Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Biegalski
Filing
48
ORDER denying 43 Motion for Reconsideration. Signed by Judge Robert N. Scola, Jr on 4/19/2018. (vmz)
United States District Court
for the
Southern District of Florida
Seminole Tribe of Florida, Plaintiff,
v.
Leon Biegalski, as Executive
Director of the Department of
Revenue of the State of Florida,
Defendant.
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)
)
) Civil Action No. 16-62775-Civ-Scola
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Order Denying Motion for Reconsideration
Plaintiff Seminole Tribe of Florida asks the Court to reconsider its order
(ECF No. 41) granting Defendant Leon Biegalski’s motion to dismiss the Tribe’s
complaint. For the reasons that follow, the Court denies the Tribe’s motion
(ECF No. 43) but, at the same time, sua sponte clarifies limited aspects of the
order granting dismissal.
1. Standard of review
“[I]n the interests of finality and conservation of scarce judicial resources,
reconsideration of an order is an extraordinary remedy that is employed
sparingly.” Gipson v. Mattox, 511 F. Supp. 2d 1182, 1185 (S.D. Ala. 2007). A
motion to reconsider is “appropriate where, for example, the Court has patently
misunderstood a party, or has made a decision outside the adversarial issues
presented to the Court by the parties, or has made an error not of reasoning
but of apprehension.” Z.K. Marine Inc. v. M/V Archigetis, 808 F. Supp. 1561,
1563 (S.D. Fla. 1992) (Hoeveler, J.) (citation omitted). “Simply put, a party may
move for reconsideration only when one of the following has occurred: an
intervening change in controlling law, the availability of new evidence, or the
need to correct clear error or prevent manifest injustice.” Longcrier v. HL-A Co.,
595 F. Supp. 2d 1218, 1247 (S.D. Ala. 2008) (quoting Vidinliev v. Carey Int’l,
Inc., No. CIV.A. 107CV762-TWT, 2008 WL 5459335, at *1 (N.D. Ga. Dec. 15,
2008)). However, “[s]uch problems rarely arise and the motion to reconsider
should be equally rare.” Z.K. Marine, 808 F. Supp. at 1563 (citation omitted).
Certainly if any of these situations arise, a court has broad discretion to
reconsider a previously issued order. Absent any of these conditions, however,
a motion to reconsider is not ordinarily warranted.
More specifically, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e), under which the
Tribe claims to be proceeding, permits a motion to alter or amend a judgment.
“The only grounds for granting a Rule 59 motion,” however, “are newly-
discovered evidence or manifest errors of law or fact.” Arthur v. King, 500 F.3d
1335, 1343 (11th Cir. 2007) (internal quotations omitted). That is, “[a] Rule
59(e) motion cannot be used to relitigate old matters, raise argument or present
evidence that could have been raised prior to the entry of judgment.” Id.
2. Background
The Tribe is a federally recognized Indian tribe with reservations
throughout Florida. In a prior case, in 2012, the Tribe sought declaratory and
injunctive relief against Marshall Stranburg, the then interim executive director
of Florida’s Department of Revenue, complaining that Florida’s rental and
utility taxes were being applied to the Tribe in violation of federal Indian law.
Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida, 49 F. Supp. 3d 1095, 1096–97 (S.D. Fla.
2014) (Scola, J.) (“Seminole I”), aff’d in part, rev’d in part sub nom. Seminole
Tribe of Florida v. Stranburg, 799 F.3d 1324 (11th Cir. 2015). This Court agreed
with the Tribe, granting summary judgment in its favor on all of its claims.
Seminole I, 49 F. Supp. 3d at 1097. Stranburg appealed, however, securing a
reversal of the Court’s judgment on the utility tax but not the rental tax. The
Eleventh Circuit found the Court had “erred in placing the legal incidence of
the Utility Tax on the Tribe.” Seminole, 799 F.3d at 1353, cert. denied sub nom.
Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Biegalski, 136 S. Ct. 2480 (2016). Instead, the
Eleventh Circuit concluded the legal incidence of the utility tax “falls on the
non-Indian utility company” and, further, its application, based on the record
before the court, was not preempted by federal law—either in whole or in part.
Id. at 1352, 53.
Upon remand of the case back to this Court from the Eleventh Circuit,
Stranburg moved for the entry of judgment. The Tribe objected, contending it
should be permitted to present additional evidence and argument establishing
the utility tax’s preemption with respect to fourteen specified activities. The
Court was not persuaded by the Tribe’s position and entered final summary
judgment in Stranburg’s favor. The Tribe did not appeal that judgment.
Thereafter, however, the Tribe filed the instant suit, against Biegalski, the
current executive director of Florida’s Department of Revenue, again seeking
injunctive relief and a declaratory judgment that Florida’s imposition of the
utility tax on the Tribe’s use of electricity on its reservations or other property
is preempted by federal law. (“Seminole II”). However, in the instant case, rather
than reference the Tribe’s electricity use generally, as to “every activity it
conducts on Tribal Land,” like it did in Seminole I, the Tribe here narrowed its
focus, specifying instead fourteen discrete activities in which it uses electricity:
law enforcement; education activities; medical health and fire rescue services;
family and youth counseling; water and sanitary management; road
construction and maintenance; housing activities; culture preservation; leasing
activities; forestry and wildlife management; agricultural and livestock grazing
activities; rock mining; Indian gaming; and gaming-related economic activities.
Finding the claims in Seminole II subject to claim preclusion, based on the
adjudication of the claims in Seminole I, the Court granted Biegalski’s motion
to dismiss. (ECF No. 41.) That is the order the Tribe now asks the Court to
reconsider.
