s one fund. We only issue bonds for water and wastewater. We don’t have a
separate water fund and a separate wastewater fund, and this is very common in combined
utilities.” Doc. 241 at 58.
We note for purposes of this appeal, however, it is undisputed that Atlanta provides
Sandy Springs’ water service, and Fulton County provides its sewer service. Fulton County and
Sandy Springs have already agreed to continue that arrangement.
Atlanta does not contend that it is in danger of losing sewer revenues from Sandy
4
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Georgia’s Service Delivery Strategy Act, Ga. Code Ann. §§ 36-70-20 et
seq., requires every Georgia county and each of the municipalities within it to
adopt a service delivery agreement that identifies the service provider, service
areas, and all funding sources for governmental services provided in the county.
Id. §§ 36-70-20, 36-70-23, 36-70-26. The Act also prescribes a process for
reaching that agreement and resolving any disagreement, which “is intended to
minimize inefficiencies resulting from duplication of services and competition
between local governments and to provide a mechanism to resolve disputes over
local government service delivery, funding equity, and land use.” Id. § 36-70-20.
As one court has explained it, the Act “mandates a dispute resolution procedure
Springs. Commissioner Hunter testified at the motion hearing that Atlanta indirectly receives
revenue from the sewer service that Fulton County provides to Sandy Springs:
Q. And as to the sewer system, the entire sewer system within the City of Sandy
Springs is supplied as far as the rates, charges, servicing of it by Fulton County; is
that correct?
A. It is supplied by Fulton County. It is billed through the City of Atlanta. And
the flow that comes from Sandy Springs into the City of Atlanta, Atlanta is paid
for those flows.
Q. And you have governmental agreements with Fulton County that address those
rates, the requirements of Fulton County to cover the cost for the City of Atlanta;
is that also correct?
A. We have an agreement for the flows coming from their pipes to our pipes.
Doc. 241 at 89–90.
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for the affected county and municipality to follow if they cannot agree on a service
delivery strategy.” Cobb Cnty. v. City of Smyrna, 606 S.E.2d 667, 671 (Ga. Ct.
App. 2004); see also Ga. Code Ann. § 36-70-25.1.
An October 2005 service delivery agreement designated Atlanta as the
direct retail water service provider for all of unincorporated Fulton County, which
included the area that was—just two months later—incorporated as the City of
Sandy Springs. Its incorporation triggered some provisions of the Service
Delivery Act. The Act provides that when new municipalities are
incorporated,“[e]ach county and affected municipality shall review, and revise if
necessary, the approved” service delivery agreement. Id. § 36-70-28(b)(4). After
Sandy Springs was incorporated, the process of reviewing and revising Fulton
County’s service delivery agreement began, and Sandy Springs proposed
amendments to the retail water service provider part of that agreement. Some of
those amendments, if adopted, would affect the supply of water to Sandy Springs
and could reduce the amount or price of the water that it purchases from Atlanta.
Negotiations among Fulton County and several of its municipalities to adopt
new service delivery agreements stalled in October 2009, and Fulton County
followed the dispute resolution procedure prescribed by Georgia’s Service
Delivery Strategy Act: it filed a petition in Fulton County Superior Court
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“seeking mandatory mediation.” See Ga. Code Ann. § 36-70-25.1(d)(1)(A). The
state court appointed a mediator.
Atlanta returned to the federal district court, which had retained jurisdiction
to enforce the Clean Water Act consent decrees, and sought to enjoin the service
delivery proceedings that were ongoing in state court. The district court granted
Atlanta’s motion, enjoined the parties from continuing to pursue the service
delivery proceedings in state court, and brought Sandy Springs and Fulton County
into the Clean Water Act litigation in federal court as third party defendants.
While that action may have been pragmatic, we conclude that it went beyond the
court’s jurisdictional authority.
II.
