Becker v. UTE Indian Tribe of the Uintah & Ouray Reservation
| Docket Number | 22-4022 |
| Decision Date | 08 August 2023 |
| Parties | LYNN D. BECKER, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. UTE INDIAN TRIBE OF THE UINTAH AND OURAY RESERVATION, a federally recognized Indian Tribe and a federally chartered corporation; UINTAH AND OURAY TRIBAL BUSINESS COMMITTEE; UTE ENERGY HOLDINGS, LLC, a Delaware LLC, Defendants - Appellants, and JOHN P. JURRIUS, Movant - Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
(D.C. No. 2:16-CV-00958-TC) (D. Utah)
Before TYMKOVICH, KELLY, and EID, Circuit Judges.
Lynn Becker and the Ute Indian Tribe have been mired in litigation for nearly two decades. Mr. Becker's relationship with the Tribe began in 2004, when the Tribe hired him to help market and develop its mineral resources. The Tribe hired Mr. Becker at the recommendation of John Jurrius, who then served as the Tribe's financial advisor. The relationship between the Tribe and both Mr Jurrius and Mr. Becker eventually soured. According to the Tribe, the two men improperly ingratiated themselves with the Tribe to gain access to tribal assets. It subsequently sued them for, among other alleged wrongdoings, fraud.
The lawsuit resulted in a settlement agreement between Mr Jurrius and the Tribe. As part of the settlement, Mr. Jurrius agreed that, should he become subject to a legal obligation to disclose tribal records or information produced in connection with his relationship to the Tribe, he would notify the Tribe and discuss good-faith ways to disclose that information. The settlement stipulated that the Tribe and Mr. Jurrius would resolve any controversy over disclosure through arbitration.
The relationship between Mr. Becker and the Tribe remained strained. The Tribe did not come to a similar agreement with him; its claims remain pending in Ute Indian Tribal Court. And in February 2013, Mr. Becker filed a complaint in federal district court against the Tribe alleging, among other things, breach of contract. This appeal arises from that lawsuit.
To help resolve the February 2013 lawsuit, Mr. Becker subpoenaed Mr. Jurrius. Mr. Becker sought documents and testimony pertaining to Mr. Jurrius's settlement with the Tribe. The Tribe claimed that the settlement agreement required Mr. Jurrius to consult with the Tribe before disclosing sensitive tribal documents. But the parties agreed to a process where Mr. Jurrius could produce documents and provide in-court testimony regarding the settlement agreement, with the Tribe retaining the right to object to the introduction of any disputed materials. Nonetheless, the Tribe initiated arbitration proceedings against Mr. Jurrius, contending he had violated the settlement agreement.
The district court viewed the arbitration as an attempt to frustrate the pending litigation between Mr. Becker and the Tribe by intimidating or punishing a witness- Mr. Jurrius-for complying with legal process-the subpoena. The court subsequently invoked its inherent sanctioning power to order the Tribe to pay the attorney fees Mr. Jurrius and Mr. Becker accumulated litigating proceedings related to the arbitration.
The Tribe appeals that sanction. We consider whether the court abused its discretion by sanctioning the Tribe and denying its motion to reconsider. We identify no erroneous legal or factual determinations underlying either order and affirm the district court.
The relationship between Mr. Becker, Mr. Jurrius, and the Tribe spans two decades and three court systems. We have resolved various appeals implicating the parties. Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah & Ouray Rsrv. v. Lawrence, 22 F.4th 892 (10th Cir. 2022); Becker v. Ute Indian Tribe of Uintah & Ouray Rsrv., 11 F.4th 1140 (10th Cir. 2021); Ute Indian Tribe v. Lawrence, 875 F.3d 539 (10th Cir. 2017); Becker v. Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah & Ouray Rsrv., 868 F.3d 1199 (10th Cir. 2017); Becker v. Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah & Ouray Rsrv., 770 F.3d 944 (10th Cir. 2014).
Those opinions ably recount the long history of litigation; we relay here only those facts relevant to the issues presented.
In short, in February 2013, Mr. Becker sued the Tribe for breach of contract. He sought unpaid fees under his independent contractor agreement with the Tribe. This lawsuit helped spark the chain of appeals cited above involving a range of federal court/tribal court jurisdictional matters. In July 2019, to help resolve some of the pending appeals, we ordered supplemental fact-finding to help us determine (1) where the parties executed the independent contractor agreement, (2) whether the parties to the agreement anticipated that either one would need to perform their duties outside Tribal lands, and (3) where the parties performed their contractual duties.
