Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of Fort Hall v. Shalala
| Decision Date | 22 July 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. CV-96-459-ST.,CV-96-459-ST. |
| Citation | 58 F.Supp.2d 1191 |
| Parties | SHOSHONE-BANNOCK TRIBES OF THE FORT HALL RESERVATION, Plaintiff, v. Donna E. SHALALA, Secretary of the United States Health and Human Services; Michael H. Turjillo, Director of the Indian Health Service, United States Department of Health and Human Services; Douglas Black, Director of Office of Tribal Activities, Indian Health Service; James R. Floyd, Portland Area Director, Indian Health Service, United States Department of Health and Human Services, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Oregon |
Lori Irish Bauman, Ater Wynne Hewitt Dodson & Skerritt, Portland, OR, Lloyd Benton Miller, James E. Glaze, Sonosky Chambers Sachse Miller & Munson PC, Anchorage, AK, for Plaintiff.
Kristine Olson, U.S. Attorney's Office, Portland, OR, Daniel Bensing, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Civil Div., Washington, DC, Sheila M. Lieber, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Civil Div., Federal Program Branch, Washington, DC, for Defendants.
On January 13, 1999, this court denied in part and granted in part defendants' Motion for Indicative Ruling and for Reconsideration (docket # 131), stating that it would entertain, without indicating whether it would grant or deny, defendants' motion under FRCP 60(b) provided that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals remanded this case for that purpose. On February 11, 1999, the Ninth Circuit remanded this case "for the limited purpose of a determination of the appellants' motion under FRCP 60(b)" (docket # 35). However, this court did not require defendants to file a new motion under FRCP 60(b) and instead construed defendants' Motion for Indicative Ruling and for Reconsideration as including an underlying motion under FRCP 60(b). For the reasons set forth below, defendants' motion under FRCP 60(b) is denied.
Defendants' motion deals solely with this court's prior rulings concerning plaintiff's claim for contract support cost ("CSC") for Fiscal Year ("FY") 1996 and FY 1997.
In FY 1996, Congress appropriated $1.7 billion to the Indian Health Service ("IHS"). Of that sum, Congress "recommended" that $7.5 million "shall remain available until expended for the Indian Self-Determination Fund" ("ISD Fund") which pays CSC for new self-determination contracts. Shoshone-Bannock Tribes v. Shalala, 988 F.Supp. 1306, 1330 (D.Or. 1997) ("Shoshone-Bannock I"), on reconsideration, 999 F.Supp. 1395 (D.Or.1998) ("Shoshone-Bannock II"), citing HR 104-173.1 The parties agreed that the Congressional recommendation of $7.5 million for the ISD Fund was not an "earmark" or cap on the amount the Secretary can pay for CSC, but was intended to segregate such funds for "no year" status which has no fiscal year limitation or expiration date. Id.
Because $7.5 million was not sufficient to pay the CSC claims for all tribes, IHS adopted a policy of allocating the ISD Fund for new CSC contracts through the use of a queue which paid CSC requests on a first-come, first-served basis. This policy could potentially delay full CSC funding to plaintiff for many years or not at all. Defendants justified this policy by contending that, while the Secretary of Health and Human Services ("Secretary") had the discretion to reach into her $1.7 billion lump sum appropriation to pay any new CSC claims in excess of the $ 7.5 million ISD Fund, she also had "the discretion not to reduce funding for other programs or services to other tribes in order to pay" plaintiff's CSC claim. Id.
Regardless of the amount of money in the ISD Fund, plaintiff alleged that it had a statutory entitlement to full CSC funding "upon the approval of a self-determination contract," 25 USC § 450-j-1(g), and that IHS's use of a queue to pay CSC only from the ISD Fund violated plaintiff's rights under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, as amended ("ISDEA"), 25 USC §§ 450a-450n.
After reviewing the parties' respective positions, the text of the ISDEA and the limited case law interpreting the ISDEA, the court rejected the Secretary's argument. Shoshone-Bannock I, 988 F.Supp. at 1330. Focusing on the Secretary's burden of clearly demonstrating that "sufficient appropriated funds are available to pay CSC to the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes," id at 1333, the court concluded that in the absence of a clear restriction by Congress in its appropriations, the Secretary must use her lump sum appropriation to pay all of plaintiff's CSC claims:
Here no statutory minimum or maximum was placed on CSC funding. The Secretary simply decided that, pursuant to the recommendation of the Committee Report, $7.5 million was an appropriate sum to be allocated to new CSC for FY 1996.