In its order the district court recounted how disputes “relating to water and
sewer service” had arisen between Fulton County and some cities located within
it—Atlanta, College Park, Fairburn, Palmetto, Sandy Springs, and Union City.3
Doc. 242 at 2. The court determined that those disputes had “created considerable
uncertainty” about Atlanta’s ability “to finance improvements to the sewer system
3
The South Fulton Municipal Water and Sewer Authority, the City of Fairburn, the City
of Palmetto, and the City of Union City were originally parties to this appeal, but they have
settled their disputes with Atlanta and dismissed their appeals. See City of Atlanta v. South
Fulton Mun. Reg’l Water and Sewer Auth., Nos. 10-10710 & 10-10721. In the district court,
Atlanta dismissed its claims against the City of College Park.
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that are necessary to comply with the Consent Decrees.” Id. It believed that
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 19 and 21 gave it the “authority to join the Third-
Party Defendants,” including the City of Sandy Springs and Fulton County, in
order “to avoid the uncertainty, and substantial and immediate threats” to Atlanta’s
ability to comply with the consent decrees. Id. at 3. The court also concluded that
the consent decrees along with “the Clean Water Act, and the Court’s powers
under the All Writs Act and its Supplemental Jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1367”
gave it the “authority to take actions to prevent interference with the City of
Atlanta’s continued ability to comply with the Consent Decrees.” Id. at 3–4.
The district court’s order went on to prohibit Georgia, Fulton County, and
Sandy Springs from using the process that Georgia law prescribed for determining
how water would be delivered to citizens in the state. The order stated that:
“[The] State of Georgia and . . . Fulton County [are] enjoined from applying the
Georgia Service Delivery Act procedures under O.C.G.A. § 36-70-20 et seq. to the
City of Atlanta . . . with respect to the provision of water and sewer services.” Id.
at 4. The court’s order also “held in abeyance” the sanctions that Georgia law
automatically imposes on local governments that do not execute a service delivery
agreement, see Ga. Code Ann. § 36-70-27(a)(1). Doc. 242 at 4. It enjoined Fulton
County from proceeding any further with the state law-prescribed mandatory
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mediation in Fulton County Superior Court “with regard to any matter related to
the water and sewer service portions” of the county’s service delivery agreement.
Id. at 5.
After prohibiting the state, the county, and the affected municipalities from
using the state’s own process or court system to resolve the local service delivery
dispute, the district court compelled the state, the county, and the municipalities to
submit the dispute to it for supervision and a decision. The court order required
that:
The City of Atlanta, Fulton County, and the Third-Party Defendants
[shall] conduct any and all negotiations, mediation and other dispute
resolution efforts, including those dispute resolution procedures
referenced under O.C.G.A. § 36-70-25.1, and if those dispute
resolution efforts are unsuccessful, any litigation required to
determine the Service Delivery Strategy for Fulton County, as it
relates to the water and sewer service portions of the Service Delivery
Strategy, under the exclusive supervision of this Court.
. . . [T]he Service Delivery Act mediation as related to the sewer and
water issues . . . shall occur exclusively under this Court’s
supervision.
Id. The district court appointed a mediator who would be supervised by and
accountable to the district court, instead of by and to any state court or judge.
(The mediator the district court appointed was former Georgia Supreme Court
Justice Norman Fletcher, who had also been appointed by and had been serving
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under the supervision of the state court when the dispute was being handled there.)
Id.
This is Sandy Springs’ appeal of the district court’s order. We have
jurisdiction over it under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1), which provides that “the courts
of appeals shall have jurisdiction of appeals from . . . [i]nterlocutory orders of the
district courts . . . granting . . . injunctions.”
III.
In asserting authority to enjoin the parties from pursuing the service
delivery proceedings in state court, the district court relied on its continuing
jurisdiction to enforce Atlanta’s compliance with the consent decrees coupled with
its power under the All Writs Act. That Act provides that federal courts “may
issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and
agreeable to the usages and principles of law.” 28 U.S.C. § 1651(a).
