Westlaw Cite:
2020 WL 6037188
Author:
Patricia D. Barksdale, U.S. Magistrate Judge
Author Title:
U.S. Magistrate Judge
Complainant(s):
St. Augustine–St. Johns County Airport Authority
Respondent(s):
Boomerang, LLC
Airport(s):
Northeast Florida Regional Airport (KSGJ)
Holding:
Dismissed (lack of subject-matter jurisdiction).
Abstract:
Complainant, the St. Augustine–St. Johns County Airport Authority, sued in state court for a declaration and an injunction to resolve a dispute over whether Respondent, Boomerang, LLC, was required to execute an operating agreement with minimum operating standards and minimum insurance policy limits to continue flights (under 14 C.F.R. Part 135) from the Northeast Florida Regional Airport to Marsh Harbour, Bahamas. (p. 1.) Suit was brought after the Respondent refused to execute the airport’s operating agreement on the basis that its service was “on demand” and not “scheduled”; because the airport was for public use; and because the carrier was not “based” at the airport. (p. 3.)
Three matters came before the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida (Jacksonville Division). First was the threshold issue of whether the court had subject-matter jurisdiction (federal question)—an issue that the court raised given that the defendant’s removal notice failed to reference any federal statute or otherwise assert that its claims for relief arose from a particular federal statute so as to support federal–question jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331. (p. 1.) Second, before the court was Boomerang’s motion to dismiss, which asserted that dismissal was warranted for three reasons: (a) federal law preempted the Airport Authority’s claims; (b) the complaint failed to state a claim on which relief may be granted because the Airport Authority failed to exhaust administrative remedies under a comprehensive administrative remedial scheme for resolving a dispute affecting a public airport; and (c) the Airport Authority failed to join a necessary party—namely the FAA. (p. 1.) Third, before the Court was the Airport Authority’s motion for rulings on subject-matter jurisdiction and the motion to dismiss.
As to the first issue, the carrier argued that the dispute did not concern the Airport Authority’s police power or the Airport Authority’s right as a property owner to exclude Boomerang from the airport, observing that the complaint sought no declaration—and there was no uncertainty—about either. (p. 9.) Rather, Boomerang argued, the Airport Authority was concerned about only a possible consequence of exercising police power: that Boomerang would complain to the FAA that the Airport Authority is violating its grant assurance to refrain from economic discrimination. (p. 9.)
Arguing that the Airport Authority “seeks a declaratory statement about Boomerang’s federal rights, not [the Airport Authority’s] own,” Boomerang then asserted that the court must “reconstitute the complaint into the hypothetical claim that would be brought by the party seeking to coercively vindicate the rights in the dispute (the so-called ‘coercive action’)” and then decide whether that “coercive action” arises under federal law. (p. 9.) Moreover, Boomerang contended that the Airport Authority had no potential coercive action against Boomerang because the parties had no contractual relationship, the Airport Authority had not denied Boomerang access to or use of the airport, and there was no allegation that Boomerang was trespassing or otherwise unlawfully conducting operations at the airport. (p. 9.)
The Airport Authority responded that it sought nothing from the FAA through the action, it had no uncertainty about its legal rights and obligations relating to the FAA, and it contemplated no denial of “on-airport activity” that would require the FAA’s interjection as the final authority. (p. 11.) The Airport Authority further explained that, by seeking to require Boomerang to execute an operating agreement, it sought only to do what the FAA left within the Airport Authority’s “purview”—to enforce and carry out reasonable minimum standards for the “proposed aeronautical activity” to protect the “level and quality of services offered to the public.” (p. 11.) Additionally, the Airport Authority admitted that it was a public use airport and required to make the airport available on reasonable terms and without unjust discrimination and, as such, was simply trying to subject Boomerang to the same standards as other similarly situated carriers and avoid accusations that the Airport Authority is favoring Boomerang. (p. 11.)
Ultimately, the court determined that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction. First, the court noted, the “‘coercive claim’ Boomerang identified was beyond what the face of the complaint fairly anticipated: “Boomerang’s hypothetical appeal to a federal court of appeals of the FAA’s hypothetical adverse final decision on Boomerang’s hypothetical Part 16 administrative complaint about the Airport Authority’s hypothetical violation of the Airport Authority’s grant assurance of nondiscrimination.” (p. 13.) The complaint merely asked the state court to construe the Airport Authority’s ‘Minimum Commercial Aviation Operating Standards’ and decide whether, considering Boomerang’s operations at the airport, the Airport Authority may require Boomerang to execute an operating agreement and meet the minimum operating standards.” (p. 13.)
