Rocky Mountain Wild et al v. Walsh et al

Filing 16

ORDER. This case is REMITTED to the Clerk for immediate random assignment to a merits judge under D.C.COLO.LCiv.R 40.1. The parties are reminded that the case remains an administrative appeal under the Court's Local Appellate (LAP) Rules and that briefing and other pre-merits procedures remain governed by the LAP Rules and the operative Joint Case Management Plan. Entered by Judge John L. Kane on 07/07/15. (jhawk, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
Civil Action No. 1:15-cv-00615-AP
ROCKY MOUNTAIN WILD, CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL
DIVERSITY, UTAH NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY, SOUTHERN
UTAH WILDERNESS ALLIANCE, GRAND CANYON TRUST,
WESTERN RESOURCE ADVOCATES, and WESTERN
WATERSHEDS PROJECT,
Plaintiffs,
v.
NOREEN WALSH, in her official capacity as Regional Director of
the Mountain-Prairie Region of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service,
S.M.R. JEWELL, in her official capacity as Secretary of the U.S.
Department of the Interior, U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE,
and U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Defendants.
________________________________________________________________________
ORDER
________________________________________________________________________
KANE, J.
Under the Court’s local rules of practice, D.C.COLO.LAPR 1.1. et seq., the AP

judge manages an administrative appeal through briefing, after which it is returned to the
Clerk’s Office to be drawn to a judge like any other civil case under D.C.COLO.LCiv.R
40.1. See Untangling Federal Administrative Appeals Practice in the District of

Colorado, 42 Colo. Law. 31 (March 2013).1 In some appeals – particularly those from
informal agency decisions where there is no formal record of the administrative
proceedings below– this pre-briefing case management often includes challenges to the
jurisdictional and related justiciability of the appeal as pled. I find the issues raised in the
Proposed Intervenor Defendants’ Motion to Intervene (Doc. 10) to be sufficiently
intertwined with the merits of the underlying controversy to suggest the AP judge refrain
from resolving them to avoid binding the merits judge to a ruling which he or she may
view differently.
For the foregoing reasons, this case is REMITTED to the Clerk for immediate
random assignment to a merits judge under D.C.COLO.LCiv.R 40.1. The parties are
reminded that the case remains an administrative appeal under the Court’s Local
Appellate (LAP) Rules and that briefing and other pre-merits procedures remain
governed by the LAP Rules and the operative Joint Case Management Plan.

Dated: July 7, 2015.
s/John L. Kane
SENIOR U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE

1

Available on the Court’s website at
http://www.cod.uscourts.gov/Portals/0/Documents/Judges/JLK/jlk_CH-KR-AP-docket-article-0
3-2013-Colo-Lawyer.pdf.
2