Center for a Sustainable Coast, et al v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, et al

[PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 22-11079
____________________
CENTER FOR A SUSTAINABLE COAST,
KAREN GRAINEY,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
versus
U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS,
DISTRICT COMMANDER AND DISTRICT ENGINEER, U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers,
Savannah District,
Defendants-Appellees.
____________________
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2 Opinion of the Court 22-11079
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Georgia
D.C. Docket No. 2:19-cv-00058-LGW-BWC
____________________
Before G RANT, TJOFLAT, Circuit Judges, and H UFFAKER ,∗ District
Judge.
G RANT, Circuit Judge:
This is a classic procedural rights case. The Center for a
Sustainable Coast, along with its member, Karen Grainey, sued the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, upset that the Corps had issued a
dock permit without full environmental review under the National
Environmental Policy Act. The Center established injury by
showing that several of its members regularly visit Cumberland
Island, where the dock is sited, and suffer an ongoing aesthetic
injury on those visits. The Center also showed that the
environmental review the Corps skipped could have protected that
interest, at least in theory.
That should have been enough. For procedural rights cases,
though injury in fact remains a firm requirement, standards for
both causation and redressability are relaxed. So long as a plaintiff
alleges that the challenged (or omitted) procedure protects a
concrete interest, causation and redressability typically follow—
∗ The Honorable R. Austin Huffaker, Jr., United States District Judge for the
Middle District of Alabama, sitting by designation.
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22-11079 Opinion of the Court 3
even though we can’t know whether that procedure, correctly
performed, would have resulted in the substantive outcome that
the plaintiff desires.
Here, though, the district court dismissed the lawsuit,
concluding that the Center did not have standing because its harm
was not redressable. The dock, it said, had already been built, so
the court’s ability to provide relief had ended along with
construction.
We disagree. To start, the allegations here mirror those in
other cases where this Court has found standing. The Center has
identified a concrete aesthetic interest and pleaded that the NEPA
process would protect that interest. Directing full NEPA review
would thus redress the Center’s procedural injury. Plus, the permit
here does more than allow construction—it authorizes the dock’s
continued existence. So this case is not like the narrow set of
procedural rights cases in which the plaintiffs’ claims were
dismissed as moot because the challenged project was already
completed.
We thus hold that the Center had standing to bring at least
one of its procedural rights claims. But we find the Center’s
administrative record argument premature for consideration, and
we affirm the dismissal of the Seashore Act claim, because the
Center abandoned that argument on appeal.
I.
Cumberland Island is the largest and southernmost of
Georgia’s barrier islands. Long used as a vacation retreat by
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4 Opinion of the Court 22-11079
various Carnegies and other noteworthy tycoons, most of the
island is scenic uplands and marshlands. See High Point, LLLP v. Nat’l
Park Serv., 850 F.3d 1185, 1188 (11th Cir. 2017). The United States
has since acquired title to most of the island, designating more than
20,500 acres as wilderness or potential wilderness that is to remain
in a “primeval” and “undeveloped” state. Id. at 1189, 1191
(quotation omitted). Still, some land remains in private hands,
owned mostly by descendants of those who vacationed on the
island during its heyday. Id. at 1188.
The status quo on Cumberland Island is maintained by the
Cumberland Island National Seashore Act, 16 U.S.C. § 459i et seq.
That Act designates the entire island as a National Seashore, and
authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to recommend areas for a
wilderness designation and to purchase or acquire “lands, waters,
and interests therein.” 16 U.S.C. § 459i, -1, -8. Property acquired
by the Secretary must, with some exceptions, be preserved “in its
primitive state,” and “no development of the project or plan for the
convenience of visitors shall be undertaken which would be
incompatible with the preservation of the unique flora and fauna
or the physiographic conditions now prevailing” on the island. Id.
§ 459i-5(b). But the Seashore Act does not prohibit the sale or use
of private property on the island. See id. § 459i-3; High Point, LLLP,
850 F.3d at 1189.
Against that backdrop, Lumar LLC bought an undeveloped
82-acre residential plot from a private seller in the 1990s. In 2015,
Lumar petitioned the Army Corps of Engineers for a permit to
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22-11079 Opinion of the Court 5
build an access dock “adjacent to” its property. Corps approval was
required under the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899, which makes
it unlawful to build certain structures in navigable rivers or waters
of the United States unless the plans are “recommended” by the
Corps and “authorized” by the Secretary of the Army. 33 U.S.C.
§ 403.