3. Discussion
The Tribe’s motion rests on various alleged manifest errors of both law
and fact in the Court’s order. Specifically, says the Tribe, the Court: (1)
mischaracterized the Tribe’s claim as set forth in Seminole I; (2) misinterpreted
the Eleventh Circuit’s opinion in the appeal of Seminole I; (3) misapplied the
test for determining whether the claims in Seminole II were indeed precluded by
the adjudication of the claims in Seminole I; and (4) incorrectly declined to
apply the “manifest injustice” exception to the application of claim preclusion
in this case.
With respect to the Tribe’s first allegation of error, it appears the Tribe’s
concern is that the Court, in dismissing the Tribe’s case, failed to apprehend
the Tribe’s claim and therefore failed to actually address it. As a result, argues
the Tribe, claim preclusion cannot apply because the Tribe’s actual claim has
never been decided on its merits. The Tribe’s argument is misguided.
Although it is indeed true that claim preclusion can apply only when
there is a final judgment on the merits, e.g. Davila v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 326
F.3d 1183, 1187 (11th Cir. 2003), the claims in Seminole I have, in fact, been
decided on their merits. As set forth in this Court’s order on remand, in
Seminole I, the entirety of the Tribe’s complaint was before this Court, as well
as the Eleventh Circuit, on “fully-briefed and extensive cross-motions for final
summary judgment.” (Seminole I, Order on Remand, ECF No. 110, 6 (emphasis
in original).) Discovery had long since closed and the motions were ripe for
review. In reversing this Court’s order on summary judgment, the Eleventh
Circuit itself undertook the interest-balancing test set forth in White Mountain
Apache Tribe v. Bracker, 448 U.S. 136 (1980) in order to determine whether the
Tribe had established preemption of the utility tax—either in its entirety or only
to a certain extent. In conducting this analysis, the Eleventh Circuit
determined that based on the record before it, “the Tribe has failed to
demonstrate that the existence of these statutes represents an exclusive or
pervasive federal regulation of those activities.” Seminole, 799 F.3d at 1353 n.
22. That is, with the benefit of the parties’ fully briefed cross-motions for
summary judgment before it for review, the Eleventh Circuit concluded “the tax
is validly imposed” and could “discern here no pervasive federal interest or
comprehensive regulatory scheme . . . sufficient to demonstrate” preemption.
Id. at 1352, 1352 n. 21. To be clear, this Court, in evaluating Biegalski’s
motion to dismiss, was fully aware, like the Eleventh Circuit, that the Tribe
sought a declaration that federal law preempts Florida’s imposition of any
utilities tax “to the extent [the tax] is applied to electricity used to conduct
specific activities that the Tribe claims to be exclusively and pervasively
regulated by [f]ederal law.” (Pl.’s Mot. at 12 (emphasis in original).) The
Eleventh Circuit, in adjudicating the Tribe’s claim in Seminole, specifically
focused on the “substantive shortcomings” in the Tribe’s arguments, Davila,
326 F.3d at 1188, 89, thereby deciding the case on its merits.
In short, the Tribe’s repeated reference to the Eleventh Circuit’s “election”
not to address the Tribe’s preemption claim is flawed. As explained above, the
Eleventh Circuit fully evaluated the Tribe’s claim and was not persuaded
“under the record presented in this case.” Seminole, 799 F.3d at 1352 n. 21.
The Eleventh Circuit specifically pointed to the Tribe’s failure: to “develop
further argument with respect to electricity use in specifically regulated onreservation activities”; to “demonstrate that the existence of these statutes
represents an exclusive or pervasive federal regulation of those activities”; and
to “introduce[] evidence of a substantial federal interest in regulating Indians’
utility use specifically.” Id. at 1352, 1352 n. 22, 1353. The Eleventh Circuit did
not “refrain” from addressing the issue; it carefully assessed the entirety of the
Tribe’s claim—which the Tribe had an opportunity to fully and fairly develop
through discovery and briefing—and found the Tribe had failed to carry its
burden of demonstrating its entitlement to relief.
The remainder of the Tribe’s motion merely rehashes the arguments it
presented during the briefing of Biegalski’s motion to dismiss, repackages its
concerns that its claims were not decided on their merits, presents new
theories, or mischaracterizes this Court’s order on dismissal. The Court
therefore declines to reconsider its order or judgment.
4. Conclusion
The Tribe now claims “[i]t requested the same declaration in both cases.”
(E.g., Pl.’s Reply, ECF no. 47, 3.) If this is so, then undoubtedly the same
causes of action and the same factual predicates are at issue in both cases:
whether federal law preempts the utility tax at issue, either in whole or in part.
In Seminole I, The Tribe’s case proceeded through discovery and final summary
judgment. The Eleventh Circuit fully reviewed the record, subjected the Tribe’s
presentation to a Bracker analysis, and then determined the Tribe failed to
make its case that the utility taxes at issue were preempted—to any extent. The
Tribe has simply not persuaded the Court (1) that, in the first instance, it
should be afforded a second chance to litigate its claim anew; or (2) to
reconsider the order denying it that chance. In sum, the Tribe has not set forth
any basis to support its claims of manifest error in either fact or law.
The Court thus denies the Tribe’s motion for reconsideration. (ECF No.
43). This case is to remain closed.
Done and ordered, at Miami, Florida, on April 19, 2018.
________________________________
Robert N. Scola, Jr.
United States District Judge
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