Opinion
Case No. 2:04-CV-01173PGC.
August 24, 2005
ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANTS' MOTION TO DISMISS STATE CLAIMS
Before the court is the Washington County defendants' Motion to Dismiss State Law Causes of Action (No. 19). Defendants claim the provisions of the Utah Governmental Immunity Act (the "UGIA") in effect when Mr. Boyett died (it has since been repealed and reenacted) shield them from liability for plaintiffs' state causes of action. Plaintiffs argue the UGIA violates the Open Courts Clause of the Utah Constitution and the Petition Clauses of the United States and Utah Constitutions. After carefully considering the parties' arguments, the court declines to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiffs' state law claims because they concern novel and unsettled areas of Utah constitutional law. Therefore, the court GRANTS defendants' motion to dismiss.
Utah Const. art. I, § 11.
Utah Const. art. I, § 1.
BACKGROUND
This lawsuit stems from Raymond Boyett's death. Mr. Boyett passed away on September 6, 2003, while incarcerated at the Washington County Purgatory Correctional Facility in Hurricane, Utah. The plaintiffs, Mr. Boyett's wife and daughters, seek damages for civil rights violations and torts the defendants allegedly committed before and after Mr. Boyett's death.
The Complaint contains nine "Claims for Relief." The first two claims seek damages under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1988 for sundry constitutional violations. The third claim alleges negligence; the fourth claim asserts "Ratification of Positive Misconduct;" the fifth claim is for wrongful death; the sixth claim is a survival action; and the seventh claim seeks damages for infliction of emotional distress. Inadvertently skipping number eight, plaintiffs titled their next claim "Ninth Claim for Relief." This claim, however, does not allege a separate cause of action, but rather seeks punitive damages for defendants' alleged gross negligence and willful misconduct. Plaintiffs' final claim — mistakenly titled number ten — also does not allege a separate cause of action, but seeks "general and special" damages for claims one through seven.
In a prior order, the court granted in part and denied in part defendants' motion to dismiss claims one and two — the federal causes of action. The court, upon stipulation of the parties, dismissed the first cause of action against all the individual defendants in their official capacities. The court also dismissed the second claim for relief against the Washington County Sheriff's Office and the Washington County Purgatory Correctional Facility. The court, however, permitted plaintiffs' second claim for relief to proceed against Sheriff Kirk Smith in his individual capacity.
Order Granting in Part Washington County Defendants' Motion to Dismiss (Apr. 12, 2005), Docket No. 15.
This present motion is expressly limited to the state causes of action, or claims three through seven. Therefore, this order affects only those claims.
DISCUSSION
A. Procedural Posture
At the outset, the court notes some confusion in the parties' briefs regarding this motion's correct procedural posture. Defendants have moved for an order "pursuant to the Utah Governmental Immunity Act, sovereign immunity and Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) . . . dismissing each of Plaintiffs' state law causes of action for lack of jurisdiction." A motion for lack of subject matter jurisdiction should be brought under Rule 12(b)(1), not Rule 12(b)(6), as defendants request. In a footnote, however, defendants quote a District of Colorado case for the proposition that a "motion to dismiss based on sovereign immunity is treated as a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1)." Plaintiffs seize on this footnote and frame their memorandum as if opposing a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Thus, at first blush, the reference to Rule 12(b)(6) appears misplaced.
Washington County Defs.' Mot. to Dismiss State Law Causes of Action (Docket No. 19), at 3 (emphasis added).
Id. at n. 3 (quoting Neiberger v. Hawkins, 70 F. Supp. 2d 1177, 1181 (D. Colo. 1999)).
In the end, however, Rule 12(b)(6) is the proper mechanism to handle this motion. As defendants' brief correctly notes, "federal courts are constitutionally obligated to apply state law to state." In this case, the court must apply Utah law, not the Colorado law defendants cite. The rule defendants cite comes from a District of Colorado case interpreting the Colorado Governmental Immunity Act, under which immunity is a jurisdictional issue. In contrast, the Utah Supreme Court held in C.T. v. Martinez that "[a]lthough some jurisdictions choose to resolve questions of governmental immunity before determining whether the state owes a duty, this Court has observed that sovereign immunity is an affirmative defense which arises conceptually after the determination of tort liability." "By analyzing tort liability first," the Utah Supreme Court said, courts "can sometimes avoid difficult decisions regarding sovereign immunity issues and unwarranted assumptions about undecided duty problems." In other words, Utah courts have already expressly "reject[ed]" the position Colorado has adopted and defendants urge here: "that governmental immunity is an issue of subject matter jurisdiction." Since Utah law, not Colorado law, applies to plaintiffs' claims, a Rule 12(b)(1) dismissal would be improper. Thus, the court will treat defendants' motion to dismiss as one under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.
Felder v. Casey, 487 U.S. 131, 151 (1988).
