1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Case No.: 16-CV-01713 BAS JMA PAUMA’S OPP’N TO STATE DEFS.’ MOT. TO DISMISS SECOND AM. COMPL. Cheryl A. Williams (Cal. Bar No. 193532) Kevin M. Cochrane (Cal. Bar No. 255266) [email protected][email protected]WILLIAMS & COCHRANE, LLP 28581 Old Town Front Street Temecula, CA 92590 Telephone: (619) 793-4809 Attorneys for Plaintiff PAUMA BAND OF MISSION INDIANS IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA PAUMA BAND OF LUISENO MISSION INDIANS OF THE PAUMA & YUIMA RESERVATION, a/k/a PAUMA BAND OF MISSION INDIANS, a federally-recognized Indian Tribe, Plaintiff, v. STATE OF CALIFORNIA; EDMUND G. BROWN, JR., as Governor of the State of California; DOES 1 THROUGH 10; Defendants. Case No.: 16-CV-01713 BAS JMA PAUMA’S OPPOSITION TO STATE DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO DISMISS AND STRIKE PLAINTIFF’S SECOND AMENDED COMPLAINT Date: TBD Time: TBD Dept: 4B Judge: The Honorable Cynthia Bashant NO ORAL ARGUMENT UNLESS REQUESTED BY THE COURT Case 3:16-cv-01713-BAS-JMA Document 32 Filed 07/17/17 PageID.1856 Page 1 of 25
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28Case No.: 16-CV-01713 BAS JMA
PAUMA’S OPP’N TO STATE DEFS.’ MOT. TO DISMISS SECOND AM. COMPL.
Cheryl A. Williams (Cal. Bar No. 193532)Kevin M. Cochrane (Cal. Bar No. 255266)[email protected]@williamscochrane.comWILLIAMS & COCHRANE, LLP28581 Old Town Front StreetTemecula, CA 92590Telephone: (619) 793-4809
Attorneys for PlaintiffPAUMA BAND OF MISSION INDIANS
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURTFOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
PAUMA BAND OF LUISENOMISSION INDIANS OF THE PAUMA& YUIMA RESERVATION, a/k/aPAUMA BAND OF MISSION INDIANS,a federally-recognized Indian Tribe,
Plaintiff,
v.
STATE OF CALIFORNIA; EDMUNDG. BROWN, JR., as Governor of theState of California; DOES 1 THROUGH10;
Defendants.
Case No.: 16-CV-01713 BAS JMA
PAUMA’S OPPOSITION TOSTATE DEFENDANTS’ MOTIONTO DISMISS AND STRIKEPLAINTIFF’S SECONDAMENDED COMPLAINT
Date: TBDTime: TBDDept: 4BJudge: The Honorable Cynthia
Bashant
NO ORAL ARGUMENT UNLESSREQUESTED BY THE COURT
Case 3:16-cv-01713-BAS-JMA Document 32 Filed 07/17/17 PageID.1856 Page 1 of 25
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………… 1
LEGAL STANDARDS …………………………………………………………………….2
ARGUMENT …………………………………………………………………………….4
I. OPPOSING COUNSEL’S ORIGINAL IMPRESSION AND THE COURT’SPRIOR ORDERS IN OTHER CASES INDICATE THAT LEAVE TOAMEND WAS NOT LIMITED TO ONLY “ADD[ING] ALLEGATIONSDEMONSTRATING THAT THE ACTIONS OF THE [COMMISSION] ANDTHE [DOJ] HAVE IN SOME WAY BREACHED AN OBLIGATIONUNDER THE PAUMA COMPACT” …………………………………………..4
II. THE AMENDMENTS TO THE COMPLAINT RELATED TO THE DIS-COVERY RULE SHOW THAT PAUMA HAD ABSOLUTELY NOWAY OF UNCOVERING THE STATE’S ACTUAL USES OF SPECIALDISTRIBUTION FUND MONIES ON ITS OWN VOLITION …………………….9
III. THE IMPLIED COVENANT OF GOOD FAITH AND FAIR DEALING IM-POSES ADDITIONAL DUTIES THAT ARE “FAIRLY INFERABLE” FROMTHE EXPRESS TERMS OF THE 1999 COMPACT AND IS THUS NOT CO-EXTENSIVE WITH A BREACH OF CONTRACT CLAIM AS THE STATECONTENDS ……………………………………………………………… 13
CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………………………….17
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TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
CASES
