St. Croix Waterway Ass'n v. Meyer

• Decision Date: 12 March 1999
• Docket Number: No. 98-1216,98-1216
• Parties: , ST. CROIX WATERWAY ASSOCIATION, an unincorporated association, Appellant, v. George E. MEYER, in his official capacity as Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources; Rodney Sando, in his official capacity as Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

178 F.3d 515,

ST. CROIX WATERWAY ASSOCIATION, an unincorporated

association, Appellant, v. George E. MEYER, in his official capacity as Secretary of

the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources; Rodney Sando,

in his official capacity as Commissioner of the Minnesota

Department of Natural Resources, Appellees.

No. 98-1216.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eighth Circuit.

Submitted Oct. 20, 1998.

Decided March 12, 1999.

Jeffrey A. Eyres, Minneapolis, MN, argued (Charles K. Dayton, on the brief), for Appellant.

David Peter Iverson, St. Paul, MN, argued for appellee Sando and James C. McKay, Madison, WI, argued for appellee Meyer (James E. Doyle, Attorney General, Madison, WI, on the brief).

Before: McMILLIAN, LAY and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.

McMILLIAN, Circuit Judge.

St. Croix Waterway Association (the Association) appeals from a final order entered in the United States District Court ¹ for the District of Minnesota dismissing with prejudice its complaint seeking a declaratory judgment that "slow-no wake" motorboat speed limit regulations applicable to the Lower St. Croix River are unconstitutionally vague on their face and violate the public trust doctrine. St. Croix Waterway Ass'n v. Meyer, Civil No. 97-166 (D.Minn. Dec. 22, 1997) (memorandum opinion and order). For reversal, the Association argues that the district court erred in ignoring certain facts it alleged in support of its claim and in holding that the slow-no wake regulations are not unconstitutionally vague on their face and do not violate the public trust doctrine. For the reasons discussed below, we affirm the order of the district court.

JURISDICTION

Jurisdiction in the district court was based on 28 U.S.C. § 1331. Jurisdiction in this court is based on 28 U.S.C. § 1291. The notice of appeal was timely filed pursuant to Fed.R.App.P. 4(a).

BACKGROUND

The Association is an unincorporated association of individuals who regularly operate motorboats on the Lower St. Croix River in zones where slow-no wake regulations are enforced. Appellees George E. Meyer and Rodney W. Sando are the Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, respectively. Appellees were sued in their official capacities; they are responsible for enforcement of the challenged regulations.

The Lower St. Croix River forms part of the boundary between Minnesota and Wisconsin. The states jointly manage this portion of the river. Minnesota and Wisconsin have adopted identical regulations requiring that motorboats travel no faster than the slow-no wake speed on certain areas of the river. See Minn.R. 6105.0320, subpt. 4; Wis.Admin.Code § NR 5.32(3). These regulations provide that " 'slow-no wake' means operation of a motorboat at the slowest possible speed necessary to maintain steerage." These regulations were adopted in 1979 and were expanded in 1995 to additional areas of the Lower St. Croix River for environmental and safety reasons. According to the Association, Minnesota and Wisconsin have joint jurisdiction over the Lower St. Croix River, and law enforcement officers of each state enforce their respective state's slow-no wake regulations from shore to shore on the Lower St. Croix River.

This action began in January 1996 when the Association filed a complaint against appellees seeking a declaratory judgment that the slow-no wake regulations were unconstitutionally vague on their face. Appellees filed motions to dismiss pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). The magistrate judge held that the court had subject matter jurisdiction and personal jurisdiction and that the regulations were not unconstitutionally vague and dismissed the complaint with prejudice. See St. Croix Waterway Ass'n v. Meyer, 942 F.Supp. 435, 444 (D.Minn.1996) (St. Croix I ). ² The Association filed a motion to "modify or reconsider," which the magistrate judge considered as a Fed.R.Civ.P. 59(e) motion to alter or amend judgment. The magistrate judge modified the order and dismissed the complaint without prejudice. Id. Slip op. at 5 (Dec. 23, 1996) (order).