Neiberger, 70 F. Supp. 2d at 1181 (citing Trinity Broadcasting of Denver, Inc. v. City of Westminster, 848 P.2d 916, 924 (Colo. 1993)).
845 P.2d 246 (Utah 1992).
Id. at 247 (citations omitted) (emphasis added).
Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).
Hart v. Salt Lake County Comm'n, 945 P.2d 125, 133 (Utah Ct. App. 1997).
B. Reasons for Declining to Exercise Supplemental Jurisdiction.
Having classified defendants' motion as falling under Rule 12(b)(6), the court must decide whether to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state claims that are the subject of the motion. For the reasons discussed below, the court declines to do so.
Plaintiffs' state law claims are before the court based on 28 U.S.C. § 1367, which grants federal district courts "supplemental jurisdiction over all other claims that are so related to claims in the action within such original jurisdiction that they form part of the same case or controversy." The Tenth Circuit, however, has held that "[e]ven where a `common nucleus of operative fact' exists, federal jurisdiction is not mandatory over pendent claims or parties." Rather, "[s]ection 1367(c) provides conditions where district courts may decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court repeatedly has determined that supplemental jurisdiction is not a matter of the litigants' right, but of judicial discretion." One such condition is when "the claim raises a novel or complex issue of state law." The court finds that plaintiffs' arguments regarding the UGIA's constitutionality under the Open Courts and Petition Clauses of the Utah Constitution fit this description.
Estate of Harshman v. Jackson Hole Mountain Resort Corp., 379 F.3d 1161, 1165 (10th Cir. 2004).
Id. (citing City of Chicago v. Int'l College of Surgeons, 522 U.S. 156, 173 (1997), and United Mine Workers of Am v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 726 (1966)).
Estate of Harshman, 379 F.3d at 1165.
To be sure, in an ordinary case, determining whether the Utah Governmental Immunity Act shields defendants from liability is not a novel or complex undertaking. As discussed above, Utah courts have established a two-part step for determining immunity under the UGIA: First, do the defendants owe the plaintiffs a duty under state tort law? Plaintiffs have not cited Utah cases or statutes that clearly establish a state tort law duty — separate from the Eighth Amendment's requirements that form the basis of their § 1983 action — in support of each alleged instance of negligence. As the Utah Supreme Court said, plaintiffs must do this to avoid any "unwarranted assumptions about undecided duty problems." Assuming plaintiffs establish such duties exist, step two requires the court to ask if the UGIA immunizes the defendants' actions. This second inquiry involves a relatively straightforward three-part test identified in several published Utah cases. Thus, if this case only required the court to apply the UGIA, the court would be inclined to rule on the merits of defendants' motion.
See C.T., 845 P.2d at 247.
Id.
See id.
See, e.g., Cook v. City of Moroni, 107 P.3d 713, 715 (Utah Ct.App. 2005).
In their memorandum in opposition to defendants' motion to dismiss, however, plaintiffs claim the UGIA violates the both the Petition Clause and the Open Courts Clause of the Utah Constitution. The few cases discussing the Utah Constitution's Petition Clause give virtually no meaningful guidance to this court should it decide to measure the UGIA against it. With respect to the Open Courts Clause, the Utah Supreme Court's seminal decision in Berry v. Beech Aircraft Corp. sets forth a two-part test to determine if various Utah statutes comply with the Utah Constitution's Open Courts provision. However, that test's application to other sections of the UGIA has required inquiry into the status of the Utah common law of torts in 1896 — the year Utah became a state — and has engendered heated debate among Utah Supreme Court justices.
Utah Const. art. I, § 1.
Id. § 11.
717 P.2d 670 (Utah 1985).
See McCorvey v. Utah State Dep't of Transp., 868 P.2d 41, 47-48 (Utah 1993).
Compare Craftsman Builder's Supply, Inc. v. Butler Mfg. Co., 974 P.2d 1194, 1204-23 (Utah 1999) (Stewart, J., concurring), with id. at 1224 n. 2 (Zimmerman, J., concurring in the result).
The court expresses no opinion on the merits of defendants or plaintiffs' arguments and finds that, because of the lack of relevant precedent on the Petition Clause and the unsettled state of Open Courts Clause jurisprudence, Utah courts are better suited to determining if the UGIA complies with these two Utah constitutional provisions. As such, the court declines to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiffs' state law claims and leaves to plaintiffs the option of refiling these claims in state court.
CONCLUSION
The court declines to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiffs' state law claims and therefore GRANTS defendants' motion to dismiss state law causes of action (No. 19). This ruling affects only those state law claims identified in defendants' motion: plaintiffs' third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh causes of action. Moreover, this dismissal is without prejudice and not on the merits. Plaintiffs may thus refile these state claims in state court.
As a result of this order, the claims now pending before the court involve these parties: plaintiffs' first claim for relief against the governmental entity defendants and the individual defendants in their individual capacities, and plaintiffs' second claim for relief against the County of Washington and the individual defendants in both their official and individual capacities.
SO ORDERED.