Vooys v. Bentley
| Decision Date | 21 August 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. 16-3912,16-3912 |
| Citation | 901 F.3d 172 |
| Parties | Victoria VOOYS, Joseph Gerace, d/b/a Cane Bay Beach Bar v. Maria BENTLEY; CB3, Inc.; Warren Mosler ; Chris Hanley; Chrismos Cane Bay, LLC Warren Mosler ; Chris Hanley; Chrismos Cane Bay, LLC, Petitioners |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit |
Lee J. Rohn, Esq., Rhea R. Lawrence, Esq. [ARGUED], Lee J. Rohn & Associates, LLC, 1101 King Street, Christiansted, VI 00820, Counsel for Plaintiffs-Respondents
Stephen L. Braga, Esq., Laura Cooley (Third Year Law Student) [ARGUED], Tanner Russo (Third Year Law Student) [ARGUED], Alaric Smith (Third Year Law Student), Cole A. Wogoman (Third Year Law Student), University of Virginia School of Law, Appellate Litigation Clinic, 580 Massie Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903-1789, Counsel for Defendants-Petitioners
Dwyer Arce, Esq. [ARGUED], Kutak Rock, 1650 Farnam Street, The Omaha Building, Omaha, NE 68102, Edward L. Barry, Esq., Law Offices of Edward L. Barry, 2120 Company Street, Christiansted, VI 00820, John-Russell B. Pate, Esq., The Pate Law Firm, P.O. Box 890, St. Thomas, VI 00804, Counsel for Amicus Curiae Virgin Islands Bar Association
Andrew C. Simpson, Esq., Andrew C. Simpson Law Offices, 2191 Church Street, Suite 5, Christiansted, VI 00820, Counsel for Amicus Curiae Companion Assurance Company
Before: SMITH, Chief Judge, MCKEE, AMBRO, CHAGARES, JORDAN, HARDIMAN, GREENAWAY, JR., VANASKIE, SHWARTZ, KRAUSE, RESTREPO, BIBAS, and SCIRICA,* Circuit Judges.
McKEE, Circuit JudgeWe are asked to grant certiorari review of a decision of the Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands that reinstated contractual claims that arose from the sale of a bar in the islands. The Superior Court of the Virgin Islands dismissed the suit in April of 2015 based on Plaintiffs' failure to post a security bond. The Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands thereafter reversed that decision and reinstated the suit based upon its conclusion that the provision of Virgin Islands law allowing a court to order nonresident plaintiffs to post such a bond violated the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Defendants now ask us to reverse the Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands pursuant to our certiorari authority to review that court's final decisions. Congress enacted H.R. 6116 in order to revoke that authority for all "cases commenced on or after" December 28, 2012.1 We must decide whether "cases," as used in H.R. 6116, was intended to apply to all suits initiated in the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands, the court of original jurisdiction, or whether it was intended to apply to appeals from final decisions of the Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands that were filed on or after that date irrespective of when the suit was filed.
We previously addressed this issue in United Industrial Service, Transportation, Professional and Government Workers of North America Seafarers International Union ex rel. Bason v. Government of the Virgin Islands.2 We have granted initial hearing en banc in this matter to revisit the jurisdictional issue we decided in Bason . For the reasons set forth below, we now conclude that Bason incorrectly interpreted H.R. 6116 as referring to suits filed in the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands on or after December 28, 2012. We now hold that Congress intended for the effective date for H.R. 6116 to apply to the date an appeal from a final decision of the Virgin Islands Supreme Court is filed and not to the date a suit is filed in the Superior Court. Since the petition in this matter was filed after the effective date of H.R. 6116, we hold that we lack jurisdiction to hear this appeal. Accordingly, we will dismiss the petition for certiorari review.3
In 2003, Plaintiffs Joseph Gerace and Victoria Vooys purchased Cane Bay Beach Bar, which is situated on the island of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. In 2005, they sued Defendants Warren Mosler, Chris Hanley, Chrismos Cane Bay LLC, and others in the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands for breach of contract and other claims related to the sale of that business. Plaintiffs resided in the U.S. Virgin Islands from the time they filed their suit until the fall of 2012, when they moved to the U.S. mainland. Their suit was still pending when they relocated. Upon learning that Plaintiffs were no longer Virgin Islands residents, Defendants petitioned the Superior Court for an order requiring Plaintiffs to post a security bond for potential costs pursuant to title 5, section 547 of the Virgin Islands Code.4 That provision allows defendants to demand that nonresident plaintiffs post a bond to cover potential costs of litigation and allows a court to stay litigation until the bond is paid.5 The court granted Defendants' request in April of 2013 and ordered Plaintiffs to post a bond of $1,050 each within thirty days of the order.
