Peter Bay Homeowners v. Stillman

Opinions of the United
2004 Decisions States Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit
12-21-2004
Peter Bay Homeowners v. Stillman
Precedential or Non-Precedential: Non-Precedential
Docket No. 04-1885
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"Peter Bay Homeowners v. Stillman" (2004). 2004 Decisions. Paper 49.
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NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
No. 04-1885
PETER BAY HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION, INC.
Appellant
v.
ANDREW R. STILLM AN, JOY H. STILLM AN, and SHELIA
J. ROEBUCK
ANTONIO GODINEZ; BONNIE GODINEZ; MICHAEL
BURGAM Y; ETHLYN HALL
(Intervening Counterclaim Plaintiffs in D.C.)
v.
JAMES HENRY; CAROL HENRY; L.D. KIRK; SCOTT F.
MEESE; DONNA G. MEESE; ARIE LIEBESKIND; DOREEN
LIEBESKIND; JIM R. HAYES; ZAQUIN S. HAYES;
JEFFREY PRICE; STEVEN PAUL; JANN PAUL; ST JOHN
LAND INVESTMENT L.P.; ANDREWS ST. JOHN TRUST
(Intervening Counterclaim Defendants in D.C.)
On Appeal from the District Court
of the Virgin Islands
(D.C. No. 97-cv-00036)
District Judge: Honorable Stanley S. Brotman
Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)
December 14, 2004
Before: SLOVITER, FUENTES, and GREENBERG, Circuit
Judges.
(Filed: December 21, 2004)
OPINION OF THE COURT
FUENTES, Circuit Judge.
The Peter Bay Homeowner’s Association appeals the
District Court’s dismissal of its suit for a permanent injunction
preventing certain property owners from interfering with its
members’ use of an easement allowing them access to a beach area.
The District Court found that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction
over the suit, as the parties are not diverse, there is no federal
question, and there is no basis for the exercise of ancillary
jurisdiction. Appellants contend that ancillary jurisdiction exists
because the easement was created by the District Court in 1975 and
this Court, in a previous suit between the parties, asserted ancillary
jurisdiction over the issue of the scope of the easement because it
involved interpretation of the District Court’s 1975 decree.
We conclude that this action is factually distinguishable
from the previous suit before this Court in that the question
presented here does not relate directly to the 1975 District Court
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decree or this Court’s previous decision, and therefore does not
require interpretation of that decree or effectuation of our decision.
Accordingly, we affirm the District Court’s dismissal for want of
jurisdiction.
I.
As we write solely for the parties, our recitation of the facts
will be limited to those necessary to a proper understanding of our
determination. In 1970, Lillian Harthman Cheng filed suit in the
District Court of the Virgin Islands to partition a large parcel of
property in Peter Bay, St. John to which she was one of six heirs.
Accordingly, Judge Young filed an opinion and decree of partition
in 1975. See Harthman v. Harthman, 12 V.I. 142 (1975). The
partitioning decree provided for a 50-foot perpetual easement (the
“Easement”) to allow the owners and future owners to use and
enjoy the beach area. Id. at 158.
By 1988, St. John Land Investment L.P. (the “Partnership”)
had purchased much of the aforementioned land and subdivided it
for resale. The Partnership, as part of its effort to create a unified
plan for its subdivision, filed a Declaration of Protective Covenants
for Peter Bay, St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands (the “Covenants”).
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Joint Appendix (“J.A.”) 466-500.1 The Covenants include, among
the definitions of terms, a definition of “Common Areas” that
specifically includes the Easement referred to in the 1975 decree.
Id. at 467. Additionally, Covenant 18 states that “[n]o planting or
gardening shall be done upon the Common Areas [and] no fences,
hedges, or walls shall be erected thereon.” Id. at 476.
In 1997, the Peter Bay Homeowner’s Association (the
“Association”), an organization existing for the collective benefit
of Peter Bay property owners, brought suit to compel certain
property owners to remit dues and to clarify certain property
restrictions stemming from Harthman and the Covenants. Among
the issues was whether the Easement extended 50 feet inland or
only up to the vegetation berm (which, for the most part, is fewer
than 50 feet inland). The case eventually found itself before this
Court, and we issued the final opinion with respect to the
geographical scope of the Easement. However, as discussed by the
District Court in the matter, we were faced with jurisdictional
issues that had to be resolved before consideration of the merits of
the dispute. Specifically, the District Court in 1975 had
1
Although the Covenants have since been amended, none of the
amendments are relevant to this case.
