Dist. 22 United Mine Workers v. State, Nos. 98-4092

• Decision Date: 12 October 2000
• Docket Number: Nos. 98-4092,98-4100
• Citation: 229 F.3d 982
• Parties: (10th Cir. 2000) DISTRICT 22 UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA; MICHAEL SVETICH; MAURICE BROWN; CHARLES BYRGE; and J.R. SCOTT, Plaintiffs-Appellants and Cross-Appellees, v. STATE OF UTAH; THE SCHOOL AND INSTITUTIONAL TRUST LANDS ADMINISTRATION, Defendants-Appellees and Cross-Appellants, UTAH STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION and STATE OFFICE OF EDUCATION, Amicus Curiae
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

Page 982

229 F.3d 982 (10th Cir. 2000)

DISTRICT 22 UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA; MICHAEL SVETICH; MAURICE BROWN; CHARLES BYRGE; and J.R. SCOTT, Plaintiffs-Appellants and Cross-Appellees, v. STATE OF UTAH; THE SCHOOL AND INSTITUTIONAL TRUST LANDS ADMINISTRATION, Defendants-Appellees and Cross-Appellants, UTAH STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION and STATE OFFICE OF EDUCATION, Amicus Curiae.

Nos. 98-4092, 98-4100

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS TENTH CIRCUIT

October 12, 2000

As Amended on Denial of Rehearing Nov. 6, 2000

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Utah. (D.C. No. 96-CV-695-K)

Kerry L. Chlarson, Sandy, Utah (Robert B. Sykes, James D. Vilos, and Jarett K. Abramson, of Sykes & Vilos, P.C., Salt Lake City, Utah, with him on the briefs), for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Debra J. Moore, Assistant Utah Attorney General, Salt Lake City, Utah, for Defendant-Appellee.

Gayle F. McKeachnie of McKeachnie, Allred & McClellan, P.C., Vernal, Utah, filed a brief on behalf of the Amicus Curiae.

Before TACHA, BRORBY and EBEL, Circuit Judges.

EBEL, Circuit Judge.

The United Mine Workers of America, District No.22, Michael Svetich, Maurice Brown, Charles Byrge, and J.R. Scott (collectively, the "Miners") filed a complaint against the State of Utah and the School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (together, "Utah") in the United States District Court for the District of Utah alleging breach of trust with respect to certain lands within the state of Utah conveyed by the federal government to Utah for a miners' hospital. In general terms, the Miners alleged that 100,000 acres of land and proceeds therefrom are held in trust by Utah for the purpose of establishing a hospital for the benefit of disabled miners, and that Utah has breached that trust by using the trust corpus and revenue for the benefit of the general public rather than disabled miners.

Utah moved to dismiss on various grounds, and the Miners moved for partial summary judgment. In United Mine Workers of America, Dist. No. 22 v. State of Utah, 6 F. Supp. 2d 1298 (D. Utah 1998) ("Mine Workers"), the district granted Utah's motion to dismiss and denied the Miners' motion for partial summary judgment. The Miners appeal the judgment of the district court.¹ Exercising jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1291, we AFFIRM in part, REVERSE in part, and REMAND for further proceedings.

BACKGROUND

The road to statehood for Utah was a long one. Beginning in 1849, the Utah territory sought statehood on numerous occasions before making a final successful appeal to Congress in 1893-94. See John J. Flynn, Federalism and Viable State GovernmentThe History of Utah's Constitution, 10 Utah L. Rev. 311, 314-22 (1966); Stanley S. Ivins, A Constitution for Utah, 15 Utah Hist. Q. 95, 95-100 (1957). The bill that was to become the enabling act for the state of Utah (the "Utah Enabling Act") was introduced in the fall of 1893 and, after passing the House and Senate, was signed into law by President Grover Cleveland on July 16, 1894. See Flynn, supra, at 322-23; Ivins, supra, at 100; [see also Act of July 16, 1894, ch. 138, 28 Stat. 107 reprinted in 1A Utah Code Ann. 43-52 (1953)] [hereinafter "Utah Enabling Act"].

The Utah Enabling Act authorized the electorate of the territory of Utah to organize a constitutional convention. See Utah Enabling Act, 2. Delegates were elected to the convention in November 1894. See Ivins, supra, at 100. The convention convened in March 1895, completing its work in May of that year. See id. at 100, 115. The territory's voters ratified the constitution in November 1895 by a vote of 31,305 to 7,687. See id. at 115. On January 4, 1896, President Grover Cleveland officially proclaimed Utah's statehood. See id. at 116; Act of January 4, 1896, ch. 9, 29 Stat. 876; see also Utah Enabling Act, 4 (providing that proclamation by the President would result in Utah being deemed admitted into the Union by Congress).