As it exercises that authority, the Corps is bound by the
National Environmental Policy Act, 42 U.S.C. § 4321 et seq. NEPA
requires a rigorous approval process for any “major” projects,
including both a formal environmental review and public notice
and comment. See 33 C.F.R. § 325 app. B at 6a, 7a (2022). But
sometimes these requirements can be skipped. Corps regulations
list “categorical exclusions” from NEPA review, one of which is
“applications which qualify as letters of permission.” Id. § 325 app.
B at 6a(5). These letters of permission are available when “in the
opinion of the district engineer, the proposed work would be
minor, would not have significant individual or cumulative impacts
on environmental values, and should encounter no appreciable
opposition.” Id. § 325.2(e)(1)(i).
The Corps issued a letter of permission approving Lumar’s
proposed 500-square-foot dock—along with a gangway, pier head,
and 200-foot walkway. That letter allowed the Corps (and Lumar)
to avoid NEPA’s ordinary approval process. This lawsuit followed
from the Center for a Sustainable Coast, a 501(c)(3) organization
whose members “use and enjoy Cumberland Island National
Seashore for aesthetic, scenic, recreational, historical, cultural, and
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6 Opinion of the Court 22-11079
scientific values.”1 The Center asserts that its members suffer an
aesthetic harm each time they view the dock.
The complaint raises two claims. Count I argues that the
decision to issue a letter of permission violated the Cumberland
Island National Seashore Act because the Corps failed to properly
consider the Act’s mandate to preserve the island’s primitive
character. Count II alleges that the decision to issue any letter of
permission was arbitrary and capricious. Instead, the Center
claims, the Corps should have designated this a “major” project and
conducted the more robust review required by NEPA.2
Rather than address the merits of the Center’s argument,
the district court granted summary judgment to the Corps,
concluding that the Center lacked standing. According to the
1 The lawsuit was not filed until after the dock’s completion. The reasons for
that delay, including whether Lumar consented to it, are not fully explained
in the record, but we do not delve into that issue because it is irrelevant to the
standing inquiry.
2 Neither NEPA nor the Seashore Act contains a private cause of action. See
Noe v. Metro. Atlanta Rapid Transit Auth., 644 F.2d 434, 435–36 (5th Cir. Unit B
1981); Ctr. for a Sustainable Coast v. Nat’l Park Serv., 454 F. Supp. 3d 1347, 1351
(S.D. Ga. 2020). Instead, the Center sued under the Administrative Procedure
Act, see 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A), which provides a cause of action to challenge final
agency action as (among other things) arbitrary and capricious. See Lexmark
Int’l, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc., 572 U.S. 118, 130 (2014) (explaining
that the APA “permits suit for violations of numerous statutes of varying
character that do not themselves include causes of action”). Here, the Corps’s
letter of permission was the final agency action that allowed the Center to
bring an APA challenge.
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22-11079 Opinion of the Court 7
district court, every element of standing was present except one:
redressability. In its view, even if the permitting defects alleged by
the Center were corrected, the dock would still exist—and so
would the Center’s aesthetic injury. The Center appeals the district
court’s conclusion that neither of its claims were redressable.3
II.
“We review issues of standing de novo.” Swann v. Sec’y, State
of Georgia, 668 F.3d 1285, 1288 (11th Cir. 2012) (quotation omitted).
And we must “assume that on the merits the plaintiffs would be
successful in their claims.” Culverhouse v. Paulson & Co., 813 F.3d
991, 994 (11th Cir. 2016) (quotation omitted).
III.
A.
The first claim we consider is Count II—the Center’s NEPA
claim—which the district court dismissed for lack of standing. A
party has standing when it “(1) suffered an injury in fact, (2) that is
fairly traceable to the challenged conduct of the defendant, and
(3) that is likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision.”
3 The Center also urges us to review the district court’s decision to grant the
Corps’s motion to strike extra-record materials and confine the merits review
to the administrative record. But that would be premature. Faced with a
similar situation, the Ninth Circuit held that it did not need to address the
parties’ motions for judicial notice because they did not affect the resolution
of the standing question. Cantrell v. City of Long Beach, 241 F.3d 674, 680 n.4
(9th Cir. 2001). So too here, where the district court held that the “disputed
materials are admissible for standing purposes.”
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8 Opinion of the Court 22-11079
Muransky v. Godiva Chocolatier, Inc., 979 F.3d 917, 924 (11th Cir. 2020)
(en banc) (quotation omitted).