4
jurisdiction over the matter under the broad jurisdictional structure
existing at that time, which allowed the court to hear both federal
and local matters. However, that jurisdictional landscape was
fundamentally altered in 1990, when the Virgin Islands legislature
acted to abrogate the local jurisdiction of the District Court of the
Virgin Islands, pursuant to the 1984 amendments to the Revised
Organic Act of 1954. Thus, we noted that the action “lack[ed] the
traditional indices of subject matter jurisdiction,” but found that
“the District Court had jurisdiction to interpret the meaning and
scope of the various obligations imposed by the previous 1975
District Court upon the Peter Bay properties.” Peter Bay
Homeowners Ass’n v. Stillman, 294 F.3d 524, 533 (3d Cir. 2002)
(“Stillman”). This ancillary jurisdiction was predicated on the
power of a court to effectuate its own decrees. See id. (citing
Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co., 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994)).
After finding jurisdiction, we found that, although Harthman
dictated that the Easement follow the vegetation berm, the
Covenants unequivocally described the Easement as following the
50-foot line. Id. at 536, 538. The larger scope dictated by the
Covenants controlled, as the Covenants were created for the
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“collective benefit of Peter Bay owners” and bound the parties in
the suit. Id. at 538-40. It is important to this case that we noted in
Stillman that “the Protective Covenants make no mention of the
1975 opinion [in Harthman].” Id. at 539.
The current dispute was instituted in November 2003, and
seeks a permanent injunction mandating the removal of a short
stone and coral wall, about one foot high, allegedly built by the
Godinezes (who were parties in the previous suit) across a portion
of the Easement that falls on their property. The Association
asserts that the existence of the wall is in direct contravention of
Covenant 18, quoted above. The Godinezes do not dispute this
contention, and instead argue that Covenant 18 must be construed
in light of the public policy in favor of environmental protection
and accordingly seek an injunction declaring the berm area a
“green zone,” which must not be treaded upon.
The District Court found that it had no jurisdiction over the
matter, and dismissed it without prejudice. The Association
appeals, arguing that the District Court has ancillary jurisdiction
over this matter for precisely the same reasons that the Stillman
panel of this Court cited.
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II.
As it is beyond dispute that the District Court would not
have jurisdiction to consider any part of this matter if originally
filed after 1990, the Association relies on ancillary jurisdiction, and
more specifically, the species of that jurisdiction that derives from
courts’ inherent power to interpret and effectuate their own rulings.
Ancillary jurisdiction may be exercised “(1) to permit
disposition by a single court of claims that are, in varying respects
and degrees, factually interdependent; and (2) to enable a court to
function successfully, that is, to manage its proceedings, vindicate
its authority, and effectuate its decrees.” Peacock v. Thomas, 516
U.S. 349, 354 (1996) (quotation omitted). The latter justification
is at issue here, in terms of whether an assertion of jurisdiction over
this case is necessary to interpret or effectuate the 1975 District
Court decree or this Court’s Stillman decision. As discussed by the
District Court, Peacock and Kokkonen contemplate a very narrow
concept of ancillary jurisdiction. In those cases, the Supreme Court
focused on the legal and factual similarities of the cases involved,
declining in both instances to find ancillary jurisdiction because of
the differences. In Peacock, the Court found that the existence of
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ancillary jurisdiction was defeated by the novelty of the legal
theory asserted, as it could not have been asserted in the previous
case to which that case allegedly was ancillary. 516 U.S. at 359.
In Kokkonen, the Court did not find jurisdiction because of the
factual differences between the original suit and the allegedly
ancillary one. See Kokkonen, 511 U.S. at 380. Importantly, in
Peacock, the Court has stated that “[a]ncillary enforcement
jurisdiction is, at its core, a creature of necessity” and, accordingly,
“[w]hen a party has obtained a valid federal judgment, only
extraordinary circumstances, if any, can justify ancillary
jurisdiction over a subsequent suit.” 516 U.S. at 359.