Allen v. County of L.A. Sheriff’s Dep’t,2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 133613 (C.D. Cal. 2009) ………………………………. 3
April Enter., Inc. v. KTTV,147 Cal. App. 3d 805 (2d Cir. 1983) ……………………………………….4, 10
Ashcroft v. Iqbal,556 U.S. 662 (2009) ………………………………………………………… 2, 3
Barker v. Avila,2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 91161 (E.D. Cal. 2010) ………………………………... 7
Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly,550 U.S. 544 (2007) …………………………………………………………… 2
Beraha v. Baxter Health Care Corp.,956 F.2d 1436 (7th Cir. 1992) ………………………………………………...14
Cachil Dehe Band of Wintun Indians of Colusa Indian Cmty. v. California,547 F.3d 962 (9th Cir. 2008) ………………………………………………….12
Campos v. Failla,2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 42745 (S.D. Cal. 2016) ………………………………6, 7
Carrero-Ojeda v. Autoridad de Energia Electrica,755 F.3d 711 (1st Cir. 2014) …………………………………………………... 2
Centex Corp. v. United States,395 F.3d 1283 (Fed. Cir. 2005) ………………………………………………. 13
Chapman v. Bluffs of Fox Run Homeowners Ass’n,2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 171537 (S.D. Cal. 2016) ………………………………..7
Clement v. Am. Greetings Corp.,636 F. Supp. 1326 (S.D. Cal. 1986) …………………………………………… 3
///
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Crafty Prods. v. Fuqing Sanxing Crafts Co.,2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 136219 (S.D. Cal. 2016) ………………………………..7
Diaz v. Fed. Express Corp.,373 F. Supp. 2d 1034 (C.D. Cal. 2005) ……………………………………….16
El Pollo Loco, Inc v. Hashim,316 F.3d 1032 (9th Cir. 2003) ………………………………………………...10
Emerson Radio Corp. v. Orion Dales, Inc.,253 F.3d 159 (3d Cir. 2001) ………………………………………………….. 14
C.J.)). Similarly, it also means that normally “the mere presence of redundant material in
a pleading does not warrant granting a motion to strike.” Md. Staffing Servs. v.
Manpower, Inc., 936 F. Supp. 1494, 1509 (E.D. Wis. 1996). These sorts of requests to
strike material that is allegedly either redundant or included in an ultra vires manner
almost certainly fail when the court would have granted leave to amend, if it had been
sought, in the interests of judicial economy or for some other reason. See, e.g., Manzano
v. MetLife Bank N.A., 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 56316, *8 (E.D. Cal. 2011) (collecting
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cases). With that said, the standard rule for evaluating a motion to strike is that such a
motion “should be granted only when the material at issue bears no possible relation to
the controversy or may cause prejudice to the party opposing the motion.” King v. M.R.
Brown, 911 F. Supp. 161, 169 (E.D. Pa. 1995) (citing Talbot v. Robert Matthews Dist.
Co., 961 F.2d 654 (7th Cir. 1992)). Any doubts about the prejudicial or extraneous nature
of the pleaded material under attack should lead “the court… [to] deny the motion.”
Obesity Research Inst., LLC v. Fiber Research Int’l, LLC, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24025,
*8 (S.D. Cal. 2016) (Bashant, J.). This principle accords with the basic approach for
handling the motion to dismiss process in which “a court should view the pleading under
attack in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party” when ruling on the Rule 12
motion. See, e.g., James v. Agnew, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 137061, *6 (S.D. Cal. 2016).
