Friends of Del Norte v. California Department of Transportation
- James Donato
- 3:18-cv-00129
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 5
In Friends of Del Norte v. California Department of Transportation, Judge Donato granted the Federal Highway Administration's jurisdictional dismissal and allowed amendment.
Friends of Del Norte and the other plaintiffs’ claims against the Federal Highway Administration were dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, but the plaintiffs were allowed to file an amended complaint. The Federal Highway Administration’s separate failure-to-state-a-claim motion was terminated as moot.
What happened
Friends of Del Norte and other plaintiffs challenged environmental reviews for the 197/199 Safe STAA Access Project, which consisted of five roadwork sites in California. They alleged that the defendants, including the Federal Highway Administration, failed to comply with several federal environmental laws.
The plaintiffs argued that the project was not entirely within California because it was intended to increase traffic between California and Oregon and would affect Oregon. The court rejected that argument, concluding that the project’s location—not its purpose or outside effects—controlled under the applicable law. California had assumed responsibility for the environmental reviews under an agreement with the Federal Highway Administration.
Judge Donato granted the Federal Highway Administration’s motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. He terminated the agency’s separate motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim as moot and allowed the plaintiffs to file an amended complaint, without adding claims or parties unless the court approved it.
The detailed version
- Friends of Del Norte v. California Department of Transportation · No. 3:18-cv-00129
- James Donato
- Apr. 9, 2020
Background
The order concerns claims against the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) arising from the 197/199 Safe STAA Access Project. According to the complaint, the project consisted of five roadwork sites in California. The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants, including FHWA, failed to comply with environmental-review requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Transportation Act, and other federal laws.
The federal defendants moved to dismiss the claims against FHWA under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), which addresses subject-matter jurisdiction, and Rule 12(b)(6), which addresses whether a complaint states a legally sufficient claim. The court decided the motion on the written submissions.
Rule 12(b)(1) Analysis
The court treated the jurisdictional challenge as a facial attack. That means the court accepted the complaint’s jurisdictional allegations as true and considered whether those allegations were legally sufficient to establish jurisdiction.
The court focused on 23 U.S.C. § 327. That statute allows FHWA to assign responsibility for certain federally required environmental reviews to states undertaking transportation projects “within” the state. When a state assumes that responsibility, the state becomes “solely responsible and solely liable” for carrying out the reviews. The court also noted that sovereign immunity—the legal protection generally shielding the federal government from suit—can be waived only through clear statutory language.
The court concluded that the project was entirely within California because all of the work was located there. The fact that the project was intended to facilitate traffic between California and Oregon, or that its effects might be felt in Oregon, did not change its location. The court also determined that the agreement between California and FHWA properly assigned responsibility for the relevant environmental reviews to California.
Because California had assumed responsibility for the reviews, the court held that FHWA’s sovereign immunity had not been waived and that the court lacked jurisdiction over the claims against FHWA.
Rule 12(b)(6) Motion and Disposition
Because the court lacked jurisdiction over all claims against FHWA, it terminated FHWA’s Rule 12(b)(6) motion as moot rather than deciding that motion’s failure-to-state-a-claim issues.
The court granted FHWA’s Rule 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss. The court allowed the plaintiffs to file an amended complaint by May 8, 2020, because it could not say that amendment would necessarily be futile. The court stated that no new claims or parties could be added without its prior approval.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.