Opinion
No. CV03-133BB/LFG
September 11, 2003
Joseph E. Manges, for Plaintiffs
Mark A. Basham, for Defendants
ORDER REMANDING CASE
This Court issued an opinion stating the federal claims raised in this case will be dismissed without prejudice, and the remaining claims will be remanded to state court, but offering the parties an opportunity to respond to the proposed remand (Doc. 24). Defendants filed a response opposing remand. Defendants argue that even if the federal claims in this case are not ripe, this Court should apply the principles of res judicata, or claim preclusion. Applying those principles, according to Defendants, will result in dismissal of the entire case with prejudice rather than remand.
Defendants' argument is based on Wilkinson v. Pitkin County Bd. of County Com'rs, 142 F.3d 1319 (10th Cir. 1998). In Wilkinson, the Tenth Circuit held res judicata would apply and prevent the plaintiffs from litigating their Fifth Amendment taking action in federal court, because they had already litigated a case in state court arising out of the same facts, and could have raised their federal claims in that case. The Tenth Circuit applied res judicata principles even though the plaintiffs' federal claims were not ripe at the time of the previous state-court action. There are significant differences between this case and Wilkinson, however, which persuade this Court to refrain from following the Wilkinson approach.
In Wilkinson, by the time the federal-court action was filed the plaintiffs had already fully litigated their state-law inverse condemnation claims in state court, without reserving any federal claims for subsequent litigation. Therefore, at the time the res judicata question was decided the plaintiffs' federal claims were ripe for adjudication, even though they had not been ripe prior to the conclusion of the state-court proceedings. In the case before the Court now, however, the federal claims are still not ripe because no state-court inverse-condemnation proceedings have ever been held. Ripeness is a matter of subject-matter jurisdiction; if a claim is not ripe, this Court has no jurisdiction to consider it. Coalition for Sustainable Resources, Inc. v. United States Forest Service, 259 F.3d 1244, 1249 (10th Cir. 2001). Furthermore, res judicata is a defense on the merits, not a jurisdictional defense. White v. Elrod, 816 F.2d 1172, 1175 (7th Cir. 1987). Without subject-matter jurisdiction, a court may not consider any defenses on the merits that might exist. See Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env't, 523 U.S. 83, 94 (1998) (court must decide issue of jurisdiction before addressing merits). This Court, therefore, unlike the Wilkinson court, has no subject-matter jurisdiction to decide whether Plaintiffs' federal claims are barred by the defense of res judicata.
Based on the foregoing, the Court hereby ORDERS as follows: the federal claims raised in this case are DISMISSED without prejudice; and the remaining state-law claims are REMANDED to the First Judicial District Court, State of New Mexico, from which this case was removed.