ARGUMENTI. OPPOSING COUNSEL’S ORIGINAL IMPRESSION AND THE COURT’S PRIOR ORDERS
IN OTHER CASES INDICATE THAT LEAVE TO AMEND WAS NOT LIMITED TO ONLY“ADD[ING] ALLEGATIONS DEMONSTRATING THAT THE ACTIONS OF THE [COM-MISSION] AND THE [DOJ] HAVE IN SOME WAY BREACHED AN OBLIGATION UN-DER THE PAUMA COMPACT”The main thrust of the second motion to dismiss filed by the State is that Pauma
“exceed[ed] the limited leave to amend granted by the Court” and engaged in an “unauth-
orized self-help remedy” by adding new allegations to the complaint instead of simply
asking the court to reconsider its opinion on some frozen-in-time claim or allegation as
those things were originally pled. See Dkt. No. 30-1, 8:3-24. What is rather remarkable
about this argument is that it is the antithesis of what opposing counsel told counsel for
Pauma in advance of the filing of the Second Amended Complaint when discussing the
future course of the case. As to that, the attached declaration of Cheryl A. Williams ex-
plains that Ms. Williams spoke with Mr. Muscat on Friday, April 14, 2017 about whether
the parties could reach an agreement to expedite the case and thus obviate the need for a
second motion to dismiss process. See Williams Decl., ¶ 2. It was during this phone call
that Mr. Muscat first hinted that the State may agree to such a request if Pauma would
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consider removing the subordinate State agencies (i.e., the California Department of
Justice (“DOJ”) and the California Gambling Control Commission (“CGCC”)) from the
case altogether. Id. According to Mr. Muscat, having these entities involved in the suit
created a number of practical, real-life difficulties for him and his office, and eliminating
them from the proceeding would make the case much easier for him from a procedural
standpoint. Id. The basic gist of this discussion is even included in a footnote to the
Twenty-Second Claim for Relief in the Second Amended Complaint, which states in rele-
vant part that:
The message conveyed during these conversations with opposing counselwas that removing these two agencies from the case could convince the Stateto expedite the case by foregoing another motion to dismiss and agreeing ona schedule for the future disposition of the proceeding. With that in mind,Pauma will limit the scope of this claim at present with the aim of movingthis case forward.
See Dkt. No. 27 at p. 86, n.22.
Not interested in having another’s procedural problems affect her client’s sub-
stantive rights in the case, Ms. Williams then pointedly asked Mr. Muscat whether he in-
terpreted the grant of leave to amend in the district court’s March 29, 2017 order on the
State’s first motion to dismiss as only allowing Pauma to include new allegations and/or
claims against the DOJ and the CGCC. See Williams Decl., ¶ 2. After pondering that
question for a few seconds, Mr. Muscat indicated that he did not think that was the case
at all, responding with a, “Well if that’s what she [(i.e., Judge Bashant)] intended, she
certainly could’ve been much clearer.” Id. With that, the counsel for the parties seemed to
have an understanding that the conferred leave to amend was more broad than simply
adding new allegations against those two State agencies, and each went on their way to
take care of their resultant work – with Ms. Williams spending much of the remaining
three business days before the filing deadline revising the complaint so the entire onus of
the action was on the State itself, and Mr. Muscat reviewing and revising an initial draft
of the joint motion from counsel for Pauma that would largely control the disposition of
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the proceeding. See id. at ¶ 3.
It is worth pointing out that counsel for Pauma did not construe the scope of leave
to amend based on Mr. Muscat’s impressions alone. Rather, a significant amount of
research occurred in advance of the first phone call between the parties in which counsel
for Pauma noticed a pattern in the way the district court would deal with the scope of
leave to amend when issuing orders on motions to dismiss. Occasionally, the court would
give a party precise affirmative instructions about how to amend. For instance, the district
court did this in connection with a § 1983 suit alleging excessive force by a police depart-
ment by identifying the insufficiencies in the allegations in the complaint when granting
leave to amend, such as the plaintiff having not alleged that he was “demonstrably in-
jured by the handcuffs” being put on too tight or “how long he was subjected to the cold
temperatures of the police vehicle.” Little v. Gore, 148 F. Supp. 3d 936, 950-51 (S.D.
Cal. 2015). Even then, the solution for resultant noncompliance with the provided in-
structions was not the drastic remedy of striking the new material, but simply denying the
plaintiff any further leave to amend. See Little v. Gore, 188 F. Supp. 3d 1005, 1016 (S.D.
Cal. 2016).
