Lion's Gate Water v. D'Antonio
| Decision Date | 28 March 2018 |
| Docket Number | NO. A-1-CA-35022,A-1-CA-35022 |
| Parties | LION'S GATE WATER, Petitioner-Appellant, v. JOHN R. D'ANTONIO, JR., STATE ENGINEER FOR THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO, Respondent-Appellee. |
| Court | Court of Appeals of New Mexico |
This memorandum opinion was not selected for publication in the New Mexico Appellate Reports. Please see Rule 12-405 NMRA for restrictions on the citation of unpublished memorandum opinions. Please also note that this electronic memorandum opinion may contain computer-generated errors or other deviations from the official paper version filed by the Court of Appeals and does not include the filing date.
APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF GRANT COUNTY
Robert S. Simon
Albuquerque, NM
for Appellant
Office of the State Engineer
Gregory C. Ridgley, General Counsel
L. Christopher Lindeen, Deputy General Counsel
Paul D. Bossert, Special Assistant Attorney General
Santa Fe, NM
for Appellee
{1} "This case comes to us through a long and tortuous route, wending its way from the Office of the State Engineer to [the New Mexico Supreme Court] over the course of more than six years." Lion's Gate Water v. D'Antonio, 2009-NMSC-057, ¶ 1, 147 N.M. 523, 226 P.3d 622. So began our Supreme Court's opinion when this case was first before it more than eight years ago. Upon remand to the district court and following more than two years without any significant activity by Petitioner to bring its claim to trial, the district court granted Respondent's Rule 1-041(E)(1) NMRA motion to dismiss with prejudice Petitioner's case, which dismissal Petitioner appeals. Concluding that the district court did not abuse its discretion in granting Respondent's motion, we affirm.
{2} The history of this case is set forth in detail in Lion's Gate, 2009-NMSC-057. Because this is a memorandum opinion and the parties are familiar with the facts of the case, we only briefly set forth here the procedural history following our Supreme Court's remand in the prior appeal and reserve discussion of additional facts where necessary to our disposition of the case.
{3} Following our Supreme Court's remand to the district court in December 2009, Petitioner actively litigated its case for approximately eighteen months, starting inMarch 2010 when new counsel for Petitioner entered his appearance and continuing through September 2011. On October 8, 2013, Respondent filed a motion to dismiss with prejudice Petitioner's case under Rule 1-041(E)(1) on the basis that Petitioner "has taken no action to further its case in more than two years[.]" Over Petitioner's opposition, the district court granted the motion after concluding that Petitioner "has taken no steps to bring its claim to trial or other final disposition since September 20, 2011." Petitioner moved for reconsideration, but before the district court could rule on that motion, Petitioner appealed the district court's dismissal order to this Court. We issued a mandate summarily dismissing Petitioner's appeal for lack of a final order.
{4} Following remand from this Court, neither party took any action to bring the matter to the district court's attention for more then six months, when, in April 2015, counsel for Respondent contacted the district court to inquire about the status of the case. While noting the "already voluminous pleadings spanning five files" available for its consideration, the district court allowed the parties to file one supplemental brief that it would consider in ruling on the motions pending before it.1 Upon consideration of the pleadings in the record and the parties' supplemental briefs, thedistrict court denied Petitioner's motion for reconsideration. Petitioner appeals from that order.
{5} Petitioner makes numerous arguments on appeal, which we consolidate and address as follows: (1) whether the district court erred in granting Respondent's motion to dismiss, and (2) whether the district court erred by granting the motion without first holding an evidentiary hearing.
{6} Petitioner advances various arguments as to why it was error for the district court to dismiss Petitioner's case, including that (1) dismissal is not in accordance with our Supreme Court's opinion in Lion's Gate, (2) Rule 1-041(E)(1) is inapplicable to the circumstances of this case, and (3) the district court abused its discretion in granting Respondent's motion to dismiss. We address each argument in turn.