The power granted federal courts by the All Writs Act is, however, limited
by the Anti-Injunction Act, which prohibits a federal court from “grant[ing] an
injunction to stay proceedings in a State court except as expressly authorized by
Act of Congress, or where necessary in aid of its jurisdiction, or to protect or
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effectuate its judgments.” 28 U.S.C. § 2283.4 If one of the three specific
exceptions contained in the Anti-Injunction Act permits an injunction, the All
Writs Act grants a federal court the power to issue it. Burr & Forman v. Blair, 470
F.3d 1019, 1027–28 (11th Cir. 2006).
“[I]n assessing the propriety of an injunction entered to stop a state court
proceeding, the sole relevant inquiry is whether the injunction qualifies for one of
the exceptions to the Anti-Injunction Act.” Id. at 1028; see also Atl. Coast Line
R.R. Co. v. Bhd. of Locomotive Eng’rs, 398 U.S. 281, 286, 90 S.Ct. 1739, 1743
(1970) (emphasizing that the Anti-Injunction Act is “an absolute prohibition
against enjoining state court proceedings, unless the injunction falls within one of
[the Act’s] three specifically defined exceptions.”). We review de novo a district
court’s legal conclusion that it has the authority to enjoin a state court action based
on an exception to the Anti-Injunction Act. Estate of Brennan v. Church of
Scientology Flag Serv. Org., 645 F.3d 1267, 1272 (11th Cir. 2011).
The Supreme Court has recognized that the Anti-Injunction Act “is designed
4
Although on its face the Anti-Injunction Act could be read to apply only to injunctions
issued against state courts, and not those issued against individual parties, it has not been
interpreted that way. See Atl. Coast Line R.R. Co. v. Bhd. of Locomotive Eng’rs, 398 U.S. 281,
287, 90 S.Ct. 1739, 1743 (1970). Instead, “we treat injunctions entered for the purpose of halting
a state court proceeding the same regardless of whether issued against the parties to the state
court proceeding or directly against the state court.” Burr & Forman v. Blair, 470 F.3d 1019,
1028 n.28 (11th Cir. 2006).
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to prevent conflict between federal and state courts.” Leiter Minerals, Inc. v.
United States, 352 U.S. 220, 225, 77 S.Ct. 287, 290–91 (1957). The Act’s “core
message is one of respect for state courts,” and it “broadly commands that those
tribunals shall remain free from interference by federal courts” unless one of the
Act’s three specific exceptions is met. Smith v. Bayer Corp., — U.S. —, 131 S.Ct.
2368, 2375 (2011) (quotation marks omitted).
The district court never indicated which of the three exceptions to the Anti-
Injunction Act, if any, it was relying on. The only one that Atlanta contends
applies is the “in aid of its jurisdiction” exception. That exception, like the other
two, must be construed narrowly. See id. (cautioning that the three exceptions in
the Anti-Injunction Act “are narrow and are not to be enlarged by loose statutory
construction” (quotation marks and alteration omitted)); see also In re Bayshore
Ford Trucks Sales, Inc., 471 F.3d 1233, 1250 (11th Cir. 2006) (“The Supreme
Court has repeatedly emphasized that the lower courts are to interpret these
exceptions strictly.”); Delta Air Lines, Inc. v. McCoy Rests., Inc., 708 F.2d 582,
585 (11th Cir. 1983) (“Because of the sensitive nature of federal interference with
state court litigation, the exceptions to the rule against injunctions . . . must be
narrowly construed.”); T. Smith & Son, Inc. v. Williams, 275 F.2d 397, 407 (5th
Cir. 1960) (“The phrase, ‘where necessary in aid of its jurisdiction’, . . . should be
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interpreted narrowly, in the direction of federal non-interference with orderly state
proceedings.”); cf. id. (discussing the “hands-off doctrine” expressed in the Anti-
Injunction Act and describing the statute as “a pillar of federalism”). As the
Supreme Court has put it: “Any doubts as to the propriety of a federal injunction
against state court proceedings should be resolved in favor of permitting the state
courts to proceed. . . .” Atl. Coast Line R.R., 398 U.S. at 297, 90 S.Ct. at 1748;
see also Red Rock Cola Co. v. Red Rock Bottlers, Inc., 195 F.2d 406, 409 (5th
Cir. 1952) (“Federal Courts will enjoin proceedings in State Courts with
reluctance. . . .”); cf. Smith, — U.S. at —, 131 S.Ct. at 2375–76 (stating that
issuing an injunction under the “relitigation exception [to the Act] is resorting to
heavy artillery” and “[f]or that reason, every benefit of the doubt goes toward the
state court”); Wesch, 6 F.3d at 1469 (“The question of whether to stay proceedings
in a state court is never one to be taken lightly, as it impinges on the very delicate
balance struck between the federal and state judicial systems.”).
