Baca v. King, 94-2237
| Decision Date | 08 August 1996 |
| Docket Number | No. 94-2237,94-2237 |
| Citation | 92 F.3d 1031 |
| Parties | Antonio J. BACA, in his capacity as personal representative of the Estate of Josefa A. Baca, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Bruce KING, in his individual capacity; Sam King, doing business as King Brothers Partnership, a New Mexico General Partnership; Don King, doing business as King Brothers Partnership, a New Mexico General Partnership; Bruce King, doing business as King Brothers Partnership, a New Mexico General Partnership; Manuel Lujan, in his individual capacity; Bruce Babbitt, in his official capacity as the Secretary of the United States Department of the Interior; Larry Woodard, in his individual capacity; Monte Jordan, in his official capacity as Acting New Mexico State Director of the United States Bureau of Land Management; Albert Abee, in his individual capacity and in his official capacity as Area Manager of the Rio Puerco Resource Area of the United States Bureau of Land Management, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
Jeffrey J. Buckels, Albuquerque, New Mexico, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
John B. Pound of Herrera, Long & Pound, Santa Fe, New Mexico, for Appellees Bruce King, Sam King and Don King.
William B. Lazarus, Attorney, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. (Lois J. Schiffer, Assistant Attorney General, John J. Kelly, United States Attorney, and John W. Zavitz, Assistant United States Attorney, Albuquerque, New Mexico; Susan V. Cook and Robert L. Klarquist, Attorneys, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., with him, on the brief), for Appellees Manuel Lujan, Bruce Babbitt, Larry Woodard, Monte Jordan and Albert Abee.
Before HENRY, LIVELY * and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.
In this appeal, the plaintiff seeks review, under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. §§ 701-706 (1988), of a land exchange carried out by the Department of Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Specifically, he claims that the exchange violated the equal value requirement of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA), 43 U.S.C. § 1716(b) (1988). For the following reasons, we affirm the order of the district court.
The plaintiff, Antonio J. Baca, maintains a cattle ranch in Santa Fe County, New Mexico. His ranch is made up of private fee land, private lease land and state and federal lease land. For over half a century, Mr. Baca's family grazed cattle on 2,758.57 acres of land in Santa Fe County belonging to BLM under the terms of a federal grazing permit. The permit by its own terms was subject to "modification, suspension or cancellation as required by land plans and applicable law...." Permit, Aplt.App. at 545.
On December 31, 1987, Congress created the El Malpais National Monument and Conservation Area (El Malpais) in New Mexico and authorized the Secretary of the Interior to acquire lands within the monument and conservation area by exchange. 16 U.S.C § § 460uu et seq. (El Malpais Act). Thereafter, BLM proposed that isolated tracts of federal land in the Santa Fe area be disposed of by sale or exchange due to their limited value for resource purposes. Reports prepared by BLM on the proposal gave the highest priority to exchanges and recognized that the holders of grazing permits for lands to be sold or exchanged would be entitled to two-years' notice and compensation for improvements on the land. BLM held public hearings and provided an opportunity for public comment on the proposal. Mr. Baca was among those who commented on the proposal.
In September 1988, King Brothers Partnership (the King Brothers) met with BLM's New Mexico director, Larry L. Woodard, to express interest in negotiating an exchange for certain BLM lands west of Santa Fe. By December 1991, the King Brothers and BLM had entered into a Land Exchange Agreement providing, in part, for the exchange of 22,437.15 acres of the King Brothers' land in and adjacent to El Malpais in Cibola County, New Mexico for 1,173.08 acres of public lands near Santa Fe. Some of the Santa Fe land for which Mr. Baca held a grazing lease was offered as part of this exchange. The agreement provided that the exact acreage to be exchanged could be adjusted after the land parcels had been appraised.
By letter dated January 15, 1992, BLM gave Mr. Baca the required two-years' notice of cancellation of his grazing permit due to the proposed disposal of public lands. Therefore, his permit would terminate on January 15, 1994. On or about April 14, 1992, a Notice of Realty Action (NORA) was printed in the Federal Register by BLM, inviting the public and interested parties to submit comments on the proposed exchange within 45 days. Mr. Baca, along with others, submitted in writing his opposition to the exchange.