In reaching this conclusion, the court also rejected Boomerang’s argument that the Airport Authority sued in anticipation of Boomerang’s federal cause of action and that “exercise of police power” was not a cause of action under Florida law. (p. 14.) “That contention overlooks that Florida’s declaratory-judgment law allows the Airport Authority to obtain a judgment construing the ‘Minimum Commercial Aviation Operating Standards’.” (p. 14 citing Fla. Stat. § 86.021.) Moreover, the court reasoned, “if the Airport Authority fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted, the failure means that the state court should dismiss the claim, not that the Airport Authority is trying to circumvent federal-court jurisdiction.” (p. 14.)
The court reasoned that, “[e]ven if the face of the complaint fairly anticipates the federal cause of action Boomerang identifies, Boomerang provides no authority, and the undersigned could find none, for the proposition that either a non-final hypothetical administrative complaint or a hypothetical judicial appeal of a hypothetical final agency decision is the type of coercive claim a federal court should consider to determine federal-question jurisdiction. Indeed, courts have concluded otherwise.” (p. 14.) Moreover, “with respect to a hypothetical judicial appeal of a hypothetical final decision by the FAA—the ‘coercive’ claim Boomerang identifies would be not by Boomerang against the Airport Authority, but by Boomerang against the FAA, with the Airport Authority not necessarily a party.” (p. 14.) Consequently the court reasoned, if it lacked jurisdiction over Boomerang’s potential federal coercive claim, it also lacked jurisdiction over the Airport Authority’s declaratory-judgment action anticipating that claim.
Finally, the court rejected Boomerang’s argument that federal-question jurisdiction existed for the same reason federal-question jurisdiction existed in Arapahoe County Public Airport Authority v. Federal Aviation Administration, 242 F.3d 1213 (10th Cir. 2001). (p. 15.) Contrary to Boomerang’s alternative argument, the court noted, the case before it did not fall under the narrow category of federal-question jurisdiction identified by the United States Supreme Court in Gunn v. Minton, 568 U.S. 251 (2013)—where, through a state-law claim, a federal question was necessarily raised, actually disputed, substantial, and capable of resolution in federal court without disrupting the federal-state balance approved by Congress.
Boomerang pointed to no state-law claim, instead referencing only its asserted federal coercive action. (p. 15.) Moreover, whether considering the Airport Authority’s state-law declaratory-judgment claim or its own asserted coercive federal claim for relief, Boomerang could not satisfy at least one of the four requirements—the presence of a substantial federal question; indeed, Boomerang failed to articulate any question of law important to the federal system as a whole that will control many other cases, and the complaint describes a fact-bound dispute involving the Airport Authority’s own “Minimum Commercial Aviation Operating Standards” and Boomerang’s own advertised and actual services from St. Augustine to Marsh Harbour or other destinations. (p. 15.)
In all, the court recommended granting the Airport Authority’s motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and remanded the case to state court. (p. 16.)
[The magistrate judge proceeded to address Boomerang’s arguments for dismissal (e.g., preemption, failure to exhaust administrative remedies, and failure to join the FAA as a necessary party) in the event the recommendation to dismiss the claim for want of subject-matter jurisdiction was not adopted. (p. 15.) U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard adopted the magistrate’s recommendation in part. That is, she agreed that the court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction and so “expresse[d] no view on and declines to address the merits of the arguments in the Motion to Dismiss. As such, the Court does not adopt the discussion of the remaining issues addressed in the Report.” See St. Augustine-St. Johns County Airport Authority v. Boomerang, LLC, 2020 3790588 (M.D. Fla. 2020).]
Index Terms:
Administrative Remedies; Airline Deregulation Act; Coercive Action; Declaratory Judgment; Federal Question Jurisdiction; Insurance Limits; Joinder; Minimum Operating Standards; On Demand; Operating Agreement; Part 135; Police Power; Preemption; Remand