These sorts of guiding directions regarding the specifics of amendment were absent
from the order on the State’s first motion to dismiss, as were any sort of warnings that
leave to amend was only permitted as to those certain things and that any amendments
that exceeded the scope would be stricken sua sponte by the court. In reality, the number
of orders issued by the district court like the above with affirmative instructions on how
to use the conferred leave to amend appears to pale in comparison to those containing
negative restrictions and cautionary language mentioning harsh repercussions for a plain-
tiff that chooses to act imprudently. An example of this is in the order on the defendants’
motions to dismiss in Campos v. Failla, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 42745 (S.D. Cal. 2016), in
which the court went to painstaking detail to explain the scope of amendment and what
would happen if the plaintiff exceeded it:
The scope of leave to file an amended complaint is limited to amending only
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the civil RICO claim to allege additional facts that cure the defects identifiedin this order. Plaintiffs may not plead additional claims, add additionalparties, or add allegations that are not intended to cure the specific defectsthe Court has noted. Should any amended complaint exceed the scope ofleave to amend granted by this order, the court will strike the offendingportions under Rule 12(f). See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(f) (“The court may [act onits own to] strike from a pleading an insufficient defense or any redundant,immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous matter.”); see also Barker v. Avila,No. 2:09-cv-00001-GEB-JFM, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 91161, 2010 WL3171067, at *1-2 (E.D. Cal. Aug. 11, 2010) (striking an amendment tofederal-law claim where the court had granted leave to amend only state-lawclaims).
Id. at *25.
The use of limiting instructions and threats of corrective action is anything but u-
nique to the Campos case, as the district court included nearly indistinguishable language
in at least six other motion-to-dismiss orders over the past two years. See Chapman v.
Bluffs of Fox Run Homeowners Ass’n, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 171537, *10 (S.D. Cal.
2016); Crafty Prods. v. Fuqing Sanxing Crafts Co., 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 136219, *22-
*23 (S.D. Cal. 2016); Rael v. N.Y. & Co., 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 180633, *21-*22 (S.D.
Cal. 2016); Salas v. San Diego Jail Med. Staff, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 101275, *9 (S.D.
Cal. 2016); Turner v. Anand, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 94984, *34 (S.D. Cal. 2015); see also
Quick Korner Mkt. v. U.S. Dep’t of Agriculture, 180 F. Supp. 3d 683, 697 (S.D. Cal.
2016) (explaining the plaintiff could “only amend this portion of the Complaint to the
extent they can allege facts in good faith” to establish a certain argument). And again, the
order in this case is entirely lacking any similar language that says Pauma can “only” a-
mend certain parts of the operative complaint against a backdrop of sua sponte striking.
If anything, the present situation is most comparable to one this district court dealt
with earlier this year in the case of Heldt v. Guardian Life Insurance Company of
America, No. 16-00885 BAS NLS (S.D. Cal. filed 2016). In that case, the plaintiff filed a
breach-of-contract-based suit alleging that the insurance company defendant violated his
rights by disclosing confidential medical information. See, e.g., Heldt v. Guardian Life
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Ins. Co. of Am., 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 86070, *1 (S.D. Cal. 2017). After Guardian moved
to dismiss the complaint, the district court issued an order explaining that the plaintiff’s
breach of contract claim was preempted by the Employee Retirement and Income Secur-
ity Act of 1974 (“ERISA”), 29 U.S.C. § 1001 et seq. Though it “had dismissed Plaintiff’s
one claim that provide[d] a basis for federal jurisdiction,” the district court nevertheless
granted the plaintiff leave to amend the claim to provide him with a chance to show that
the case should stay in federal court. See Heldt v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 2017
U.S. Dist. LEXIS 36490 (S.D. Cal. 2017). Though the order was framed in terms of giving
the plaintiff the opportunity to amend that one claim, what happened next was that the
plaintiff made a number of changes to the complaint, including eliminating the breach of
contract claim altogether. Based on the State’s new perception of leave to amend in this
case, one would think that the new revisions drew the ire of the district court, but instead
the court simply noted that the plaintiff did not amend its breach of contract claim as the
order allowed or “plead a [new] claim under ERISA” that would have provided another
ground for federal question jurisdiction. See Heldt, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 86070 at *2.