Congress made numerous grants of federal land to the state in the Utah Enabling Act. These grants varied in size and were intended to be used for a variety of purposes. This appeal requires us to determine the character of a grant of 50,000 acres (later expanded to 100,000 acres) for a "miners' hospital for disabled miners," which is set forth in 12 of the Utah Enabling Act. Section 12 provides in relevant part:

... the following grants of land are hereby made to said State for the purposes indicated, namely:

... for a miners' hospital for disabled miners, fifty thousand acres . . . .

The said State of Utah shall not be entitled to any further or other grants of land for any purpose than as expressly provided in this Act; and the lands granted by this section shall be held, appropriated, and disposed of exclusively for the purposes herein mentioned, in such manner as the legislature of the State may provide.

Utah Enabling Act, 12.²

The Utah Constitution addressed the Congressional land grants in Article XX, Section 1, which, at the time Utah acquired statehood, provided:

All lands of the State that have been, or may hereafter be granted to the State by Congress, and all lands acquired by gift, grant or devise, from any person or corporation, or that may otherwise be acquired, are hereby accepted, and declared to be the public lands of the State; and shall be held in trust for the people, to be disposed of as may be provided by law, for the respective purposes for which they have been or may be granted, donated, devised, or otherwise acquired.

Utah Const. art. XX, 1. This section of the Utah Constitution was subsequently amended in 1998.

The state of Utah sought an additional grant of federal lands for the benefit of miners from Congress in 1929, apparently because the original 50,000 acre grant was insufficient in size to fund adequately a miner's hospital. See 53 Cong. Rec. H1794-95 (daily ed. Jan. 16, 1929) (statements of Rep. Colton); 53 Cong. Rec. H3600 (daily ed. Feb. 1, 1929) (same). In response to this request, on February 29, 1929, Congress granted the State of Utah an additional 50,000 acres:

That in addition to the provisions made by the Act of Congress approved July 16, 1894 (Twenty-eighth Statutes at Large, page 110), for a miners' hospital for disabled miners, there is hereby granted to the State of Utah, subject to all the conditions and limitations of the original grant, an additional fifty thousand acres for a miners' hospital for disabled miners to be selected by the State, under the direction and subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, from vacant nonmineral surveyed unreserved public lands of the United States in the State of Utah and not to include lands that are likely to be needed hereafter for inclusion in Federal reclamation or national park projects.

Act of February 20, 1929, ch. 280, 1, 45 Stat. 1252 [hereinafter the "1929 Act"].

The Miners assert that the 100,000 acres of land granted to Utah by Congress in the Utah Enabling Act and the 1929 Act (the "Lands") are held in trust by the state of Utah for a miner's hospital for disabled miners and that Utah breached the trust by using the trust corpus and trust revenue for a rehabilitation center for the general public instead of using the corpus and revenues for a miners' hospital for disabled miners. The Miners filed the present action in federal district court, seeking: (1) a declaratory judgment that Utah had breached its trust obligations; (2) an accounting of the monies that should have been placed in the trust over time; and (3) injunctive relief in the form of an order requiring Utah to fund a hospital for the benefit of disabled miners.

As relevant to this appeal, Utah filed a motion to dismiss on various grounds, including the theory that the Miners' claims are barred by the statute of limitations. The Miners opposed the motion to dismiss and also sought partial summary judgment to the effect that Lands were held in trust by the state of Utah for the purpose of establishing a miners' hospital. The Miners asserted two separate theories for the creation of the trust. The Miners first urged that Congress created a trust through the Enabling Act and that the state of Utah accepted the trust obligations in the Utah Constitution. In the alternative, the Miners argued that a trust requiring that the Lands be used to establish a miners' hospital was created by the Utah Constitution. The district court granted Utah's motion to dismiss and denied the Miners' motion for partial summary judgment after concluding that the Lands are not held in trust under either theory. We hold that the district court correctly concluded that the Utah Enabling Act did not create a trust but erred in concluding that a trust was not created for the establishment of a miners' hospital by the Utah Constitution.

DISCUSSION

I. Mootness

Utah argues that this court should dismiss this appeal because their breach of trust claim is moot. Utah urges that Congress rendered the Miners' breach of trust claim moot when it adopted legislation that ratified Utah's proposed use of the proceeds derived from the Lands for a rehabilitation building rather than for a miners' hospital. Utah points out that, since 1959, all "funds, assets and revenues which have been, or will be, derived from the sale or other disposition of those lands conveyed to the State of Utah by those certain federal grants for a Miners' Hospital for Disabled Miners contained in section 12 of the enabling act and in Chapter 280, Public Laws of the Seventieth Congress, 2d Session (Act of February 20, 1929)" have been appropriated to the University of Utah for the construction and operation of a "rehabilitation building." Utah Code Ann. 53-31-42 to -45 (1960), recodified at Utah Code Ann. 53B-17-201 to -202 (1997 & Supp. 1999). Utah alleges that its decision to dispose of the proceeds in this manner was ratified by Congress in 1996, based on the following language in the Omnibus ...