Niemi v. Burgess

Summary

This published per curiam Tenth Circuit opinion addresses an interlocutory appeal from a preliminary injunction freezing defendants' assets worldwide in litigation arising from an alleged real estate financing fraud. The court rejects mootness and fugitive-disentitlement arguments, but concludes that the individual plaintiffs lacked statutory standing to pursue RICO and Colorado Organized Crime Control Act claims based on injuries derivative of corporate losses. The document includes a September 10, 2013 order correcting clerical errors and reissuing the opinion nunc pro tunc to September 6, 2013.

Holdings

1. The appeal was not moot because the June 2012 injunction continued to have independent legal effect and was materially broader than the October 2012 injunction.
2. The fugitive disentitlement doctrine did not bar the appeal because the defendants were civil litigants who were not charged with or convicted of crimes and were not fugitives hiding from the law.
3. The plaintiffs failed to establish statutory standing to pursue COCCA claims because the alleged losses were derivative of losses suffered by Mesatex and its subsidiaries, and the plaintiffs did not demonstrate a direct and personal injury.
4. The court declined to consider the plaintiffs' newly raised nonjurisdictional forfeiture and related arguments presented after briefing and oral argument in Rule 28(j) letters.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the appeal from the June 2012 preliminary injunction was moot because the district court later entered another injunction.
2. Whether the fugitive disentitlement doctrine barred civil defendants who allegedly violated a preliminary injunction from pursuing an interlocutory appeal.
3. Whether the district court had authority under Colorado law and federal diversity jurisdiction to issue a worldwide asset-freezing preliminary injunction in an action seeking damages.
4. Whether the individual plaintiffs had statutory standing under COCCA to assert injuries that were allegedly derivative of injuries suffered by Mesatex and its subsidiaries.
5. Whether the plaintiffs could introduce forfeiture and other new statutory-standing arguments through post-argument Rule 28(j) letters.

Disposition

vacated