United States v. Bronke
| Decision Date | 08 September 2022 |
| Docket Number | 01-cr-532 |
| Parties | United States of America, v. Robert Bronke, et al., Defendants |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
Before the court is the government's amended motion to clarify the seven judgments entered between 2003 and 2007 in this criminal case. ECF No. 397. The motion stems from defendant Robert Bronke's (“Bronke”) 2021 request to the U.S. Attorney's Office for a payoff amount for his joint and several restitution obligation to First Tennessee Bank. See Gov't Reply 2, ECF No. 435. As permitted by federal statute, the Clerk of Court processes accounts for, and distributes restitution payments. See 18 U.S.C. § 3611; 28 U.S.C. § 604(a)(18); but see 28 C.F.R. § 0.171(e)(4) (permitting the U.S. Attorney to “accept delivery of the amount or property due as restitution”). In the instant motion, the government disagrees with the Clerk's method of accounting for partial payments toward joint and several restitution obligations. See, e.g. Gov't Reply 2-3.
The Clerk has appeared and filed a thorough response brief opposing the government's motion for clarification arguing that he will be injured substantially if the motion is granted because the accounting method for potentially tens of thousands of transactions in this district involving restitution payments may need to be revisited if the court agrees with the government, to say nothing of transactions in other districts that use the same accounting software provided by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts. E.g., Clerk's Resp. to Am. Mot. to Clarify Restitution Order (“Clerk Resp.”) 20, ECF No. 420; Gov't Reply 2. The government does not object to the Clerk's participation. Gov't Reply 4 n.5. Neither Bronke nor First Tennessee Bank has appeared to oppose the motion to clarify. Two of Bronke's co-defendants, Arnie Gillard and Dawn Raimo Whitemiller, now known as Dawn Sambalis, appeared and adopted the Clerk's arguments for denying the motion. Sambalis's Resp. to Am. Mot. to Clarify Restitution Order (“Sambalis Resp.”) 2, ECF No. 425; Gillard's Resp. to Am. Mot. to Clarify Restitution Order (“Gillard Resp.”) 1, ECF No. 426; see also Sambalis Resp. 3 (making additional arguments on the merits). For the following reasons, the court cannot reach the merits of the disagreement over accounting methodology because, as the Clerk argues, the government has not carried its burden to show that this court has jurisdiction to rule on its motion to clarify.
The seven judgments entered between 2003 and 2007 in this criminal case required defendants to pay restitution to First Tennessee Bank in amounts ranging from approximately $221,000 to $4.2 million. Each judgment holds one of the defendants jointly and severally liable with one or more of the others for the restitution amount stated.[*] See ECF No. 100 at 6-7; ECF No. 101 at 6-7; ECF No. 135 at 6-7; ECF No. 217 at 5; ECF No. 227 at 5; ECF No. 236 at 5; ECF No. 259 at 5. The “joint and several” language appears in the judgments (and in many other judgments in criminal cases over the years), and neither the government nor any defendant objected to this aspect of the judgments at the sentencing stage.
At common law, joint and several liability attaches where a victim has suffered a single, indivisible harm. See Honeycutt v. United States, 137 S.Ct. 1626, 1631 (2017) (citations omitted); Bosco v Serhant, 836 F.2d 271, 281-82 (7th Cir. 1987); Restatement (Second) of Torts § 875 (Am. L. Inst. 1979). Thus, judgments ordering restitution for different joint and several amounts, which the court has been told are common in this district, Clerk Resp. 10, create something of a legal conundrum because they divide a supposedly indivisible single harm into different amounts. This conundrum lies at the heart of the government's amended motion to clarify the restitution judgments. Gov't Am. Mot. to Clarify Restitution Order (“Mot.”), ECF No. 397.
The details of the accounting method presently in use by the Clerk are not entirely clear on this record. The Clerk represents that, consistent with national policy promulgated by the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, payments toward joint and several restitution obligations in different amounts are allocated “proportionally according to each defendant's obligation” as they are received. Clerk Resp. 7. Under this accounting method, a defendant's balance for a joint and several restitution obligation can fall to zero before the defendant has paid the full amount stated in his or her individual judgment and before the victim has been fully compensated for the total loss amount stated in the judgment. See id. at 7.