* * * * * *
However, the tentative budget allotment between existing and new CSC relied upon by the Secretary was not carried into the language of the 1996 Appropriations Act. Thus no statute expressly restricts the Secretary's ability to shift funds within its general appropriations to pay CSC.
Id. at 1331-32 (emphasis added).
Because defendants "offered no evidence" that the entire lump sum appropriation was inadequate to pay plaintiff's claim for CSC, on reconsideration the court granted plaintiff's motion for summary judgment. Shoshone-Bannock II, 999 F.Supp. at 1397.
The parties subsequently reached agreement as to the precise amount of plaintiff's FY 1996 and FY 1997 CSC claims. Defendants paid that amount (along with the amount of plaintiff's FY 1998 CSC claim, which is not at issue here), into the Registry of the Court, where it remains.
Defendants have advised the court that the FY 1996 and FY 1997 CSC amounts were not paid from $7.5 million ISD Fund in each of those years, as such amounts had been fully expended to pay new CSC claims of tribes that were ahead of plaintiff in the queue. Instead, the Secretary paid the CSC amounts from unrestricted FY 1996 and FY 1997 appropriations.
On October 21, 1998, after this court, other federal courts, and boards of contract appeals had allowed tribes' claims for CSC to be paid from the agencies' total lump sum appropriation,2 Congress passed the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act 1999, Pub L No 105-277, 112 Stat 2681 ("OCEA"), which states in Section 314 as follows (emphasis added):
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, amounts appropriated to or earmarked in committee reports for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service by Public Laws 103-138, 103-332, 104-134, 104-208 and 105-83 for payments to tribes and tribal organizations for contract support costs associated with self-determination or self-governance contracts, grants, compacts, or annual funding agreements with the Bureau of Indian Affairs or the Indian Health Service as funded by such Acts, are the total amount available for fiscal years 1994 through 1998 for such purposes, except that for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, tribes and tribal organizations may use their tribal priority allocations for unmet indirect costs of ongoing contracts, grants, self-governance compacts or annual funding agreements.
The five public laws cited in Section 314 are the final IHS Appropriations Acts for FY 1994 through FY 1998. Simultaneously, Congress also acted to curtail new CSC claims by placing a moratorium on new or expanded self-determination contracts or compacts under the ISDEA. See Pub L No 105-277, Section 328 ().
Defendants contend that Section 314, read in conjunction with Section 328, expressly rejected the statutory interpretation of the ISDEA by this court and others and prohibits the FY 1996 and FY 1997 CSC relief ordered in this case. They interpret Section 314 as converting Congress' prior "recommendation" into an "earmark" or cap of $7.5 million for the ISD Fund which prohibits the Secretary from paying any CSC from her lump sum appropriation.
Consequently, defendants ask the court to reconsider its order as to plaintiff's claim for FY 1996 and FY 1997 CSC.
FRCP 60(b) provides that the court may relieve a party from a final judgment, order, or proceeding.3 Motions brought under this rule require the court to balance the interest in finality of judgments (ones which should not lightly be disturbed), and the desire to achieve justice. See Rodgers v. Watt, 722 F.2d 456, 459 (9th Cir.1983) (). As a result, motions brought under FRCP 60(b) are addressed to the sound discretion of the district court. See Thompson v. Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles, 782 F.2d 829, 832 (9th Cir.), cert denied, 479 U.S. 829, 107 S.Ct. 112, 93 L.Ed.2d 60 (1986); Martella v. Marine Cooks & Stewards Union, 448 F.2d 729, 730 (9th Cir. 1971), cert. denied, 405 U.S. 974, 92 S.Ct. 1191, 31 L.Ed.2d 248 (1972). Moreover, the Ninth Circuit has repeatedly recognized that because FRCP 60(b) is remedial in nature, it should be applied liberally. See, e.g., In re Roxford Foods, Inc., 12 F.3d 875, 879 (9th Cir.1993); Gregorian v. Izvestia, 871 F.2d 1515, 1522 (9th Cir. 1989), cert. denied 493 U.S. 891, 110 S.Ct 237, 107 L.Ed.2d 188 (1989); Meadows v. Dominican Republic, 817 F.2d 517, 521 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 976, 108 S.Ct. 487, 98 L.Ed.2d 485 (1987).
Defendants argue that Section 314 bars plaintiff's claims under the ISDEA for CSC for FY 1996 and FY 1997 by limiting the amount of appropriations available to the Secretary for CSC in those years. In other words, they contend that a lack of available funds under Section 314 now relieves them of liability for paying CSC costs due in FY 1996 and FY...
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