We start with the “hard floor of Article III jurisdiction that
cannot be removed by statute”—injury in fact. Summers v. Earth
Island Inst., 555 U.S. 488, 497 (2009). The Corps argued below that
there was no such injury. But it no longer challenges that
conclusion, and for good reason. At bottom, the Center’s members
allege an aesthetic injury from viewing the dock, which is a
concrete interest. See Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 562–63
(1992). They also allege a procedural harm related to the
protection of that aesthetic injury: that the Corps failed to
complete the full NEPA process (including a formal environmental
review), choosing instead to issue a letter of permission. Finally,
they connect that procedural harm with their concrete injury—if
the full NEPA process had been followed, they argue, the dock
would not have received a permit, which would have protected
their well-pleaded aesthetic interests.
The injury here is identical to the one we encountered in
Ouachita Watch League v. Jacobs, where we outlined what was
necessary to show injury in fact in a procedural rights case: “a
plaintiff must allege that the agency violated certain procedural
rules, that these rules protect a plaintiff’s concrete interests and that
it is reasonably probable that the challenged action will threaten
these concrete interests.” 463 F.3d 1163, 1170 (11th Cir. 2006). We
even mapped these points onto the NEPA context, explaining that
“a cognizable procedural injury exists when a plaintiff alleges that
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22-11079 Opinion of the Court 9
a proper [environmental impact statement] has not been prepared”
and “also alleges a concrete interest—such as an aesthetic or
recreational interest—that is threatened by the proposed actions.”
Id. at 1171 (quotations omitted). The Center’s claim matches these
elements point-by-point, establishing injury in fact.4
The connection between the Center’s aesthetic harm and its
procedural rights claim establishes the second standing element—
causation—which has never been disputed here. After all, once a
“plaintiff has established injury in fact under NEPA,” the causation
requirement is “generally more relaxed.” Id. at 1172.
Only one pillar of standing remains—redressability.5 To
decide that issue, we usually ask whether “a court decision can
4 It is undisputed that the Center has associational standing as an organization
to sue on behalf of its members. See Ouachita Watch League, 463 F.3d at 1170–
73.
5 The district court also referenced several “prudential limits on standing,”
including that a plaintiff fall within the zone of interests to be protected by the
statute. See Ctr. for a Sustainable Coast v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, No. 2:19-CV-
58, 2022 WL 202893, at *4 (S.D. Ga. Jan. 21, 2022). But in Lexmark, the
Supreme Court rejected the zone-of-interest test as a part of the standing
inquiry and noted that as a general matter prudential standing requirements
are “in some tension” with “the principle that a federal court’s obligation to
hear and decide cases within its jurisdiction is virtually unflagging.” Lexmark
Int’l, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc., 572 U.S. 118, 126 (2014) (quotations
omitted). After Lexmark, this Court has omitted the zone-of-interest question
from our standing analysis, so the district court’s consideration of it here was
probably also unnecessary. See id. at 127–32; see also Kurapati v. U.S. Bureau of
Citizenship & Immigr. Servs., 775 F.3d 1255, 1260 (11th Cir. 2014). Still, because
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10 Opinion of the Court 22-11079
either eliminate the harm or compensate for it.” Muransky, 979
F.3d at 924. And it “must be the effect of the court’s judgment on
the defendant—not an absent third party—that redresses the
plaintiff’s injury, whether directly or indirectly.” Lewis v. Governor
of Alabama, 944 F.3d 1287, 1301 (11th Cir. 2019) (en banc)
(quotation and emphasis omitted).
But redressability looks a little different for so-called
procedural rights. Like causation, redressability is relaxed once a
plaintiff establishes injury in fact under NEPA. Ouachita Watch
League, 463 F.3d at 1172. So a plaintiff with “a procedural right to
protect his concrete interests can assert that right without meeting
all the normal standards for redressability and immediacy.” See
Lujan, 504 U.S. at 572 n.7.6
Recognizing these relaxed requirements, we have explained
that a plaintiff bringing a NEPA challenge need not show with
certainty that vindicating a procedural right will eliminate a non-
procedural injury in fact. Ouachita Watch League, 463 F.3d at 1172;
see also Summers, 555 U.S. at 496–97. Instead, when “a litigant is
vested with a procedural right, that litigant has standing if there is
some possibility that the requested relief will prompt the injury-
neither the district court below nor the parties on appeal rely on this zone-of-
interest reasoning, we do not consider it further here.
6 We reemphasize that “deprivation of a procedural right without some
concrete interest that is affected by the deprivation—a procedural right in
vacuo—is insufficient to create Article III standing.” Summers, 555 U.S. at 496;
accord Sierra Club v. Johnson, 436 F.3d 1269, 1277 (11th Cir. 2006).