{7} Petitioner first argues that the district court erred in granting Respondent's motion to dismiss because dismissal "is not in accord with the direction of the Supreme Court" in Lion's Gate. According to Petitioner, our Supreme Court "ordered the [district court] to conduct a de novo review of the issues decided by"Respondent—i.e., the availability of water for appropriation—and, thus, "the [district court] committed a serious and fundamental error" by granting Respondent's motion to dismiss and not holding a trial de novo on the issue of water availability.
{8} As an initial matter, we note that Petitioner wholly fails to develop this argument or cite any authority in support thereof, meaning we are under no duty to even consider it. See Headley v. Morgan Mgmt. Corp., 2005-NMCA-045, ¶ 15, 137 N.M. 339, 110 P.3d 1076 (); ITT Educ. Servs., Inc. v. N.M. Taxation & Revenue Dep't, 1998-NMCA-078, ¶ 10, 125 N.M. 244, 959 P.2d 969 (). However, because Petitioner so badly misconstrues Lion's Gate's mandate and has a history of "fabricat[ing] principle[s,]" Lion's Gate, 2009-NMSC-057, ¶ 28, we very briefly address the merits—or rather, lack thereof—of Petitioner's argument in order to fully dispose of it.
{9} In Lion's Gate, our Supreme Court agreed with the argument advanced by Respondent in that appeal and held that "the district court is limited to a de novo review of the issue before the State Engineer, which was solely whether water is available for appropriation." 2009-NMSC-057, ¶ 2. The court reversed the districtcourt's ruling that it had jurisdiction to conduct a trial de novo "on all issues" that had been before the State Engineer and remanded "for further proceedings consistent with this opinion." Id. ¶¶ 14-15, 37. Nowhere did the court "order" the district court to conduct a trial de novo as Petitioner contends; rather, the opinion clarified that the district court had jurisdiction to do no more than conduct a de novo review on the limited issue of water availability. See id. ¶ 17 . In other words, Lion's Gate established the maximum reach—i.e., the limit—of the district court's reviewing capacity but nowhere mandated a minimum level of review. Petitioner's contention that the district court's dismissal of Petitioner's case contravened our Supreme Court's mandate in Lion's Gate is without merit.
{10} Petitioner next argues that "Rule 1-041(E)(1) is not applicable to this case [because Petitioner] took significant actions to bring its claim to trial or other final disposition during the two years following the filing of the action." According to Petitioner, "the rule is applicable only to the cases in which the [p]laintiff fails to prosecute the case within the two years from the date of filing the complaint." Petitioner proffers myriad conclusory statements in support of this contention andquotes, at length, rules from numerous cases interpreting Rule 1-041(E). Yet, nothing cited is on point or supplies any indication that a case that is initially prosecuted but thereafter languishes is somehow immunized from application of the rule. Ultimately, Petitioner fails to develop any cogent argument to support his contention that Rule 1-041(E)(1) is categorically inapplicable to this case, neither identifying the pertinent facts of this case nor explaining how the culled rules from the cited authorities apply to this case. As such, we give no further consideration to this argument. See Corona v. Corona, 2014-NMCA-071, ¶ 28, 329 P.3d 701 ().
{11} Petitioner next argues that the district court abused its discretion in dismissing the case. We disagree.
{12} A district court "has discretion to determine a motion to dismiss for inactivity, and its decision will not be reversed except for abuse of discretion." Cottonwood Enters. v. McAlpin, 1989-NMSC-064, ¶ 6, 109 N.M. 78, 781 P.2d 1156. "An abuse of discretion occurs when the ruling is clearly against the logic and effects of the facts and circumstances of the case, is clearly untenable, or is not justified by reason." Progressive Cas. Ins. Co. v. Vigil, ___-NMSC-___, ¶ 13, ___ P.3d ___ (No. S-1-SC-35130, Feb. 12, 2018) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); see Paternosterv. La Cuesta Cabinets, Inc., 1984-NMCA-097, ¶ 27, 101 N.M. 773, 689 P.2d 289 (). In the specific context of deciding Rule 1-041(E) motions, "[d]iscretion is abused when the court exceeds the bounds of reason, all the circumstances before it being...
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