Thus, the court had in mind that the granted leave to amend simply opened the door to
changes that could address any noted deficiencies in the case, before it went on to analyze
on its own accord whether an entirely different ground for federal court jurisdiction ex-
isted. See id. at *5-*6. Thus, a reasonable interpretation of the scope of leave to amend is
that the district court was allowing Pauma to bolster its SDF-based claims against the
State, which were only raised for the first time in the First Amended Complaint and thus
had not received any fine-tuning or refinement as a result of prior pleading practice. See
Pauma Band of Luiseno Mission Indians of Pauma & Yuima Reservation v. California,
No. 09-01955, Dkt. No. 188 (S.D. Cal. June 20, 2012) (order denying motion to strike
pleading amendments allegedly done in excess of the granted leave to amend because,
amongst other reasons, the revisions were Pauma’s first amendment to the claims at is-
sue).
Before ending the discussion of the amendment issue, counsel for Pauma must re-
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spectfully disagree with the notion that it engaged in “unauthorized self-help” and should
have instead sought “reconsideration of the scope of the Court’s permitted leave to
amend.” See Dkt. No. 30-1, 8:15-20. As previously indicated, counsel for both of the
parties were on the same page in advance of the amendment, believing that Pauma could
add further allegations to bolster its case aside from those directly targeted at the DOJ
and the CGCC. Moreover, the post hoc change in position by Mr. Muscat would have
required counsel for Pauma to construe the language conferring leave to amend in the
most narrow way possible, which conflicts with the United States Court of Appeals for
the Ninth Circuit’s perception that the “leave [to amend] shall be freely given” language
of Rule 15 should be applied with “extreme liberality.” Eminence Capital, LLC v.
proposed request would have required counsel for Pauma to engage in the bizarre
undertaking of meeting and conferring with opposing counsel regarding something that
neither perceived to be an issue in order to file a procedural request for clarification that
does not really exist under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in lieu of the substantive
pleading that was due just a few days later. All told, counsel for Pauma believes that it
interpreted the district court’s leave to amend in the most reasonable manner, taking an
approach that was not only consistent with the prior orders of the district court but also
one that sought to promote judicial economy by continuing to move the case forward
rather than belabor it with unnecessary motion practice.
II. THE AMENDMENTS TO THE COMPLAINT RELATED TO THE DISCOVERY RULESHOW THAT PAUMA HAD ABSOLUTELY NO WAY OF UNCOVERING THE STATE’SACTUAL USES OF SPECIAL DISTRIBUTION FUND MONIES ON ITS OWN VOLITION
The next argument by the State suggests that the new allegations in the Second
Amended Complaint related to the statute of limitations issue are futile because Pauma
has still “failed to show that it engaged in the kind of due diligence necessary to assert
delayed discovery.” See Dkt. No. 30-1, 9:8-10. However, what the State overlooks is that
the due diligence requirement only expects a party to search if it can, and then only im-
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putes what it finds as a result. In essence, the discovery rule is an equitable doctrine that
tries to alleviate a hard and fast application of the statute of limitations when a defendant
is being less than forthright about an injury that it has caused to another party. Typically
this rule applies in the contract context in three scenarios that involve an imbalance of
information between the plaintiff and defendant: “1) the injury or the act causing the
injury, or both, have been difficult for the plaintiff to detect… 2) the defendant has been
in a far superior position to comprehend the act and the injury… or 3) the defendant has
reason to believe that the plaintiff remained ignorant [that] he had been wronged.” El
Pollo Loco, Inc v. Hashim, 316 F.3d 1032, 1039 (9th Cir. 2003) (citing April Enter., Inc.
v. KTTV, 147 Cal. App. 3d 805, 831 (2d Cir. 1983)). In these types of situations, the
discovery rule will postpone the start of the statute of limitations until at least the point in
time that the plaintiff “could have discovered injury and cause through the exercise of
reasonable diligence.” H.B. Filmes, LTDA v. CBS, Inc., 98 F. App’x 596, 598 (9th Cir.
2004) (citing April Ent., 147 Cal. App. 3d at 826). The “could have” language in this
standard is important because the discovery rule only requires a plaintiff to “go find [the
facts necessary to bring his cause of action] if he can and file suit it he does.” Norgart v.
Upjohn Co., 21 Cal. 4th 383, 398 (1999) (citing Jolly v. Eli Lilly & Co., 44 Cal. 3d 1103,
1111 (1988)). Thus, put somewhat differently, the discovery rule explains that a plaintiff
is only held to the “knowledge that could reasonably be discovered through investigation
of sources open to [him or] her.” O’Connor v. Boeing N. Am., 331 F.3d 1139, 1147 (9th
Cir. 2002) (citing Jolly, 44 Cal. 3d at 1109).