Necessity is key. The exception in question does not permit injunctions in
aid of a court’s jurisdiction, but only those that are “necessary in aid of its
jurisdiction.” It certainly “is not enough that the requested injunction is related to
that jurisdiction.” Atl. Coast Line R.R., 398 U.S. at 295, 90 S.Ct. at 1747. Federal
courts may enjoin state court proceedings based on the “necessary in aid of its
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jurisdiction” exception in only two situations, where: “(1) the district court has
exclusive jurisdiction over the action because it had been removed from state
court; or, (2) the state court entertains an in rem action involving a res over which
the district court has been exercising jurisdiction in an in rem action.” In re
Bayshore Ford Trucks Sales, Inc., 471 F.3d 1233, 1251 (11th Cir. 2006).
As Atlanta admits, there was no “removal,” in the required sense, of this
case from state court to federal court, so the first situation does not exist. The
question is whether the second one does. The reason that the second situation is
an exception to the Anti-Injunction Act prohibition is that “[a] state court and a
federal court cannot simultaneously exercise in rem jurisdiction over the same
property.” United States v. $270,000 in U.S. Currency, Plus Interest, 1 F.3d 1146,
1147 (11th Cir.1993); see also In re Am. Honda Motor Co. Dealerships Relations
Litig., 315 F.3d 417, 439 (4th Cir. 2003) (“The ‘necessary in aid of its jurisdiction’
exception to the Anti-Injunction Act is widely understood to apply most often
when a federal court was the first in obtaining jurisdiction over a res in an in rem
action and the same federal court seeks to enjoin suits in state courts involving the
same res.”).
Atlanta contends that its water and sewer system is a res over which the
district court has exercised its jurisdiction through the consent decrees, which
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impose “extensive ongoing obligations relative to . . . the wastewater collection,
transmission, and treatment components” of the system. The problem with
Atlanta’s contention is that the state service delivery proceedings in state court are
obviously not an in rem action. Those proceedings do not directly involve any res.