Defendants moved to dismiss after Plaintiffs failed to meet that deadline.6 Plaintiffs vehemently opposed the motion, arguing, inter alia, that the Virgin Islands nonresident bond provision was unconstitutional. In April 2015—almost three years after H.R. 6116 became law—the Superior Court rejected Plaintiffs' challenge to the constitutionality of the nonresident bond requirement and dismissed the suit.
Plaintiffs appealed to the Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands. In August 2016, that court reversed the decision of the Superior Court and reinstated the complaint. Defendants appealed that decision to this Court and we granted certiorari review in March of 2017. However, after a panel of this Court heard the parties' arguments on the merits, we issued a sua sponte order for initial hearing en banc to reexamine whether Congress intended us to retain certiorari jurisdiction over appeals filed after the effective date of H.R. 6116.
We now hold that our certiorari jurisdiction to review decisions of the Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands does not extend to any appeal that was filed on or after the date that H.R. 6116 became law. Before we discuss the merits of that jurisdictional issue, we will place our decision into its historical context and explain the evolution of our relationship to the Virgin Islands judicial system.
In 1917, the United States purchased what was then the Danish West Indies from Denmark "in exchange for $25 million in gold and American recognition of Denmark's claim to Greenland."7 Judicial oversight of what became the U.S. Virgin Islands was promptly assigned to the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit by the Act of March 3, 1917.8 The pertinent provision—consisting of a mere thirty-five words—provided: "In all cases arising in the ... West Indian Islands and now reviewable by the courts of Denmark, writs of error and appeals shall be to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ...."9
Now home to a population of around 100,000, the U.S. Virgin Islands became an unincorporated American territory in 1954.10 However, the evolution of the islands' legal system and its relationship to the Third Circuit date back much further and are the result of numerous enactments by both the U.S. Congress and the Virgin Islands legislature.11
Professor Robert M. Jarvis, who has extensively studied the history of the Virgin Islands, has authored a detailed explanation for how we obtained jurisdiction over the islands' courts.12 According to Professor Jarvis, officials in the U.S. Bureau of Insular Affairs originally "felt that the issue of the USVI appeals should be dealt with after the purchase of the islands was complete."13 The Bureau's Chief, Brigadier General Frank McIntyre, so testified before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1917:
However, despite General McIntyre's expressed desire to delay resolution of the issue of judicial oversight over the newly acquired islands, the move to grant the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that authority was accomplished quickly and by insertion of the above-quoted thirty-five words into the legislation.15 The legislation was passed less than three weeks after General McIntyre testified.16
For Congress, the choice of the Third Circuit may have been much less puzzling then than it appears to be today.
The First Circuit already was supervising Puerto Rico. The Second Circuit's docket was overwhelmed with cases from New York. The Fourth Circuit, with only two authorized judges, had been considered short-handed for years. The Fifth Circuit, although geographically the closest circuit to the islands, was handling appeals from the District Court in the Panama Canal Zone. ... [T]he remaining circuits ... were simply too distant to provide effective oversight. As such, Congress probably felt that there was no reason to wait for the results of the [study General McIntyre suggested be undertaken of the Virgin Islands courts] when the conclusion [Congress] was likely to draw was already clear.17
Moreover,...
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