The original set of allegations about the perceived misuse of SDF monies in the
First Amended Complaint said nothing about the background on the issue, simply that
Pauma discovered the potential misuse of these funds when the State responded to an
inquest by the federal government (not three other tribes). See Dkt. No. 12 at ¶¶ 186-87.
However, the new allegations in the Second Amended Complaint flesh out the situation
in considerably more depth. Therein, Pauma details how the administrator of the SDF
(i.e., the CGCC) discloses very little information on the fund, typically just annual reports
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showing the total amount of money directed in general to the regulatory agencies that
benefit from the fund. See Dkt. No. 27-7, ¶¶ 191-92. However, what the CGCC does not
do is release detailed information on the specific uses of these funds, and a compact tribe
interested in finding out such information has basically no means to directly discover it
since the Commission is almost entirely exempt from the California Public Records Act
under the Gambling Control Act. See Dkt. No. 27-7, ¶ 192. The best case scenario for a
sleuthing tribe is that it works its way backward by filing a public record request with the
regulatory agencies who actually receive the SDF funding. But even then, the DOJ is also
exempt from the State’s Public Records Act, which means a tribe really has no legal way
of discovering whether SDF monies earmarked for regulatory purposes are actually being
devoted to such ends. Discovering such information is a search for a needle in a haystack,
and one in which a tribe would likely have to bring suit in federal court and ask the judge
to find the needle so the tribe could figure out whether it’s dangerous or not.
What is different in this situation is there was a voluntary disclosure by the State to
the federal government. One thing the district court was mistaken about in its March 29,
2017 order on the State’s motion to dismiss is how the disclosure of the perceived SDF
misuses came about. In relevant part, the March 29th order states that “Pauma only took
action after other signatory tribes had inquired about the use of SDF funds, which promp-
ted a disclosure by the State.” See Dkt. No. 26, 13:14-16. However, the inquiry did not
come from any other tribes, but from the federal government when it was conducting its
statutorily-mandated review of the pending compacts under the Indian Gaming Regula-
tory Act (“IGRA”), 25 U.S.C. § 2701 et seq. To explain, the federal government has a
trust responsibility over Indian tribes that has historically required the Bureau of Indian
Affairs to review contracts to ensure another party is not taking advantage of an Indian
tribe. See, e.g., 25 U.S.C. § 81(b) (explaining “[n]o contract… that encumbers Indian
lands for a period of 7 or more years shall be valid unless” approved by the Secretary of
the Interior). Congress carried over this contract-approval requirement in IGRA, inserting
a provision in the statute that requires the Secretary to approve or reject any “Tribal-State
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PAUMA’S OPP’N TO STATE DEFS.’ MOT. TO DISMISS SECOND AM. COMPL.
compact entered into between an Indian tribe and a State governing gaming on Indian
lands of such Indian tribe.” See 25 U.S.C. § 2710(d)(8)(A)-(D). For unbeknownst rea-
sons, the Bureau of Indian Affairs decided in the fall of 2015 that it needed more detailed
accounting information on the administration of the SDF in order to carry out its trust
responsibilities to the two tribes whose compacts were pending, and it was in response to
this request from the federal government that the State disclosed it was using some of the
SDF monies “to represent [itself] in compact negotiations and in lawsuits brought by
tribes alleging that the State negotiated in bad faith or committed undutiful, unreasonable,
or ultra vires conduct under the compacts.” See Dkt. No. 12 at ¶ 187. It is worth remem-
bering that all the State would do in response to this request from the federal government
was to narratively describe some of the actual functions the regulatory agencies perform
using SDF monies; it would not objectively detail all of the actual functions performed by
these agencies and the costs incurred for each.
Thus, the federal government was able to obtain a small part of what a signatory
tribe simply could not. If any doubt exists about this point, the State dispels that in the
ensuing section of its argument when it explains that Pauma has failed to cite to any
“contractual obligation… requiring State Defendants to disclose or specify the use of
SDF funding to Pauma” since it supposedly never paid into the account. See Dkt. No. 30-
1, 11:13-17. This is a pretty incriminating admission for a party that spent the better part
of a decade administering the compact unilaterally and then raising procedural barriers
against tribes that filed suit in the hopes of finding out whether such administration was
appropriate. See, e.g., Cachil Dehe Band of Wintun Indians of Colusa Indian Cmty. v.
