Vicente Palacios Crawford, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport Authority, Guam; Eddie Baza Calvo; Ricardo C. Duenas, GIAA Board Chairman; Anthony Ada, In His Official Capacity as Chairperson of the Guam Ancestral Lands Commission, Defendants-Appellees.
Argued
and Submitted November 13, 2018
Appeal
from the United States District Court for the District No.
1:15-cv-00001 of Guam Frances Tydingco-Gatewood, Chief
District Judge, Presiding
Scott
M. Grzenczyk (argued), Jordan Elias, and Daniel C. Girard,
Girard Gibbs LLP, San Francisco, California; Ignacio Cruz
Aguigui, The Law Offices of Ignacio Cruz Aguigui, Tamuning,
Guam; for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Genevieve Rapadas (argued), Jay D. Trickett, and Kathleen V.
Fisher, Calvo Fisher & Jacob LLP, Hagåtña,
Guam, for Defendants-Appellees Antonio B. Won Pat
International Airport Authority, Guam, and Ricardo C. Duenas.
David
J. Highsmith (argued), Assistant Attorney General; Elizabeth
Barrett-Anderson, Attorney General; Office of the Attorney
General, Tamuning, Guam; for Defendants-Appellees Eddie Baza
Calvo and Anthony Ada.
Before: Sidney R. Thomas, Chief Judge, Susan P. Graber,
Circuit Judge, and Leslie E. Kobayashi, [*] District Judge.
SUMMARY
[**]
Civil
Rights
The
panel dismissed the appeal in part and affirmed in part the
district court's summary judgment in an action brought by
plaintiff, individually and on behalf of others similarly
situated, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Guam law,
alleging procedural due process and equal protection
violations in connection with plaintiff's attempts to be
compensated for ancestral land taken by the government of
Guam for the operation of A.B. Won Pat International Airport.
The
United States government took control of substantial amounts
of privately owned land on Guam for military purposes around
the time of World War II. Plaintiff's ancestral land is
in a region where many of the taken properties were
subsequently transferred by the United States to the
government of Guam, including land where the international
airport is now located. In 1999, the Guam legislature passed
the Guam Ancestral Lands Act, which added Chapter 80 to the
Guam Code Annotated and established an administrative process
for exercising ancestral property rights. However, no claims
by ancestral landowners whose land is currently being used
for public purposes have been considered and resolved through
compensation.
The
panel held that because the International Airport Authority
was not named in either the appealed due process or equal
protection violation counts, it was not a proper party to the
appeal and therefore needed to be dismissed. The panel
further held that it would consider the merits of
plaintiff's equal protection claims only against the Guam
government defendants.
The
panel held that while the Guam legislature had clearly
established a process to receive, evaluate, and compensate
ancestral property right claims, the legislature did not
design the process to be sufficiently definite to transform
plaintiff's expectation into a property right entitled to
due process protection. The panel therefore held that
provisions of Chapter 80 and the Guam Public Laws, whether
examined individually or read together, did not give rise to
a protected property interest under the Due Process Clause.
Plaintiff
also alleged Fourteenth Amendment equal protection rights
violations because, unlike the ancestral landowners who had
received full compensation by the return of lands that were
no longer being used by the government, plaintiff's land
has not been returned and he had not been compensated. The
panel held that the statutory differences in treatment
between a landowner whose lands were no longer in use and one
whose lands continued to be used was not irrational, and
served an important purpose-to resolve efficiently the
ancestral land claims of the landowners whose lands were no
longer in use. The panel therefore concluded that the
classifications established in the statutory scheme survived
rational basis review and the panel affirmed the district
court's summary judgment on the equal protection claim.
OPINION
KOBAYASHI, DISTRICT JUDGE
Around
the time of World War II, the United States government took,
for little or no compensation, numerous tracts of real
property from private Guamanian landowners for military use.
Plaintiff Vicente Palacios Crawford is the son of two such
landowners. Plaintiff's ancestral land is in the Tiyan
region, where many of the taken properties were subsequently
transferred by the United States to the government of Guam.
