Roberts v. Burdick et al

Filing 70

ORDER: For the reasons stated in the attached memorandum and order, Roberts' motion for declaratory judgment (Doc. 55 ) is DENIED. The Illinois agencies' motions to intervene as of right (Docs. 56 and 57 ) are also DENIED. Roberts and the agencies will need to settle their differences in a state court forum. The settlement-related judgment between the plaintiff and the defendants remains set for automatic entry by the Clerk of Court on or around October 8, 2016. Signed by Chief Judge Michael J. Reagan on 10/4/2016. (wtw)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
BRITTON ROBERTS,
Plaintiff,
vs.
EDWARD LEE BURDICK, and
GDL TRANSPORT, LLC
Defendants.

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Case No. 15-cv-0312-MJR-DGW

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
REAGAN, Chief District Judge:
This suit concerns a commercial truck accident that occurred on April 10, 2013.
On that day, Britton Roberts was parked in a state-operated truck in the southbound
lane of Interstate 57 in Union County, Illinois, assisting in road maintenance on a stretch
of the highway. A few minutes before 1:00 PM, a semi-truck operated by Edward Lee
Burdick and owned by GDL Transport, LLC, struck Roberts’ parked vehicle, causing
him significant injuries. In January 2015, Roberts sued Burdick and GDL Transport in
Illinois’ First Judicial Circuit, claiming that Burdick was negligent and that GDL
Transport was culpable for his negligence. Burdick and GDL Transport then removed
the case to this Court on diversity grounds, and the case proceeded through discovery
and was on track for an April 2016 trial. A few weeks before the trial date, the Court
was advised that the case had settled but that the parties needed additional time to
finalize the settlement documents. The Court entered an order confirming the parties’

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settlement and indicated to the parties that the Court would enter automatic judgment
consistent with their settlement and close the case in mid-June 2016.
Cases subject to these types of “60-day orders” usually end uneventfully, but this
case is an exception to that pattern. One month after the Court issued the settlement
order, Roberts filed what he dubbed a “motion for declaritory [sic] judgment/petition
to adjudicate liens,” seeking to rope the State of Illinois into the case. Roberts collected
state pension and worker’s compensation benefits after the accident, so the Illinois
agencies administering those benefits had a lien on Roberts’ recovery from Burdick and
GDL Transport. Roberts’ petition sought to have the Court square away how much
Roberts owed to the state agencies. The rub was that Roberts’ petition to adjudicate the
liens was undeveloped: he didn’t identify the Illinois agencies he sought to add, he
didn’t state which procedural mechanism in the federal rules he wished to use to add
them, he didn’t say anything about how those parties were aligned, and he offered
nothing about the impact of adding parties on the Court’s jurisdiction. Roberts is an
Illinois citizen and the case was removable only because the defendants were Indiana
citizens. The Illinois agencies likely qualify as Illinois citizens, so Roberts’ efforts to add
them could impact jurisdiction depending on how they are aligned. Because the motion
was undeveloped, the Court denied it without prejudice, instructing Roberts that he
was free to file again but if he did he needed to lay out a procedural mechanism for
adding the Illinois agencies and a developed basis for this Court’s jurisdiction.
Roberts has since filed another “motion for declaratory judgment/petition to
adjudicate statutory liens.” For their parts, Roberts and GDL Transport have moved to
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dismiss themselves from the case with prejudice, for they already cut the settlement
check to Burdick, and the state lienholders also moved to intervene in the case to litigate
their liens. The Court held a teleconference concerning all of the pending motions on
July 29, 2016. At the beginning of the conference, all involved were advised by the
Court that there may be jurisdictional- and rule-related problems with granting
Burdick’s motion to add and the agencies’ motions to intervene. Despite those looming
issues, Burdick and GDL Transport reiterated their desire to be dismissed from the case
and Roberts and the intervenors said they had no objection to dismissal at that point, so
the defendants were dismissed. Roberts and the intervenors then advised the Court
that a settlement conference before Magistrate Judge Wilkerson may help to work out
their differences, so the Court again extended the automatic judgment date to October
8, 2016. Judge Wilkerson held a settlement conference on September 29, 2016, and
despite his admirable efforts, Roberts and the lienholders weren’t able to work things
out. No one has moved to extend the pending judgment entry, and given that Burdick
and GDL Transport have been dismissed from this case, the only impediment to
judgment is the state agencies’ pending motions to intervene and Roberts’ pending
motion to add. Those are now before the Court for review.
The Court will begin with Roberts’ second motion to adjudicate liens, which is
almost as summary as his last. This motion asks for two types of relief. Roberts first
concedes that there might be a jurisdictional problem with adding the Illinois agencies
into this federal case and, because of that problem, he moves the Court to declare the
Illinois liens void. As Roberts sees it, if the state agencies had intervened earlier, the
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case would have been remanded back to state court, and he sees the agencies’ failure to
insert themselves earlier in this case as a waiver of their lien rights. The rub is that
Roberts offers no rule, case authority, or developed argument backing up this premise,
and it isn’t incumbent on this Court to do his work for him. E.g., Bank of America, N.A.
v. Veluchamy, 643 F.3d 185, 190 (7th Cir. 2011); White Eagle Coop. Ass’n v. Conner, 553
F.3d 467, 476 n.6 (7th Cir. 2009). That aspect of Roberts’ motion must be denied.
Roberts’ second request for relief suffers from a similar flaw. Presuming there’s
no waiver of Illinois’ liens, he again asks the Court to hear the lien action as a part of
this proceeding under the Court’s supplemental jurisdiction. As the party asking the
Court to hear a new declaratory claim related to a new party he has the burden to show
that the Court has jurisdiction. Travelers Property Casualty v. Good, 689 F.3d 714, 722
(7th Cir. 2012). He hasn’t satisfied that burden. Despite being prompted to do so in the
last order, Roberts still hasn’t put forth a procedural basis for adding the Illinois
agencies to the case, nor has he offered any developed basis for jurisdiction over them.
All he’s done is cite an unpublished district court decision from the Central District of
Illinois, which permitted a claim by a plaintiff against a lienholder who had already
intervened earlier in the case. The case he cited, Dereak v. Don Mattox Trucking, LLC,
No. 06-3123, 2009 WL 1098766, at *2 (C.D. Ill. Apr. 23, 2009), didn’t deal with a
plaintiff’s effort to bring a lienholder into a case, it didn’t offer any developed analysis
of jurisdiction for plaintiffs who are trying to add lienholders, and in any event district
court rulings are persuasive and not precedential. United States v. Articles of Drug
Consisting of 203 Paper Bags, 818 F.2d 569, 572 (7th Cir. 1987). The Court is of the view
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that the citation to one inapposite district ruling, without more, doesn’t satisfy Roberts’
burden to persuade the Court that it has jurisdiction in this case, especially given that
Roberts was given instructions as to what he needed to do to flesh out jurisdiction and
has conceded that there is likely a jurisdictional defect with his motion.
The Court told Roberts to specify the rule he was using to add the Illinois
agencies and to lay out jurisdiction over them for a reason. Roberts maintains that the
Court can hear the lien matter under its supplemental jurisdiction, but that jurisdiction
is circumscribed by 28 U.S.C. § 1367(b). That portion of the federal code says that
federal courts lack supplemental jurisdiction over claims by plaintiffs against persons
made parties under the federal joinder, impleader, or intervention rules if the
overarching case is premised on diversity and if the plaintiff’s claim against the new
party runs afoul of the diversity requirements. Roberts’ petition implies that his lien
claim is directed at the Illinois agencies and that he has a substantial conflict with those
agencies, so § 1367(b) likely has something to say about his ability to add the agencies to
this case. See, e.g., LM Ins. Corp. v. Spaulding Enters. Inc., 533 F.3d 542, 555 n.5 (7th
Cir. 2008); Stromberg Metal Works, Inc. v. Press Mechanical, Inc., 77 F.3d 928, 932 (7th
Cir. 1996). At the end of the day, for the Court to ascertain whether it has the power to
hear the lien claim at Roberts’ behest, it needs to know the specific procedural rule
employed by Roberts to add the party, the party’s proposed alignment, and why
Roberts thinks the Court has jurisdiction in light of that alignment and the text of §
1367(b). Roberts hasn’t fleshed out those points, so the Court must deny his motion.