California, 547 F.3d 962 (9th Cir. 2008) (reviving a tribal suit filed in 2004 to determine
whether the State had correctly calculated the total number of gaming device licenses
under the 1999 Compacts). Remember, the question at this point is simply whether it is
“plausible” that Pauma could not have discovered the misuse of SDF funding (which has
still not been documented) through sources “open to it” in advance of the federal govern-
ment receiving a sliver of the truth shortly before the inception of this case. Yet, given the
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broad exemptions for the gambling regulatory agencies in the California Public Records
Act and the State’s history of refusing to disclose information related to the administra-
tion of the compacts, the answer to this question is not just “yes, it is plausible,” but “yes,
it is an absolute certainty.”
III. THE IMPLIED COVENANT OF GOOD FAITH AND FAIR DEALING IMPOSES ADDI-TIONAL DUTIES THAT ARE “FAIRLY INFERABLE” FROM THE EXPRESS TERMS OFTHE 1999 COMPACT AND IS THUS NOT COEXTENSIVE WITH A BREACH OF CON-TRACT CLAIM AS THE STATE CONTENDS
The tail end of the State’s opposition raises two related arguments concerning the
implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing that suggest the covenant “cannot impose
substantive duties or limits on the contracting parties beyond those incorporated in the
specific terms of their agreement” (see Dkt. No. 30-1, 10:19-11-2), and as such Pauma’s
“new claim for relief for breach of the implied covenant should be dismissed because it is
duplicative of… [the existing one] for breach of contract.” See Dkt. No. 30-1, 11:25-26.
Yet, this perception of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing by the State
would essentially read the doctrine out of existence since it would be part and parcel with
a breach of contract claim. While the State claims that this is the case under California
law, the federal contract law that actually applies to this action is quite different. See
Pauma Band of Luiseno Mission Indians of Pauma & Yuima Reservation v. California,
813 F.3d 1155 (9th Cir. 2015) (holding that “[g]eneral principles of federal contract law
govern the Compacts, which were entered pursuant to IGRA”).
Under federal contract law, the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing im-
poses inherent obligations on the contracting parties in order to protect their reasonable or
justified expectations about the fruits or the purposes of the contract. See, e.g., RESTATE-
MENT (SECOND) OF CONTRACTS § 205 (1981); Centex Corp. v. United States, 395 F.3d
1283, 1304 (Fed. Cir. 2005). The way the implied covenant does this is by imposing ad-
ditional duties on the contract parties that are “fairly inferable” from the express terms of
the agreement. See, e.g., JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A. v. IDW Group, LLC, 2009 U.S.
cmt. a (1981); 13 Richard A. Lord, WILLISTON ON CONTRACTS § 38:15 (4th ed. 1999)).
Thus, the import of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing in the in-
stant situation comes from its purpose to try and reign in any overreaching on the part of
the State during its singlehanded administration of the SDF. As explained in the past two
complaints, the 1999 Compact created a system whereby established gaming tribes would
pay a variable percentage of their revenues into the SDF. See Dkt. No. 27-1, p. 16. Any
paid revenue sharing fees were supposed to go towards purposes that are specifically
delineated in the 1999 Compact, like providing “support of… local government agencies
impacted by tribal government gaming” and “compensation for [the] regulatory costs
incurred by the State Gaming Agency and the… Department of Justice in connection
with the implementation and administration of the Compact.” See id. With that said, the
1999 Compact is silent about a number of other particulars about the SDF. For instance,
the administrator of the account is not identified in the terms of the agreement, but the
CGCC ultimately assumed that position on the claimed basis that it needed to oversee
both of the interconnected revenue sharing accounts under the 1999 Compacts. See Dkt.
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2815 Case No.: 16-CV-01713 BAS JMA
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No. 27 at ¶ 189. Further, the compact-based instructions for administrating the SDF are
rather spartan, as the pertinent section simply specifies the entities that are eligible to
receive funds under the program. Thus, the express terms of the 1999 Compact would
seemingly allow the CGCC to do whatever it wants in administering the SDF so long as
the monies ended up in some or all of the appropriate hands. However, the implied
covenant of good faith and fair dealing demands much more from an administrator with
nearly unbridled discretion who is operating in a clandestine manner.