Instead, they involve a dispute about the delivery of services, which is a
quintessential in personam dispute. Cf. Burr & Forman, 470 F.3d at 1032 & n.34;
Vendo Co. v. Lektro-Vend Corp., 433 U.S. 623, 642, 97 S.Ct. 2881, 2893 (1977)
(“The traditional notion is that in personam actions in federal and state court may
proceed concurrently, without interference from either court, and there is no
evidence that the [‘necessary in aid of its jurisdiction’] exception to [28 U.S.C.] §
2283 was intended to alter this balance.”). Because there is no in rem action in
state court, the state court and the federal court are not adjudicating rights to the
same property, and the in rem exception does not apply. See Burr & Forman, 470
F.3d at 1031–32 (explaining that the “focus of this exception is on parallel in rem
proceedings—one in federal court, the other in state court”). Because the state
proceedings are not an in rem action directly involving a res, the state and federal
court are not in danger of simultaneously exercising in rem jurisdiction over the
same property. $270,000 in U.S. Currency, Plus Interest, 1 F.3d at 1147; see also
Empire Trust Co. v. Brooks, 232 F. 641, 645–46 (5th Cir. 1916) (“[W]here the
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issues in the subsequent suit are different from those involved in the first suit, and
the subject-matter is not identical, there can be no infringement of the jurisdiction
of the court in which the first suit is pending, by reason of the institution of the
second suit in a court of concurrent jurisdiction.”); Denver-Greeley Valley Water
Users Ass’n v. McNeil, 131 F.2d 67, 71 (10th Cir. 1942) (“[T]he necessity does
not exist which would warrant injunctive relief where the subsequent action does
not create a conflict between the courts over the possession or custody of the
res.”). For these reasons, the second situation in which a federal court is allowed
to enjoin state court proceedings under the “necessary in aid of its jurisdiction”
exception to the Anti-Injunction Act does not apply here.5
The motivation for the issuance of the injunction against the state court
proceedings was the fear that those proceedings could result in a reduction in some
of Atlanta’s water service revenue, which could impede its efforts to comply with
its consent decree obligations because that revenue is pledged as part of the
collateral for the bonds Atlanta issued to finance its compliance with the decrees.
When the district court entered the consent decrees requiring that the sewer system
be cleaned up, it left to Atlanta the task of financing its compliance with those
5
Atlanta’s contention that the Clean Water Act litigation itself is a res over which the
district court has exercised in rem jurisdiction fails for the same reasons.
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decrees. It was Atlanta’s decision to issue bonds to finance some of its
compliance efforts. It was Atlanta’s decision to pledge its water and sewer system
revenue to pay off those bonds. If the water system revenue declines for any
reason, the problem will affect the bond holders and the City of Atlanta. It will
not affect the federal court’s jurisdiction over the consent decrees and over their
enforcement.
If the potential reduction in water system revenue is large enough—and
there has been no showing that it is—Atlanta may have a problem paying off the
bonds that have already been issued, but that will be Atlanta’s problem, not the
district court’s.6 If some additional revenue is required to offset any that Atlanta
loses, it will be Atlanta’s responsibility to find that revenue, not the district
court’s. In the way that matters, a threatened decline in revenue for this reason is
no different from a decline in revenue for some other reason, such as decreased
usage among existing water customers. The fact that the state service delivery
proceedings may reach a result that will make it more difficult for Atlanta to pay
off the bonds that it has issued to pay for the cleanup does not make an injunction
6
According to Atlanta, “[a]bout 13 percent of its total revenues in fiscal year 2008-2009
came from sales of water outside the city boundaries,” which amounts to about $41 million per
year. The record does not indicate how much of that revenue comes specifically from providing
water service to Sandy Springs or whether Atlanta could make up, in some other way or from
some other source, any revenue it may lose from not providing water service to Sandy Springs.
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against those state proceedings necessary in aid of federal court jurisdiction over
the consent decrees. Cf. Atl. Coast Line R.R., 398 U.S. at 295, 90 S.Ct. at 1747(“[I]t is not enough that the requested injunction is related to [the federal court’s]
jurisdiction, but it must be ‘necessary in aid of’ that jurisdiction.” (emphasis
added)).
The district court was sensitive to anything that threatened to impede
Atlanta’s compliance with the two consent decrees. We do not blame the court for
that. Its sensitivity is understandable in light of the vast amount of time and effort
that the court has devoted to the underlying Clean Water Act case, to the consent
decrees, and to their implementation. But no amount of good motives and no
amount of expended time or effort can bestow on a federal court the authority to
interfere with a sovereign state’s proceedings. Only the Constitution and
Congress can do that, and neither has done so here. See Save the Bay, Inc. v. U.S.
Army, 639 F.2d 1100, 1102 (5th Cir. Feb. 1981) (“We have only the authority
endowed by the Constitution and that conferred by Congress.”).
IV.