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With Roberts’ amended motion resolved, that only leaves the Illinois agencies’
motion to intervene in the case as of right pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
24(a)(2). The state agencies aren’t asserting a right to intervene under a federal statute,
so intervention is only proper when their ability to protect their interests in this federal
case may be “impair[ed]” or “imped[ed]” by the disposition of this case without them.
FED. R. CIV. P. 23(a)(2). In the mine run of cases, that kind of impairment doesn’t exist
when there is another forum available to the intervenor to litigate his interest,
Southmark Corp. v. Cagan, 950 F.2d 416, 419 (7th Cir. 1991), and the Illinois agencies
concede that another forum is available to them here.

When they lay out the

impairment under Rule 24 that necessitates their intervention into this case, they say
that they need to intervene only because an inability to do so means they will have to
pursue their liens on Roberts’ settlement in a “subsequent” suit, presumably in state
court. A lienholder’s ability to pursue his lien on a plaintiff’s recovery in a state forum
typically shuts down any need for the lienholder to intervene in the primary merits suit.
See Sec. & Exch. Comm’n v. Homa, 17 F. App’x 441, 446 (7th Cir. 2001); see also Koester
v. Amergen Energy Co., No. 06-3124, 2008 WL 879459, at *3 (C.D. Ill. Mar. 28, 2008);
Ebersohl v. Bechtel Corp., No. 09-1029, 2010 WL 2266736, at *2 (S.D. Ill. June 7, 2010);
Jones v. Shell Oil Co., No. 3:05-cv-622, 2006 WL 83467, at *2 (S.D. Ill. Jan. 11, 2006).
It’s true that the availability of another forum doesn’t preclude intervention in a
federal case when matters decided as a part of the federal case could still prejudice the
intervenor’s interest in any subsequent action. E.g., Commodity Futures Trading Com’n
v. Heritage Capital Advisory Servs., Ltd., 736 F.2d 384, 387 (7th Cir. 1984); Central
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States, Southeast and Southwest Areas Health & Welfare Fund v. Old Sec. Life Ins. Co.,
600 F.2d 671, 681 (7th Cir. 1979).

But the agencies don’t reference any potential

prejudice to them should the Court deny their motions to intervene beyond the hassle
of filing suit in state court to press their liens, and the only source the Court can think
up for them is Roberts’ recent effort to try to have the liens declared waived. That
request poses no real danger to their interests, as Roberts’ hasn’t offered any credible
support for waiver and in any event his motion has been denied. See Heritage Capital,
736 F.2d at 387. Because the agencies lone asserted hindrance doesn’t impede their
interests under Rule 24(a), the agencies’ motions must be denied.
To sum up, Roberts’ motion for declaratory judgment (Doc. 55) is DENIED. The
Illinois agencies’ motions to intervene as of right (Docs. 56 & 57) are also DENIED.
Roberts and the agencies will need to settle their differences in a state court forum. The
settlement-related judgment between the plaintiff and the defendants remains set for
automatic entry by the Clerk of Court on or around October 8, 2016.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
DATED: October 4, 2016
/s/ Michael J. Reagan
Chief Judge Michael J. Reagan
United States District Court

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