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22-11079 Opinion of the Court 11
causing party to reconsider the decision that allegedly harmed the
litigant.” Cahaba Riverkeeper v. EPA, 938 F.3d 1157, 1162 (11th Cir.
2019) (emphasis added) (quotation omitted). And that makes
sense; if certainty about future administrative outcomes was
needed to show standing, citizen-suit provisions “would be a dead
letter.” Sugar Cane Growers Co-Op of Florida v. Veneman, 289 F.3d 89,
95 (D.C. Cir. 2002).7
Those principles decide this case. The procedural injury
here is the Corps’s failure to comply with NEPA, and “that injury
is plainly redressable.” Ouachita Watch League, 463 F.3d at 1173. In
fact, redressability in circumstances like these is ordinarily seen as
so obvious that we have dispatched with it in just a few sentences.
See id. at 1173; Cahaba Riverkeeper, 938 F.3d at 1163. Here, the
district court could vacate the letter of permission through a court
order, remand to the Corps for new proceedings under NEPA, or
both.8 Each of those options would redress the Center’s
procedural injury.
7 The dissent is laser-focused on whether the district court could grant the
Center the ultimate relief it seeks—removal of the dock. See Dissent at 5–10.
That perspective reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the
Center’s injury and of the relief it seeks in this lawsuit. The Center does not
allege only an aesthetic injury. It also alleges a procedural injury connected to
the protection of that aesthetic interest: the Corps’s failure to conduct full
NEPA review. By focusing exclusively on what relief would remedy the
Center’s aesthetic injury, the dissent ignores how a court could remedy the
Center’s procedural harm—by requiring process.
8 Vindicating the Center’s rights does not require immediate vacatur of the
permit—the district court could conceivably keep the letter of permission in
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12 Opinion of the Court 22-11079
To be sure, it is possible that the Corps could complete the
additional NEPA review that the Center seeks and still approve the
dock. But a plaintiff has standing to sue over a procedural right
“even though he cannot establish with any certainty that the
[environmental impact] statement will cause the license to be
withheld or altered.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 572 n.7 (emphasis added).
Here, there is undoubtedly “some possibility” that different
procedural inputs would lead to a different substantive outcome—
deauthorization of the dock after a full environmental review. See
Cahaba Riverkeeper, 938 F.3d at 1162 (quotation omitted). That is
enough for standing in a procedural rights case.9
place while remanding to the Corps for further proceedings under NEPA. See
Black Warrior Riverkeeper, Inc. v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, 781 F.3d 1271, 1289–
90 (11th Cir. 2015); Stephanie J. Tatham, The Unusual Remedy of Remand
Without Vacatur, Admin. Conf. of the U.S. 49 (2014).
9 The dissent, for its part, ignores these longstanding Eleventh Circuit and
Supreme Court precedents, and it marshals no standing cases in support of its
own position. Instead, it focuses on questions that this Court was not tasked
with answering—such as whether the Center could petition the Corps under
33 C.F.R. § 325.7 for removal of the dock, or the effect of such a petition on
speculative future litigation. See, e.g., Dissent at 1, 5–10. Perhaps the Center
could have filed such a petition. But that does not make this action improper
(and certainly does not deprive the plaintiffs of standing). The APA’s citizen-
suit provision extends judicial review to any “person suffering legal wrong
because of agency action, or adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action
within the meaning of a relevant statute.” 5 U.S.C. § 702. The Center relied
on this provision to file suit, pleading that the Corps’s failure to abide by NEPA
was a procedural harm. The only thing we need to consider is whether it has
standing to file such a claim, and our precedents establish that it does.
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22-11079 Opinion of the Court 13
B.
Both the district court and the Corps see things differently.
They suggest that this ordinary conclusion is precluded because the
dock is already built. Deauthorizing a construction permit for a
completed project, they say, is meaningless.
To start, that contention goes to mootness, not
redressability. But a more fundamental problem is that the letter
of permission here is not limited to construction. As the Corps
concedes, its permit authorizes both the temporary construction
and the subsequent existence of the dock. See 33 C.F.R. § 325.6(a). So
if the letter of permission is rescinded, Lumar’s right to maintain
the dock will disappear along with it.10 That alone makes this case
different from other NEPA suits where completed construction
mooted actions involving construction-only permits. See Save the
Bay, Inc. v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, 639 F.2d 1100, 1103 (5th Cir.
1981); Florida Wildlife Fed’n v. Goldschmidt, 611 F.2d 547, 549 (5th Cir.
