[env-trinity] Suit goes to the USSC

[Patrick Truman]

Orff v. United States
Argued: 02/23/05
No. 03-1566
Court below: 358 F.3d 1137 (9th Cir. 2004)
Full text: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/9th/0016922p.pdf

FEDERAL SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY (Farmers' Legal Capacity to Sue United States Bureau of Reclamation)

The issue in this case is whether farmers are intended third-party beneficiaries of a contract between the Westlands Water District and the United States Bureau of Reclamation.

The Westlands Water District (Westlands) receives water from the Central Valley Project (CVP) pursuant to a 1963 contract with the United States Bureau of Reclamation (Bureau).  After learning that continued operation of the CVP would threaten certain endangered species, the Bureau greatly reduced the Westlands' water supply pursuant to the Endangered Species Act (ESA), which requires federal agencies to avoid threatening endangered species.  Landowners and water users filed a lawsuit against Westlands in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California (District Court), alleging that the water reduction violated the 1963 contract.  However, the District Court found that the government was not liable because the contract expressly absolved the government from liability for a breach of contract caused by statutory mandate.  The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Court of Appeals) affirmed.  Subsequently, Westlands filed the present lawsuit in which numerous farmers intervened.  The District Court found that the farmers were not intended third-party beneficiaries of the 1963 contract and thus, were not a contracting entity with which the government had waived
sovereign immunity.  The farmers appealed.  The Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's ruling, holding that sovereign immunity deprived the court of jurisdiction to hear the farmers' claims.  On appeal to the United States Supreme Court, the farmers argue that the text of the contract and surrounding circumstances imply that the farmers are intended third-party beneficiaries.  The farmers also argue that a stipulated judgment explicitly provides that they are intended third-party beneficiaries.  Finally, the farmers assert that prior judgments preclude the Bureau from challenging the farmers' right to sue for breach of
contract.  [Summarized by Krista N. Hardwick.]
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