The present case began in January 1997 when the Association filed an amended complaint, reasserting its claim that the slow-no wake regulations are unconstitutionally vague on their face in violation of the due process clauses of the Constitutions of the United States, Minnesota and Wisconsin. The Association made essentially the same allegations that it had made in its initial complaint. The Association alleged that the regulations failed to provide adequate notice of what conduct is prohibited or sufficient standards to prevent arbitrary and discriminatory law enforcement. The Association also alleged that Minnesota and Wisconsin law enforcement officers enforced the regulations in a selective, arbitrary or discriminatory manner against its members, individuals who operated certain types of motorboats and individuals who operated motorboats registered in other states. The Association also alleged that the regulations violated the public trust doctrine. Appellees filed Rule 12(b)(6) motions to dismiss.

The district court held that the slow-no wake regulations were not unconstitutionally vague on their face. The district court found that the regulations provided adequate notice of what conduct is prohibited because the regulations did not use overly technical terms to describe the prohibited conduct, the language used is clear and unambiguous, and the regulations are specific enough to be comprehensible to people of ordinary intelligence. See slip op. at 6-7. The district court compared the phrase "the slowest possible speed necessary to maintain steerage" used in the regulations to statutes requiring trucks to take "the shortest practical route" and statutes requiring motorists to drive at speeds that are "reasonable and prudent under the conditions." Id. at 7, citing Sproles v. Binford, 286 U.S. 374, 52 S.Ct. 581, 76 L.Ed. 1167 (1932); State v. Goldstone, 144 Minn. 405, 175 N.W. 892 (1920); Mulkern v. State, 176 Wis. 490, 187 N.W. 190 (1922). The district court observed that, "[d]espite some degree of uncertainty in the parameters of the prohibited conduct, courts have upheld the 'reasonable and prudent' speed limits. Nothing in the present case mandates a different outcome for the analogous 'slow-no wake' regulations." Id. at 7-8.

The district court also found that the regulations set forth minimal guidelines that provided law enforcement officers with sufficient standards to prevent arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. See id. at 8. The district court also held that the public trust doctrine ³ did not apply because each state had the authority under the public trust doctrine to regulate activity on waterways held in trust for the public. See id. at 9. The district court dismissed the Association's amended complaint with prejudice. The Association then filed a motion to supplement the record and a proffer, which the district court denied. This appeal followed.

DISCUSSION

We review de novo the district court's decision to grant the Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss. We take the well-pleaded allegations in the complaint as true and view the complaint, and all reasonable inferences arising therefrom, in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. The question before the district court, and this court on appeal, is whether the plaintiff can prove any set of facts which would entitle the plaintiff to relief. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6); see, e.g., Weaver v. Clarke, 45 F.3d 1253, 1255 (8th Cir.1995). The complaint should be dismissed "only if it is clear that no relief can be granted under any set of facts that could be proved consistent with the allegations." Frey v. City of Herculaneum, 44 F.3d 667, 671 (8th Cir.1995) (citations omitted).

For reversal, the Association first argues that the district court erred in dismissing the complaint because it believed--wrongly--that the Association could not prove what its complaint asserted. The Association argues that the district court improperly ignored or discounted certain facts it alleged in support of its claim that the slow-no wake regulations are unconstitutionally vague on their face. The Associations argues that it specifically identified the many variables that made it impossible to determine the slow-no wake speed and argued that this imprecision made impossible both the provision of adequate notice and the establishment of minimal standards. The Association also offered the opinion of a nautical expert about small boats and minimum speeds and the statement of a state trial judge in a Wisconsin slow-no wake case. ⁴

After reviewing the district court's memorandum opinion, we do not agree that the district court improperly ignored or discounted the facts alleged by the Association in its complaint. The district court properly accepted as true the Association's factual allegations that variables such as the size of the boat, the design of the boat, the water conditions, the weather and wind, the current, the operator's skill and experience, and the weight of the operator and any passengers, will affect "the slowest possible speed necessary to maintain steerage." Slip op. at 6. The district court also considered but rejected the Association's interpretation of the statement of the Wisconsin trial judge because the Association had taken the statement out of context. See id.

In addition, we note that, because the Association's complaint asserted a facial constitutional challenge, the issues presented to the district court were questions of law and the specific facts were not relevant. Cf. Anheuser-Busch, Inc. v. Schmoke, 63 F.3d 1305, 1311-12 (4th Cir.1995) (holding facial challenge to city ordinance on First Amendment grounds involved questions of law which could be resolved per Rule 12(b)(6)), vacated and remanded on other grounds, 517 U.S. 1206, 116 S.Ct. 1821, 134 L.Ed.2d 927 (1996); Penn Advertising of...