1980).11
10 The letter of permission explicitly contemplated the possibility of its own
rescission. Lumar was warned that the Corps “may reevaluate its decision on
this permit at any time the circumstances warrant,” including if significant
“new information surfaces which this office did not consider in reaching the
original public interest decision.”
11 See Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1207, 1209 (11th Cir. 1981) (en
banc) (adopting as binding precedent all decisions of the former Fifth Circuit
handed down before the close of business on September 30, 1981).
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14 Opinion of the Court 22-11079
The failure to recognize the difference between those cases
and this one is also reflected in another flaw in the Corps’s
argument—its failure to concede the nature of a successful
outcome in a procedural rights case. The Corps emphasizes the
district court’s conclusion that it can neither order the dock torn
down nor order the Corps to initiate enforcement action to remove
it. See Ctr. for a Sustainable Coast v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, No.
2:19-CV-58, 2022 WL 202893, at *6 (S.D. Ga. Jan. 21, 2022). True.
But focusing on whether the court could demand the dock’s
destruction misunderstands what the Center is seeking in this
action—NEPA review. See, e.g., Lujan, 504 U.S. at 572 n.7
(hypothetical plaintiff would have standing to challenge failure to
prepare an environmental impact statement); Sierra Club v. Johnson,
436 F.3d 1269, 1275, 1278–79 (11th Cir. 2006) (standing to challenge
existing permit for insufficient public notice and comment). The
real question is whether the court can offer relief for the plaintiff’s
alleged procedural harm.
Here, the Center’s NEPA claim (Count II) is a procedural
rights claim. So what matters is that the administrative process the
Center seeks would create some possibility that the Corps would
rescind the permit, which still authorizes the continued existence
of the dock. Maybe NEPA review would result in the denial of the
dock permit; maybe not. But the answer to that question is
irrelevant for the purposes of this standing analysis. A procedural
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22-11079 Opinion of the Court 15
violation is remedied by process, and so long as that process
protects a concrete interest, the plaintiff has shown redressability.12
IV.
We now turn to the Center’s arguments in Count I—that the
Corps violated the Seashore Act when it issued the letter of
permission. The Center has abandoned this claim by failing to
specifically argue it on appeal. See, e.g., Wood v. Raffensperger, 981
F.3d 1307, 1316 (11th Cir. 2020). The Center did not cite the
Seashore Act’s text once in its standing analysis. The Center should
have preserved its arguments about Count I by raising them
12 We reject the dissent’s contention that the Center’s suit will result in a
“hypothetical district court decision.” Dissent at 10. To the contrary, vacatur
under 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)—“the ordinary APA remedy”—would operate on the
Corps’s final agency action. Black Warrior Riverkeeper, Inc. v. U.S. Army Corps
of Eng’rs, 781 F.3d 1271, 1289–90 (11th Cir. 2015) (quotation omitted).
Respectfully, it is the dissent that spends pages discussing hypotheticals—
whether it be alternative avenues for relief, predicted behavior of the parties
(and non-parties), or supposed future lawsuits. See id. at 5–8. For our part, the
only question we are concerned with is whether the Center has alleged a
procedural injury. It has.
Along the same lines, the dissent accuses the majority of “not point[ing] to
which action, from among those asserted by the Center, that the Corps was
required to take.” Dissent at 5 n.3 (emphasis added). Of course we do not—
the question on appeal is whether the Center had standing, not how the merits
of the case should be resolved. From this lack of merits analysis, the dissent
infers that the Center has not alleged any “discrete agency action that [the
Corps] is required to take.” Id. (emphasis and quotation omitted). That, too,
is incorrect. In Count II, the Center asserts that the Corps was required to
engage in full NEPA review before issuing the letter of permission.
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16 Opinion of the Court 22-11079
“plainly and prominently,” perhaps by “devoting a discrete section
of [its] argument to those claims.” Sapuppo v. Allstate Floridian Ins.
Co., 739 F.3d 678, 681 (11th Cir. 2014) (quotation omitted).
Because the Center abandoned its argument here, we affirm
the lower court’s decision that the Center lacked standing to bring
Count I. But the Center may still argue (as part of Count II) that
the Seashore Act is one reason that issuing a letter of permission
rather than completing a NEPA review was arbitrary and
capricious.
* * *
The Center’s NEPA claim satisfies the threshold for
redressability that we employ in cases involving procedural
rights—there is some possibility that the requested relief (NEPA
review) will prompt the Corps to reconsider its decision to allow
the dock. Consequently, we REVERSE the district court’s decision
to grant summary judgment for lack of standing on the NEPA
claim in Count II, but AFFIRM as to the Seashore Act claim in
Count I.