Defendant Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport Authority,
Guam ("GIAA") currently operates the A.B. Won Pat
International Airport, which is located on ancestral lands in
the Tiyan region, including Plaintiff's. In its several
attempts to address this past injustice, the government of
Guam established administrative entities and procedures to
receive and resolve ancestral landowners' claims for the
taking of their lands without adequate compensation. These
efforts have a convoluted history of enactment and partial
repeal, as well as a lack of funding. As a result, no claims
by ancestral landowners whose land is currently being used
for public purposes have been considered and resolved through
compensation. Plaintiff filed this action against the GIAA
Defendants-the GIAA and GIAA chairperson Ricardo C.
Duenas[1]-and the Government Defendants-Governor
Edward Calvo[2] and Guam Ancestral Lands Commission
("GALC") chairperson Anthony Ada[3]-and asserts that
lengthy delays in the compensation process violate his
constitutional rights to procedural due process and equal
protection. Plaintiff appeals the district court's grant
of summary judgment in favor of the defendants. We have
jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we
affirm.
I.
BACKGROUND
A.
Historical Background
The
United States government took control of substantial amounts
of privately owned land on Guam for military purposes during
and immediately after World War II. At the time, many of the
landowners received little or no compensation. After World
War II ended, Congress transferred land no longer necessary
for American military use to the naval government of Guam.
Later, the Organic Act of Guam, Pub. L. No. 630, 64 Stat. 384
(1950), created the government of Guam, transferred certain
land from the naval government of Guam to the new government
of Guam, and placed other land under the control of the
government of Guam for the benefit of the people of Guam.
In a
condemnation proceeding brought by the naval government of
Guam in 1950, Plaintiff's mother, Josefina Palacios
Crawford (formerly Josefina Palacios Flores), received $8,
340.00 as compensation for the taking of her property, Lot
5204 in the Tiyan region. On January 25, 1980, Josefina
Crawford, individually and as Jesus C. Flores's heir,
filed a complaint against the United States, seeking further
compensation, pursuant to 48 U.S.C. § 1424c
("J. Crawford v. United
States").[4] Josefina Crawford, and other similarly
situated claimants, agreed to a stipulated judgment with the
United States in a consolidated case in 1992. All of the
consolidated claims were extinguished by agreement. Thus, in
1993, Josefina Crawford was awarded $71, 227.22 for the
taking of Lot 5204.
In
1994, Congress enacted the Guam Excess Lands Act, Pub. L. No.
103-339, 108 Stat. 3116 (1994), authorizing the transfer of
land in Guam from the United States to the government of
Guam, with the requirement that the government of Guam
develop a plan to use the land for public benefit. The Guam
legislature, the I Liheslaturan Guåhan, has
repeatedly expressed its intent to restore the excess lands
to the original owners or their heirs. See, e.g.,
Guam Pub. L. 23-141, § 3 (1997). In 1999, the Guam
legislature passed the Guam Ancestral Lands Act
("GALA"), Guam Pub. L. 25-45, § 1 (1999),
which recognized that the powers granted to Guam's
agencies by previous legislation had proven inadequate to
implement remedies for the ancestral landowners, id.
§ 2(a). Significantly, the GALA added Chapter 80 to
Title 21 of the Guam Code Annotated (21 Guam Code Ann.
§§ 80101 to 80104), [5] which
affirms and formally recognizes the "Ancestral Property
Right"; establishes an administrative process for the
exercise of that right; and creates the Guam Ancestral Lands
Commission ["the Commission" or "GALC"]
and authorizes the Commission to administer the provisions of
this Chapter in order that original landowners, their heirs
and their descendants may expeditiously exercise all their
fundamental civil rights in the property they own. The
exercise of "ancestral property right" claims shall
be applicable to lands already declared excess by the Federal
government and shall also be applicable to all future
declaration of excess lands either by the United States
Government or by the government of Guam.