The Association argues that our analysis of jurisdiction in
Stillman controls this case. Stillman involved the jurisdictional
question whether a dispute over the geographic scope of the
Easement was ancillary to the 1975 District Court decree. The
1975 decree set forth certain geographical boundaries for the
Easement, but the Covenants provided for larger bounds. The
District Court was faced with conflicting descriptions of its
boundaries and had to decide how to interpret and effectuate the
1975 decree in light of the Covenants. This Court decided that the
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larger contractual boundaries set forth in the Covenants controlled.
The question presented here, however, is whether the
Godinezes’ alleged actions w ith respect to the Easement (having
nothing to do with its boundaries) are explicitly barred by the
Covenants. To be sure, both the question here and that in Stillman
are related to the scope of the Easement. However, the present
case is devoid of a conflict between the 1975 decree and the
Covenants; the language relied upon by the Association exists
solely in the Covenants, with the 1975 decree offering but silence
on the matter.2
Thus, there are important differences between the Stillman
decision’s relationship to the 1975 decree and this suit’s connection
2
The Association seeks to invoke the law of the case doctrine.
However, after we issued our opinion in Stillman, we entered a judgment
in lieu of a mandate and thus completely terminated that action. The law
of the case doctrine holds that, when an issue of law or fact has been
determined by a valid and final judgment, that issue of law or fact cannot
again be litigated in the “same litigation.” Hamilton v. Leavy, 322 F.3d
776, 786-87 (3d Cir. 2003). As noted by the District Court, this Court’s
2002 judgment in lieu of a mandate resulted in the 1997 action being
“fully adjudicated and [rendered] the case closed.” J.A. at 7. Thus,
although the Association (erroneously) decided to file the instant dispute
under the docket number previously assigned to the Stillman action, this
fact does not alter the correctness of the District Court’s finding that the
Stillman action is now and forever closed. Thus, the appropriate and
analogous doctrines potentially applicable to this case are res judicata
and collateral estoppel. Those doctrines, although conceptually
appropriate, do not apply because of the lack of identity between the
issue here and that in Stillman.
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to the 1975 decree. Unlike in Stillman, here we are not being asked
to interpret or apply the explicit terms of the 1975 decree. Instead,
we are being asked to apply the terms of the Covenants. The
history and reasoning of the 1975 suit were directly relevant to
Stillman; here, however, a court simply needs to apply the terms of
the Covenants. Given the lack of any conflict, the 1975 decree is
not implicated, and it is therefore not necessary to the interpretation
or effectuation of that decree for the District Court to assert
jurisdiction over this case. For the same reasons, this suit is not
properly ancillary to the Stillman decision. In addition, the facts
underlying this case are different from those in Stillman, in that the
stone and coral wall did not exist at that time and a cause of action
to remove the wall clearly did not exist either. Accordingly, the
District Court was correct in finding that it did not have any basis
for asserting subject matter jurisdiction over this case.3
3
It may appear wiser to affirm the District Court on the basis
that it relied on its discretion in refusing to exercise ancillary
jurisdiction, thereby avoiding the issue of whether ancillary jurisdiction
exists. See J.A. 17 (concluding that “the Court can find no justification
for the exercise of ancillary jurisdiction); see also In re Austrian &
German Bank Holocaust Litig., 317 F.3d 91, 106 & n.2 (2d Cir. 2003)
(Parker, J., concurring) (referring to the discretionary nature of ancillary
jurisdiction and quoting the language in Chambers v. NASCO, 501 U.S.
32, 44 (1991) that “[b]ecause of their very potency, inherent powers
must be exercised with restraint and discretion”). However, the District
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III.
For the reasons discussed above, we agree with the District
Court that the suit presently before us, seeking to apply the
language of the Covenants regarding use of the Easement, is
factually independent from the 1975 suit describing the
geographical boundaries of the easement and the Stillman decision,
which clarified those boundaries. Accordingly, we will affirm the
Court’s dismissal for lack of jurisdiction
Court’s opinion is replete with references to its lack of jurisdiction, see,
e.g., J.A. 17 (stating that “[t]his Court does not have jurisdiction”), and
we do not find that conclusion to be in error.
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