The district court set an evidentiary hearing for January 6 and 7, 2020 to resolve our questions. In anticipation of the hearing, Mr. Becker filed a notice of intent to serve a subpoena on Mr. Jurrius's attorneys. He sought document production, including materials from Mr. Jurrius's settlement agreement. The Tribe instructed Mr. Jurrius not to produce documents without its approval, citing the terms of the arbitration agreement, which reads in relevant part:
The Parties agree that the terms of this Agreement are strictly confidential, and that neither Party shall disclose this Agreement or its terms to any other person or entity. If either Party becomes subject to any legal obligation to disclose the existence of the Agreement or its terms, that Party shall, if lawfully permitted to do so and before making any disclosure, promptly notify the other of the fact and the Parties shall promptly discuss in good faith ways in which the Parties can reasonably comply with both the obligation to disclose and the obligations of confidentiality in this Agreement ....
App. 1960-61 (emphasis added).
Before the hearing, the Tribe and Mr. Becker came to an agreement: Mr. Jurrius could produce the documents to Mr. Becker's counsel, who would then forward them to the Tribe. Mr. Becker could use the documents unless the Tribe timely objected to them. It never did so.
At the evidentiary hearing, Mr. Jurrius's counsel expressed concern that the Tribe might retaliate against Mr. Jurrius for testifying. To address this concern, the court invited the Tribe to object to Mr. Jurrius's testimony if it feared prejudicial testimony involving the settlement agreement. During the course of the hearing, the Tribe made several objections on confidentiality grounds; the court overruled each one.
One week after the evidentiary hearing, the Tribe notified Mr. Jurrius that it intended to initiate arbitration. It cited his violation of the settlement agreement's confidentiality requirement, specifically flagging his production of internal tribal documents without disclosing his legal obligation to the Tribe. App. 924. It also alleged past violations of the agreement unrelated to the confidentiality requirement-violations that had occurred over two-and-a-half years earlier. App. 925.
Mr. Becker learned that the Tribe planned to subpoena documents from him and his counsel to aid in the arbitration. In response, Mr. Becker subpoenaed Mr. Jurrius's counsel, seeking evidence that would reveal the extent to which the arbitration related to Mr. Jurrius's participation in the Becker matter. The Tribe moved to quash the subpoena. The court held a hearing on the motion to quash and instructed the Tribe to submit the settlement agreement and its arbitration claims for in camera review.
Four days later, the court sua sponte ordered the Tribe to show cause (1) why the settlement agreement and arbitration filings should not be made public, and (2) why the Tribe should not be sanctioned for bad-faith abuse of the judicial process by initiating the arbitration proceedings. The court ultimately concluded that the Tribe initiated the arbitration in bad faith after walking through each claim leveled by the Tribe in the arbitration and finding each meritless. It determined that the Tribe intended to either punish Mr. Jurrius for his participation in the evidentiary hearing or intimidate him from testifying in future proceedings. And it invoked its inherent sanctioning power to order the Tribe to pay Mr. Becker and Mr. Jurrius's attorney fees related to the resolution of the issue. This amount would ultimately total $330,272.25.
After the court imposed sanctions, the arbitration panel issued its findings. The panel found that Mr. Jurrius had not violated the settlement agreement by participating in the hearing, citing the agreed-upon procedures between the Tribe and Mr. Becker for handling Mr. Jurrius's documents. App. 2637-38. For the arbitration panel, it was immaterial that Mr. Jurrius had not taken the first step of alerting the Tribe to his legal obligation. The Tribe ultimately received notice and knowledge of the production and testimony and was given the opportunity to object. The panel either resolved the remaining claims in favor of Mr. Jurrius or kicked them back to the parties for further briefing.
The Tribe petitioned the district court for reconsideration of its judgment in light of the arbitration panel's decision, arguing that the panel did not find all of the claims meritless, which undermined the court's bad-faith finding. But after the Tribe filed its motion, the mandate from one of our earlier decisions issued, requiring the dismissal of the underlying case. The next day, the district court judge recused himself from the proceedings. One week later a substitute district court judge considered the motion and summarily determined that there were no grounds warranting a motion to reconsider, declining to "second-guess the reasoning underlying the district court's firm...
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