So, the State is correct in saying that a breach of the implied covenant and good
faith and fair dealing occurs if one party fails to comply with the express terms of the
agreement. But, the doctrine will reach even further and hold an administrator liable for
doing procedural things or taking substantive acts that are unreasonable in light of the
purposes of the contract. For example, the CGCC could decide to appropriate all the
money under the SDF program to a single cause, like improving the State’s gambling
addiction program. Or it could devote a disproportionate amount of funds it distributes to
the State regulatory agencies to covering their general overhead costs rather than the
actual and reasonable expenses associated with administering the 1999 Compacts. While
these sorts of acts may (with emphasis on may) not be outright proscribed under the terms
of the 1999 Compacts, they should be violative of the implied covenant of good faith and
fair dealing. After all, imbalanced appropriations or misdirected revenues would cause
consequent problems for the signatory tribes under the 1999 Compact, as the regulatory
agencies may demand additional funding (which they did) or the local communities may
expect tribes to execute subordinate contracts that circumvent the IGRA approval process
and yet require the payment of additional and rather significant revenue sharing (which
they also did). See Dkt. No. 27 at ¶¶ 206-07. Thus, the implied covenant is in place to
ensure that a concealed discretionary function, such as the one in this case, is carried out
it in a substantively reasonable manner as well as a procedurally reasonable one – like by
providing the signatory tribes with notice if a certain appropriation may be questionable
if not downright prohibited under the 1999 Compact.
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Thus, in contrast to the position taken by the State in its second motion to dismiss,
the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing does exist and it imposes a myriad of
duties upon a party exercising discretionary authority under a contract aside from
ensuring compliance with the black-and-white terms of the agreement. Thus, this is
simply not a case where the breach of the implied covenant claim is coextensive with the
breach of contract claim. See, e.g., Manpower, Inc., 936 F. Supp. at 1508-09 (refusing to
strike an allegedly redundant implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing claim that
dealt with the failure to disclose misappropriations under a contract). If the district court
needs an extra reason to refrain from striking the claim, the procedural posture of the case
weighs heavily against taking this sort of action, which is “generally addressed at the
summary judgment stage of the case rather than on a 12(b)(6) motion.” Johnson v.
Regents of Univ. of Cal., 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 63963, *20-*21 (N.D. Cal. 2010) (citing
Diaz v. Fed. Express Corp., 373 F. Supp. 2d 1034, 1066 (C.D. Cal. 2005)). In fact, this
sort of approach was taken by Judge Bencivengo during the prior compact litigation
between the parties. In that case, Pauma amended its complaint to include contract claims
under both federal and California law after the State simply refused to acknowledge the
applicability of federal contract law, which in turn led the State to make a sua sponte mo-
tion at the hearing on its ensuing second motion to dismiss to strike “the first four claims
in the First Amended Complaint,” which were supposedly subsumed under the “13th and
14th claims.” See Pauma, No. 09-01955, Dkt. No. 182, 15:24-16:21 (S.D. Cal. May 23,
2012). In response to this, Judge Bencivengo clarified that she was going to resolve the
case using federal contract law, but that she was not going to entertain the motion to
strike certain state or federal law claims at that point, as “[Pauma] can have them…
they’re in there.” Thus, the twenty-first and twenty-second claims for relief in the Second
Amended Complaint are not redundant, “they’re in there,” and Pauma should be able to
“have them” so it can present its case on summary judgment after the first round of such
briefing on the bad faith negotiation claims concludes.
///
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2817 Case No.: 16-CV-01713 BAS JMA
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CONCLUSIONFor the foregoing reasons, Pauma respectfully requests that the Court deny the
State’s second motion to dismiss in full.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED this 17th day of July, 2017
PAUMA BAND OF MISSION INDIANS
By: /s/ Kevin M. CochraneCheryl A. WilliamsKevin M. [email protected]@williamscochrane.comWILLIAMS & COCHRANE, LLP28581 Old Town Front StreetTemecula, CA 92590Telephone: (619) 793-4809
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