The government argues that the Clerk's accounting method is inconsistent with the compensatory purpose of the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act (MVRA). See 18 U.S.C. §§ 3663A(a), 3664(h). The government contends that this court should adopt the reasoning of cases such as United States v. Sheets, 814 F.3d 256, 260-61 (5th Cir. 2016), and United States v. Yalincak, 30 F.4th 115, 124-25 (2d Cir. 2022). Both cases hold that where restitution orders hold defendants jointly and severally liable for different amounts, “the MVRA permits the Government to hold any individual defendant liable for as much as the court ordered as to that defendant, but the government may not collect more from all defendants together than will make the victim whole.” Sheets, 814 F.3d at 261 (citations omitted); accord Yalincak, 30 F.4th at 12425.
The Clerk responds that the government has not shown that the court has jurisdiction to modify the judgments. Clerk Resp. 10-15. On the merits, the Clerk argues that Sheets and Yalincak, and district court decisions following them, are wrongly decided. The Clerk maintains that the government effectively asks the court to rewrite the judgments and read the word “joint” out of joint and several liability. See id. at 3. The Clerk also invokes the equitable doctrine of laches and draws an analogy to the Chevron doctrine, an administrative law doctrine concerning judicial deference to a federal agency's interpretation of an ambiguous statute. See generally King v. Burwell, 576 U.S. 473, 485 (2015); Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, 467 U.S. 837 (1984). In support of these arguments, the Clerk contends that the government has been aware of the accounting method used by the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts since 1997 and has not raised an objection. The government disputes this as a factual matter. See Clerk Resp. 15-23; Gov't Reply 11-12; Gov't Suppl. Br. & Exs., ECF No. 448.
This court begins and ends with the Clerk's jurisdictional challenge. “Ordinarily, a court cannot issue a ruling on the merits ‘when it has no jurisdiction' because ‘to do so is, by very definition, for a court to act ultra vires.' ” Brownback v. King, 141 S.Ct. 740, 749 (2021) (citing Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env't, 523 U.S. 83, 101-02 (1998)). For the reasons discussed below, the government has not carried its burden to identify a rule or statute conferring subject matter jurisdiction to resolve its motion. Accordingly, the court cannot reach the merits.
“Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction.” Home Depot U.S. A., Inc. v. Jackson, 139 S.Ct. 1743, 1746 (2019) (alteration omitted) (citing Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994)). Since “lower federal-court jurisdiction is further limited to those subjects encompassed within a statutory grant of jurisdiction . . ., ‘the district courts may not exercise jurisdiction absent a statutory basis.' ” Id. (quoting Exxon Mobil Corp. v Allapattah Servs., Inc., 545 U.S. 546, 552 (2005)) (other internal citation and quotation omitted). Here, all appearing defendants have joined the Clerk's memorandum arguing that this court lacks jurisdiction to grant the government's motion. See Clerk Resp. 10-15; Sambalis Resp. 2; Gillard Resp. 1. As its sole proponent, the burden lies with the government to demonstrate subject matter jurisdiction. United States v. Denedo, 556 U.S. 904, 909 (2009) (citing DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U.S. 332, 342 (2006)).
For his jurisdictional challenge, the Clerk relies primarily on United States v. Simon, 952 F.3d 848 (7th Cir. 2020). See Clerk Resp. 10-15. The district court entered judgment against James A. Simon (“Simon”) in 2010 and ordered him to pay restitution to several victims. See id. at 850. In 2016, shortly after Simon's release from prison, the government filed a motion to amend the restitution order to eliminate a victim payee that had disclaimed any interest in ongoing restitution. Id. The government also asked the district court to update the amount of restitution Simon owed to a second victim, decreasing his outstanding balance from $101,600 to $48,376. See id. at 850-51. The district court granted the motion one day after the government filed it without holding a hearing, and Simon filed pro se motions to reconsider, seeking an even lower amount, which the district court denied. Id. at 851. The Seventh Circuit held that Simon waived certain arguments by failing to make them in his pro se motions, and that others could and should have been made at sentencing and on direct appeal. See id. at 852. The Seventh Circuit further held that Simon had not timely appealed the district court's 2016 order modifying his restitution judgment. Id. at 852-53.
Simon also argued that he should be allowed to start again in the district court, raising all of his arguments. See id. at 853. But the Seventh Circuit explained...
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