21 Guam Code Ann. § 80102(c). In order to provide a
remedy for ancestral landowners, the Guam legislature ordered
GALC to establish a "Land Bank Trust" to manage
and, if necessary, develop the land returned from the United
States and to use any income generated by the land to
compensate the ancestral landowners. Id. §
80104(e) ("The Commission shall establish rules and
regulations pursuant to the Administration Adjudication Law
for the Guam-based trust. The resulting income shall be used
to provide just compensation for those dispossessed ancestral
landowners."). However, no payments have been made from
the Land Bank Trust to ancestral landowners because of a
bureaucratic impasse: the rules and regulations for the Land
Bank Trust have not been finalized, and no claims can be paid
until the rules and regulations are finalized.
In
2000, the United States transferred to the GIAA, by quitclaim
deed, the land in the Tiyan region on which the international
airport now sits. This deed requires that the transferred
property "be used for public airport purposes for the
use and benefit of the public on reasonable terms and without
unjust discrimination." It also provides that the
airport property cannot be sold or otherwise used without the
Federal Aviation Administration's consent and that all
revenues generated by the airport can be used only for the
airport's capital or operating costs. If the GIAA fails
to comply with these restrictions, the United States can
retake possession of the transferred land. In short, the
quitclaim deed prevents the return of the airport property,
or the payment of compensation from revenue generated by the
land, to ancestral landowners, including Plaintiff.
The
Guam legislature has attempted repeatedly to create a
compensation process for those ancestral landowners whose
land is used for the airport.[6] See, e.g., Guam Pub. L.
24-214 (1998) (establishing the Tiyan Trust); Guam Pub. L.
26-100, § 5 (2002) (repealing Pub. L. 24-214). Among
these attempts is Public Law 26-100, which established a GIAA
Task Force ("the Task Force") to identify
properties under GIAA control that are required for
"strictly airport-related operations." Guam Pub. L.
26-100, § 4 (2002). The Task Force was charged with
identifying lands "excess to the needs of GIAA," as
well as non-Tiyan properties that could be conveyed as
compensation to ancestral landowners whose Tiyan lands could
not be returned. Id. The current version of § 4
requires the Task Force to identify the ancestral landowners
who had properties taken for use by the airport and to
identify land owned by the government of Guam that can be
used to compensate those ancestral landowners by way of a
land exchange. Guam Pub. L. 30-6, § 1 (2009).
The
Task Force ultimately proposed a land exchange of two parcels
of property in the Land Bank Trust for the release of claims
by ancestral landowners whose land had been taken and used
for the airport. See Guam Pub. L. 30-158 (2010)
(effectuating the exchange); see also id., Exh. A
(P/L 30-6 Tiyan Task Force Report). Because the proposed land
exchange excluded the ancestral landowners whose lands were
not used for the airport, these excluded ancestral landowners
filed a class action in the Guam Superior Court to enjoin the
land exchange, Gange, et al. v. Gov't of Guam, et
al., Civil Case No. 1461-10. The superior court in 2013
found that the proposed land exchange would constitute a
taking of property without compensation and granted a
permanent injunction. In response, Governor Calvo announced
in 2014 that GALC would disburse $3.2 million to the
ancestral landowners throughout Guam. None of these funds
have yet been paid to any ancestral landowners.
B.
Plaintiff's Ancestral Property Right Claim
The
Government Defendants concede that Plaintiff has rights under
the GALA as an ancestral landowner because of his
mother's ownership of Lot 5204, and that he is not likely
to regain possession or title because his land is still being
used for the airport.
On
August 16, 2002, Plaintiff submitted to GALC an Ancestral
Title and Compensation Application regarding Lot 5204. More
than 130 ancestral landowners filed claims regarding lands
being used by the GIAA for the airport ("Airport
Ancestral Lands Claims"). GALC has not held any hearings
regarding the Airport Ancestral Lands Claims, and the
government of Guam has not compensated any ...