BLM and the King Brothers each engaged an independent certified real estate appraiser who produced appraisals of the offered and selected lands. The chief review appraiser at the state BLM office reviewed and approved the valuations ascribed to the properties by BLM's appraiser "for exchange purposes."
After negotiating over the differences in the two appraisals, in September 1992, BLM and the King Brothers arrived at compromise values for the Cibola County and Santa Fe County land. They agreed that the value of 22,269 acres of the King Brothers' land was $2,000,000 and that they would use the BLM appraiser's estimate of $2700 per acre for the valuation of the Santa Fe land. The parties then reduced the acreage of the El Malpais land offered for the exchange by about 4300 acres, agreeing that the value of the resulting smaller parcel was $1,685,000. In return, the partnership was to receive 740 acres of the Santa Fe land, to be selected by the King Brothers from anywhere in the 1160-acre tract and valued at $2700 per acre or $1,998,000. Finally, the values of the two parcels were equalized because the parties agreed that the value of the land in Santa Fe should be discounted by 12 percent for 18 months (a reduction of $315,000) to account for Mr. Baca's current occupation of the land, which would delay development by the King Brothers. Thus, the King Brothers were to receive 740 acres in Santa Fe, valued at $1,683,000, in exchange for 17,921 acres in El Malpais, valued at $1,685,000.
Mr. Baca again wrote to BLM on November 6, 1992, this time proposing to purchase all public lands covered by his grazing permit. However, on November 18, the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Interior issued a final decision addressing and dismissing the protests received in response to the NORA. Despite the protests, the Assistant Secretary determined that "the public interest will be well served by completing this exchange." Decision, Aplt.App. at 487. On December 2, Mr. Baca was sent a copy of the Assistant Secretary's final decision and informed that BLM would pursue the exchange rather than sell to him.
Between December 1992 and February 1993, the land exchange between BLM and the King Brothers took place in three installments and in a somewhat different form than originally anticipated. Ultimately, the King Brothers received 800 acres of the Santa Fe land, which included all of the more valuable northern area and a portion of the more valuable middle area. The less valuable southern end was not involved in the exchange. In addition, they received 697 acres of BLM land near Stanley, New Mexico. In exchange, the federal government received a total of nearly 21,000 acres of the King Brothers' land in Cibola County, along with some of the wells and water rights on that land.
Mr. Baca filed suit in federal court against the former and current Secretary of the Interior and several BLM officials (collectively, the federal defendants), as well as against the King Brothers partners. His complaint sought to restore the former BLM land to federal ownership and to reinstate his grazing privileges, claiming that the land exchange should be declared void and set aside because the defendants' actions violated the FLPMA, 43 U.S.C. §§ 1701-1784; the National Environmental Policy Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 4321 et seq.; and the Taylor Grazing Act, 43 U.S.C. §§ 315-315r. Compl., Aplt.App. at 25-30. The complaint also sought Bivens remedies for alleged violations of his Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (1971).
The district court dismissed all but Mr. Baca's FLPMA claim under the APA in March 1994. The court then remanded the case to the Department of the Interior for supplementation of the administrative record. Although the dismissal of the Bivens claims was certified by the lower court as a final appealable judgment, Mr. Baca did not appeal from that dismissal.
The defendants renewed their motions for summary judgment when the supplementation was completed. After considering the parties' briefs and oral arguments, the court ruled from the bench, granting summary judgment 1 in favor of the defendants on Mr. Baca's remaining claim. The court explained that there was no basis on the record for holding BLM's land exchange to be arbitrary and capricious. The court entered an order granting summary judgment on the following day.
Mr. Baca now appeals from that order, relying solely on the claim that BLM acted arbitrarily and capriciously because the lands exchanged were not of equal value, in violation of section 206(b) of the FLPMA, 43 U.S.C. § 1716(b). Specifically, he claims that the land the King Brothers actually received was worth far more than that which they gave in trade, and that the discount was unjust. He does not claim, however, that BLM erred in adopting its own appraiser's valuations. He has abandoned his earlier FLPMA-related claims that the exchange was not in the public interest, as required by 43 U.S.C. § 1716(a); that the NORA for the proposed exchange required by regulation failed to identify the lands...
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