We turn now to the supplemental jurisdiction issue. In addition to relying
on the All Writs Act as a source of authority for enjoining the parties from
pursuing the state service delivery proceedings, the district court concluded that
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under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a) it also had supplemental jurisdiction over those
proceedings; that was an alternative basis for taking over the proceedings and
deciding the issues raised in them. The district court did not explain how its
federal question jurisdiction over the Clean Water Act litigation allowed it to
exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the water delivery service issues in the
state proceedings.
Section 1367(a) gives federal courts “the power to exercise supplemental
jurisdiction over all claims that arise out of a common nucleus of operative fact
with a substantial federal claim.” Tamiami Partners, Ltd. ex rel. Tamiami Dev.
Corp. v. Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Fla., 177 F.3d 1212, 1223 (11th Cir.
1999) (quotation marks omitted); see also 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a) (“[I]n any civil
action of which the district courts have original jurisdiction, the district courts
shall have supplemental jurisdiction over all other claims that are so related to
claims in the action within such original jurisdiction that they form part of the
same case or controversy under Article III of the United States Constitution.”).
We review de novo a district court’s legal conclusion that it has subject matter
jurisdiction over a case or controversy. See, e.g., MacGinnitie v. Hobbs Group,
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LLC, 420 F.3d 1234, 1239 (11th Cir. 2005).7
The federal Clean Water Act litigation and the state service delivery
proceedings involve different issues under different law arising from different sets
of facts occurring in different decades. The federal litigation arose from
environmental law violations in the operation of Atlanta’s sewer system during the
1990s. The state proceedings arose from disagreements about where Sandy
Springs can get its water service after it incorporated in 2005.
As we have acknowledged, Atlanta did issue bonds to finance its sewer
cleanup efforts, pledging the revenues from its sewer and water system as
collateral for those bonds. And, if left to the state law merits of the matter, the
state service delivery proceedings may result in a decrease in the revenue stream
coming from the water system, which Atlanta fears would undermine its ability to
comply with the consent decrees. Atlanta’s position is that by trying to wrest the
7
Atlanta asserts that the district court’s decision about whether to exercise supplemental
jurisdiction should be reviewed only for an abuse of discretion. If a district court’s jurisdiction
over a claim arises from 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a), the court has some discretion about whether to
exercise that jurisdiction if any of the factors set out in § 1367(c) exist. It is a district court’s
discretionary decision under § 1367(c) about whether to exercise its supplemental jurisdiction
that we review for an abuse of discretion. See, e.g., Estate of Amergi ex rel. Amergi v.
Palestinian Auth., 611 F.3d 1350, 1356 (11th Cir. 2010). In the present case, however, the issue
is not how the district court should have exercised its discretion in regard to supplemental
jurisdiction that it had. The issue is whether the district court had supplemental jurisdiction to
begin with, and that is a question of law we review de novo. See, e.g., Hill v. BellSouth
Telecomms., Inc., 364 F.3d 1308, 1314 (11th Cir. 2004).
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water system located in Sandy Springs from it, and thereby threatening its revenue,
Sandy Springs has “implicated the same case or controversy as the Clean Water
Act claims.” Br. of Appellee at 45.
Atlanta is wrong. The test is not whether the same case or controversy is
“implicated.” The test is whether the claims asserted “derive from a common
nucleus of operative fact.” United Mine Workers of Am. v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715,
725, 86 S.Ct. 1130, 1138 (1966). We take the nucleus of facts on which the
federal question claims are based and compare it to the nucleus of facts on which
the state law claims are based. We do not look at the results that may flow from
the implications of finding that supplemental jurisdiction does not exist. It is not a
results-oriented analysis, but a fact-oriented one.8
How Atlanta pays for its sewer cleanup efforts (or even whether it pays for
them) does not change the factual predicate that gave rise to the Clean Water Act
litigation. That factual predicate was a sewer system that was in violation of
8
Atlanta relies on Parker v. Scrap Metal Processors, Inc., 468 F.3d 733 (11th Cir. 2006),
to support its argument that the district court properly exercised supplemental jurisdiction in this
case. That decision does not help Atlanta at all. As all of the parties in Parker agreed, the federal
and state claims in that case arose out of a common nucleus of operative fact, giving the district
court the power to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state law claims. See id. at 743.