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22-11079 TJOFLAT, J., Dissenting 1
TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge, Dissenting:
The Center for a Sustainable Coast is seeking the removal of
Lumar’s dock that has already been constructed off Cumberland
Island. That is the Center’s objective. The majority allows the
Center to obtain a judgment against the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers that will be of absolutely no value to the Center in
pursuing its objective. A favorable judgment in this case will have
no legal effect on Lumar because Lumar is not party and will not
be in privity with the Corps. The Center could ask the Corps to
revoke Lumar’s permit pursuant to 33 C.F.R. § 325.7, but for
reasons not apparent in the record, it has chosen not to do so.
Before elaborating on why the path the Center is taking will
not grant it the relief it seeks, I describe the applicable regulatory
structure.
I. Regulatory Structure
Lumar LLC owns a plot of land on Cumberland Island. It
wanted a dock to access its land. Because this dock would extend
into the navigable rivers or waters of the United States, its
construction would be subject to the Rivers and Harbors Act of
1899, the Clean Water Act, and several other laws and regulations.
The Army Corps of Engineers has designed a system to ensure
compliance with all of these sources of law. See 33 C.F.R. pt. 325
(outlining the process for applying for and obtaining a Department
of the Army (DA) Permit). The Corps is also required to follow
the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and it has set forth
“procedural guidance for preparing and processing NEPA
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2 TJOFLAT, J., Dissenting 22-11079
documents for regulatory actions” in 33 C.F.R. Part 325, Appendix
B. Id. § 230.1.
A DA permit may take the form of an individual permit or
a general permit. Id. § 325.5(a)(1). Individual permits are issued on
a form, ENG Form 1721,1 or, alternatively, in the form of a letter
of permission (LOP).2 Id. § 325.5(b). An LOP will be issued when
§ 325.2(e)(1)’s procedures have been followed. Id. § 325.5(b)(2).
Section 325.2(e)(1) states LOPs may be used for projects “subject to
section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 when, in the
opinion of the district engineer, the proposed work would be
minor, would not have significant individual or cumulative impacts
on environmental values, and should encounter no appreciable
opposition.” Id. § 325.2(e)(1)(i). Importantly, “[a]ll applications
which qualify as letters of permission” under § 325.5(b)(2) are also
“not considered to be major Federal actions significantly affecting
the quality of the human environment and are therefore
categorically excluded from NEPA documentation.” Id. pt. 325,
App. B at 6a(5). “Fixed or floating small private piers” and “small
docks” are also subject to this categorical exclusion. Id. at 6a(1).
The Corps issued Lumar an LOP to build the dock at issue
here. The LOP contained General Conditions. One of the
1 ENG Form 1721 can be found in 33 C.F.R. Part 325, Appendix A. 33 C.F.R.
325.5(a)(1).
2 The regulation does not prescribe the use of a specific form. Rather, each
LOP is framed to meet the exigencies of the situation at hand.
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22-11079 TJOFLAT, J., Dissenting 3
conditions read as follows: “The work authorized by this Individual
Permit is valid for a period of three years from the date of issuance
unless modified, suspended or revoked by the District Engineer.”
II. Process to Rescind Permit
The procedure for modifying, suspending, or revoking
permits issued by the Corps is found in 33 C.F.R. § 325.7. This is
made clear by the text of the LOP issued to Lumar and ENG Form
1721. Any permit may be reevaluated by the district engineer “on
his own motion, at the request of the permittee, or a third party, or
as the result of periodic progress inspections.” 33 C.F.R. § 325.7(a).
The district engineer may, in the exercise of his discretion, “initiate
action to modify, suspend, or revoke a permit as may be made
necessary by considerations of the public interest.” Id.
The regulation also provides the factors the district engineer
should consider in exercising his discretion in deciding whether to
modify, suspend, or revoke a permit. Id. The factors are:
[T]he extent of the permittee’s compliance with the
terms and conditions of the permit; whether or not
circumstances relating to the authorized activity have
changed since the permit was issued or extended, and
the continuing adequacy of or need for the permit
conditions; any significant objections to the
authorized activity which were not earlier
considered; revisions to applicable statutory and/or
regulatory authorities; and the extent to which
modification, suspension, or other action would
adversely affect plans, investments and actions the
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4 TJOFLAT, J., Dissenting 22-11079
permittee has reasonably made or taken in reliance on
the permit.
Id. These factors are rooted in principles of due process to ensure
that permittees are on notice of any changes in the circumstances
and conditions relating to the permit or objections and are treated
fairly.
