Friends of Gualala River v. Gualala Redwood Timber_ LLC_2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 24618
In Friends of Gualala River v. Gualala Redwood Timber, LLC, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 24618, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Appellants’ action under 16 U.S.C. § 1540(g), concluding Appellants’ claim under the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”) is moot.
Plaintiffs-Appellants Friends of Gualala River (“FOGR”) and the Center for Biological Diversity (“CBD”) (collectively, “Appellants”) sued Defendant-Appellee Gualala Redwood Timber, LLC (“GT”) for violating the ESA by logging the Gualala River floodplain and “taking” several endangered species, under the citizen suit provisions of the ESA.
The underlying suit was dismissed in 2020 when FOGR and CBD jointly filed the case in the Northern District of California federal court to challenge GT’s logging plan that the plan allegedly would result in the “taking” of protected species through habitat modification and degradation. Appellants brought their claims on Section 9 of the ESA, 16 U.S.C. § 1538, which makes it unlawful to “take” any species listed as threatened or endangered. To “take” means to “harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or attempt to engage in such conduct.” 16 U.S.C. § 1532(19). The district court concluded that Plaintiffs did not meet the threshold inquiry for injunctive relief that they had demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits because a final judgment had already been issued by a California state court on the same claim and principles of res judicata would bar them from relitigating the same cause of action as a prior case in the federal court. Therefore, the district court denied the preliminary injunction in August 2021.
On September 30, 2924, the Ninth Circuit determined that Appellants’ claim of illegal “taking” of several endangered species by GT was moot, reasoning that “[a]ppellants brought their suit under section 9, not section 7. Section 9 does not authorize the Court to impose mitigation measures on a private party in an ESA case. Rather, it allows only injunctive relief, which Appellants failed to receive in the district court and have not appealed here.” Therefore, there was no effective remedy available.
Glen Hansen is Senior Counsel and Simyllina Chen is a Law Clerk at Abbott & Kindermann, Inc. For questions relating to this article or any other California land use, real estate, environmental and/or planning issues contact Abbott & Kindermann, Inc. at (916) 456-9595.
The information presented in this article should not be construed to be formal legal advice by Abbott & Kindermann, Inc., or the formation of a lawyer/client relationship. Because of the changing nature of this area of the law and the importance of individual facts, readers are encouraged to seek independent counsel for advice regarding their individual legal issues.