The issue Parker decided was whether the district court had abused its discretion by declining
under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c) to exercise supplemental jurisdiction that it had. Id. at 738. That is
not the issue before us here.
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federal clean water laws. The state service delivery proceedings about the source
of Sandy Springs’ water service do not derive from a polluting sewer system or
any federal Clean Water Act violations. It derives instead from Sandy Springs’
incorporation and a dispute about how water service is to be handled in the newly
incorporated city.
Atlanta’s test for supplemental jurisdiction would grant federal courts
jurisdiction over any state law claim that could potentially affect revenues used to
comply with a federal court decree, regardless of the claim’s factual predicate.
Consider an example. A city pledges the revenue it gets from an occupational tax
to pay the bonds it has issued to fund compliance with a federal court decree
involving Clean Water Act violations. If litigation is filed in state court over the
state constitutional validity of that occupational tax, under Atlanta’s approach the
federal court would have supplemental jurisdiction to decide that purely state law
issue because the outcome could potentially affect revenues used to pay bonds
issued to fund efforts to comply with the federal court decree. Supplemental
jurisdiction is not that malleable.
The district court erred in concluding that it had supplemental jurisdiction
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over the state service delivery proceeding issues.9
V.
We must keep federal judicial power confined within the “exact degrees and
character” set out by Congress, Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. v. Unidentified
Shipwrecked Vessel, 657 F.3d 1159, 1179 (11th Cir. 2011), and we should guard
against anything that disrupts the delicately balanced system of dual sovereignty
that is one of the foundation stones underlying our Constitution. See Am. Fire &
Cas. Co. v. Finn, 341 U.S. 6, 17, 71 S.Ct. 534, 542 (1951) (“The jurisdiction of the
federal courts is carefully guarded against expansion by judicial interpretation . . .
.”); Healy v. Ratta, 292 U.S. 263, 270, 54 S.Ct. 700, 703 (1934) (“Due regard for
the rightful independence of state governments, which should actuate federal
courts, requires that they scrupulously confine their own jurisdiction to the precise
limits which the statute has defined.”); Russell Corp. v. Am. Home Assur. Co.,
264 F.3d 1040, 1050 (11th Cir. 2001) (“[T]here is a presumption against the
exercise of federal jurisdiction . . . .”); Smith v. GTE Corp., 236 F.3d 1292, 1299
(11th Cir. 2001) (“[F]ederal courts should proceed with caution in construing
9
Relying on Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 19 and 21, the district court joined Sandy
Springs as a third-party defendant in the Clean Water Act litigation. Because the district court
lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the state court service delivery proceedings, it necessarily
follows that joinder of Sandy Springs in the Clean Water Act litigation was improper.
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constitutional and statutory provisions dealing with their jurisdiction.” (quotation
marks & alteration omitted)); Eighth Reg’l War Labor Bd. v. Humble Oil & Ref.
Co., 145 F.2d 462, 464 (5th Cir. 1944) (“The jurisdiction of the district court is
confined within strict limits . . . .”); Le Mieux Bros. v. Tremont Lumber Co., 140
F.2d 387, 389 (5th Cir. 1944) (“United States District Courts are courts of limited
jurisdiction. Creatures of statute, they have only such jurisdiction as the statutes
expressly confer, and this jurisdiction must always affirmatively appear.”). The
district court exceeded the scope of its authority by exercising jurisdiction over the
state service delivery proceedings.
The district court’s order enjoining Fulton County and Sandy Springs from
pursuing the state service delivery proceedings in state court is VACATED, and
the case is REMANDED with instructions for the district court to dismiss for lack
of subject matter jurisdiction Atlanta’s Amended Third-Party Complaint against
Sandy Springs.
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