Subsections (b), (c), and (d) of § 325.7 go on to list other
procedures for the protection of permittees. For example, a
permittee must be notified in writing of the district engineer’s
decision under § 325.7(a). See id. § 325.7(b)–(d). The decision
becomes effective ten days after the permittee receives the notice
unless the permittee requests a meeting with the district engineer
or a public hearing, in which case the effect of the district
engineer’s decision is held in abeyance. See id. Public hearings are
governed by 33 C.F.R. Part 327. Id. § 325.7(c); see also id. § 327.3
(stating “the modification, suspension or revocation of any DA
permit” is the kind of permit action covered by the policies and
procedures for public hearings contained herein). The steps the
district engineer may take to enforce a § 325.7 decision are provided
in 33 C.F.R. Part 326. See id. § 326.1.
The district engineer may recommend that the Corps
pursue a criminal or civil action in the U.S. District Court “to obtain
penalties for violations, compliance with the orders and directives
he has issued pursuant to §§ 326.3 and 326.4, or other relief as
appropriate.” Id. § 326.5(a). “Appropriate cases for criminal or civil
action include, but are not limited to, violations which, in the
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22-11079 TJOFLAT, J., Dissenting 5
district engineer’s opinion, are willful, repeated, flagrant, or of
substantial impact.” Id. Part 326 also makes clear that “[n]othing
contained in this part shall establish a non-discretionary duty on the
part of district engineers nor shall deviation from these procedures
give rise to a private right of action against a district engineer.” Id.
§ 326.1.
It is clear that 33 C.F.R. § 325.7 alone establishes the
procedure the Center must pursue if its objective is the removal of
the dock. The Center may request the district engineer to
reevaluate Lumar’s permit and in his discretion, to “modify,
suspend, or revoke [its] permit as may be made necessary by
considerations of the public interest.” See id. § 325.7(a). In
exercising his discretion, the district engineer would consider
several factors, such as the substantial investment Lumar made in
reliance on its permit.
If the district engineer decides to revoke Lumar’s permit,
Lumar would likely request a public hearing, which would be
governed by 33 C.F.R. Part 327. Then, if the decision is sustained
and the district engineer orders Lumar to remove the dock but
Lumar fails to remove it, the district engineer will likely invoke the
procedures of 33 C.F.R. Part 326. The Center cannot avoid § 325.7
by maintaining this APA action against the Corps and challenging
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6 TJOFLAT, J., Dissenting 22-11079
the district engineer’s issuance of the LOP to Lumar in the exercise
of his discretion.3
III. Effect of This Judgment on Lumar
In this lawsuit, the Center seeks an injunctive order requiring
the Corps to vacate the district engineer’s issuance of Lumar’s LOP
on the ground that the issuance was arbitrary and capricious. If it
prevails in this lawsuit, the Center anticipates that the Corps will
sue Lumar in the same District Court for an injunctive order
requiring it to tear down the dock. Presumably, the Corps will rely
for its authority on the District Court’s APA decision, arguing that
the APA decision of the District Court, as the “rendering court,”
resolved any issues Lumar might raise in its defense of the Corp’s
claim for injunctive relief and that the District Court, now
operating as the “recognizing court,” will be bound to enforce its
rendering court decision.
3 5 U.S.C. § 706(1) limits the federal courts’ power on APA review to compel
agency action. See Norton v. S. Utah Wilderness All., 542 U.S. 55, 63 (2004)
(“[T]he only agency action that can be compelled under the APA is action
legally required. . . . Thus, a claim under § 706(1) can proceed only where a
plaintiff asserts that an agency failed to take a discrete agency action that it is
required to take.”). The majority does not point to which action, from among
those asserted by the Center, that the Corps was required to take. As described
in Parts I and II, issuing and revoking DA permits along with enforcement
actions for noncompliance with a permit or acting without a permit at all, are
entirely committed to the agency’s discretion. See 5 U.S.C. § 701(a)(2).
Therefore, these actions are beyond judicial review.
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22-11079 TJOFLAT, J., Dissenting 7
I refer to the District Court in its present posture as the
rendering court and in its position in entertaining the Corps’s
anticipated lawsuit against Lumar as the recognizing court.
Presumably, the Corps will tell the recognizing court that it is
bound by the rendering court’s decision. The question will be
whether a rendering court can bind a recognizing court to give its
resolution of the issues before the recognizing court preclusive
effect. The answer to that question will be emphatically: No.
