United States v. USDC-ORE, No. 17-71692 (9th Cir. 2018)
Annotate this CaseThe Ninth Circuit denied without prejudice a petition for a writ of mandamus where federal defendants sought an order directing the district court to dismiss a case seeking various environmental remedies. Plaintiffs, twenty-one young individuals, filed suit alleging defendants have contributed to climate change in violation of plaintiffs' constitutional rights. Defendants argued that allowing the case to proceed would result in burdensome discovery obligations on the federal government that would threaten the separation of powers. The panel held that defendants did not not satisfy the Bauman factors at this stage of the litigation, and the issues that defendants raised on mandamus were better addressed through the ordinary course of litigation. In this case, the district court had not issued a single discovery order, plaintiffs have not filed a single motion seeking to compel discovery, any merits errors were correctable through the ordinary course of litigation, and there was no controlling Ninth Circuit authority on any of the theories asserted by plaintiff. Therefore, the panel declined to exercise its discretion in granting mandamus relief.
Court Description: Mandamus. The panel denied without prejudice a petition for a writ of mandamus in which federal defendants sought an order directing the district court to dismiss a case seeking various environmental remedies. Twenty-one plaintiffs brought suit against defendants – the United States, and federal agencies and officials – alleging that the defendants contributed to climate change in violation of the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights. The defendants argued that allowing the case to proceed would result in burdensome discovery obligations on the federal government that would threaten the separation of powers. The panel held that the defendants did not satisfy the five factors in Bauman v. U.S. Dist. Ct., 557 F.2d 650 (9th Cir. IN RE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 5 1977), at this stage of the litigation. Specifically, the panel held that mandamus relief was inappropriate where the district court had not issued a single discovery order, nor had the plaintiffs filed a single motion seeking to compel discovery. The panel also held that any merits errors were correctable through the ordinary course of litigation. The panel further held that there was no controlling Ninth Circuit authority on any of the theories asserted by plaintiffs, and this weighed strongly against a finding of clear error for mandamus purposes. Finally, the panel held that district court’s order denying a motion to dismiss on the pleadings did not present the possibility that the issue of first impression raised by the case would evade appellate review. The panel concluded that the issues that the defendants raised on mandamus were better addressed through the ordinary course of litigation.
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