It has been a time-honored principle of law that a rendering
court cannot bind a recognizing court to give the issues it has
resolved preclusive effect. Whether a recognizing court gives a
rendering court’s decisions preclusive effect—say under principles
of res judicata or collateral estoppel4—is exclusively the
recognizing court’s job. Where, as here, Lumar will not have been
a party in the rendering court and the issues the rendering court
decides will not be the issues the recognizing court will be called
on to decide, there can be no issue preclusion. It would be a
violation of Lumar’s right to due process if the recognizing court
precluded the issues before it on the basis of the rendering court’s
supposed resolution of those issues.
Consider res judicata. The doctrine would have no
application because Lumar was not a party in the rendering court
4 For a more comprehensive discussion of res judicata and issue preclusion,
see my dissent in Graham v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 857 F.3d 1169, 1213–21
(11th Cir. 2017) (en banc) (Tjoflat, J., dissenting).
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8 TJOFLAT, J., Dissenting 22-11079
proceeding and it could not be held to have been in privity with the
Corps in that proceeding because its interests and the Corps’s were
adverse in that litigation.
What about issue preclusion? There would be none because
the issues litigated in the recognizing court proceeding would not
have been present in the rendering court proceeding. Moreover,
fundamental principles of due process would preclude the
recognizing court from denying Lumar its day in court—its right
to argue that the § 325.7 factors, especially the investment it made
in reliance on its LOP, precluded the revocation of its LOP. “A
person who was not a party to a suit generally has not had a ‘full
and fair opportunity to litigate’ the claims and issues settled in that
suit.” Taylor v. Sturgell, 553 U.S. 880, 892 (2008).
Suppose the Center, on remand, moved the District Court
for leave to join the Lumar in the instant litigation pursuant to
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 19 as an indispensable party. See
Fed. R. Civ. P. 19(a)(1)(A). Would that step aid the Center in
pursuing its objective? The answer is No for two reasons. First,
Lumar is not an indispensable party because none of the issues the
District Court qua rendering court resolved would have any
preclusive effect in the District Court qua recognizing court.
Second, even if the District Court here granted the Center leave to
join Lumar as a defendant, the later District Court as the
recognizing court in the action brought by the U.S. Attorney, would
give this District Court’s decision no legal effect.
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22-11079 TJOFLAT, J., Dissenting 9
The idea that Lumar would forego its due process rights and
abide by any decision the rendering court might make is far-
fetched. No lawyer in his or her right mind would counsel Lumar
to tear down the dock. To get the dock removed, the Corps would
need to take a discretionary action called for by § 325.7 in a separate
proceeding, which the LOP makes clear, and the majority opinion
also acknowledges. See Maj. Op. at 13–14.
IV. Conclusion
Removal of Lumar’s dock remains the only relief that
redresses the Center’s aesthetic injury here. First off, the Center’s
concrete injury for standing purposes comes from their alleged
“aesthetic injury from viewing the dock.” Therefore, Lumar could
stop using the dock tomorrow, by choice or because a permit for
its use is vacated or revoked, and the Center’s aesthetic injury
would remain.5
Next, vacatur or revocation of a permit for the dock’s
existence under § 325.7 still would not provide any relief for that
aesthetic injury. Since the dock has already been built and viewing
it is the root of the Center’s injury, removal of the dock is the only
way to redress that injury. The Center’s counsel admitted as much
5 It is important to note that our case “‘hinge[s] on the independent choices of’
third parties not before this court,” namely Lumar, and that distinguishes it
from the procedural standing cases cited by the majority. See Food & Water
Watch v. United States Dep’t of Agric., 1 F.4th 1112, 1116 (D.C. Cir. 2021)
(quoting Ctr. for L. & Educ. v. Dep’t of Educ., 396 F.3d 1152, 1161 (D.C. Cir.
2005)) (alteration in original).
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10 TJOFLAT, J., Dissenting 22-11079
at oral argument. The majority opinion also recognizes that in the
instant case the District Court “can neither order the dock torn
down nor order the Corps to initiate enforcement action to remove
it.” Maj. Op. at 13–14.
As the District Court and Corps have both stated, the nature
of the permitting scheme is such that the Corps’s authority extends
only to authorizing the construction and presence of the dock. To
remove the dock—the only thing that can redress the Center’s
concrete injury—the Corps would have to bring an enforcement
action against Lumar under 33 C.F.R. § 326.5, and if Lumar failed
to comply with the Corps’s decision, the Corps would have to sue
Lumar for injunctive relief.
When boiled down, given that Center’s goal is the dock’s
removal, this case is nothing but a waste. It will result in a
hypothetical district court decision, the sort of exercise Article III
abhors. To me, there is nothing in the standing jurisprudence that
would counsel a federal district court to engage in the exercise. I
respectfully dissent.
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