Carl A. Hatch

This case was a Federal Tort Claims Act suit brought by a mother seeking damages for the drowning deaths of her two young children in an irrigation canal maintained by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The plaintiff claimed the government negligently failed to install guardrails on a bridge or maintain fences along the canal and that the canal constituted an attractive nuisance. The court ruled for the United States and denied recovery. It reasoned that even assuming any negligence by the defendant, the mother's own contributory negligence in allowing the unsupervised children to cross the canal on multiple occasions—when she knew or should have known of the dangers—proximately caused the accident and barred her claim.

torts & liability

The case involved an injured employee and his employer's workers' compensation insurer suing a trucking company for on-the-job injuries sustained while unloading a truck; the trucking company then sought to bring in the employer as a third-party defendant to obtain indemnity or contribution as a joint tortfeasor. The court granted the employer's motion for summary judgment. The core reasoning was that the New Mexico Workmen’s Compensation Act makes an employer's liability exclusive, abolishing all other causes of action and rights or remedies accruing to any persons whatsoever except as provided in the Act itself, so that a stranger to the employment relationship cannot obtain contribution from the employer.

labor & employmenttorts & liabilityprocedure

In Toledo v. Pueblo De Jemez, six Protestant members of the Jemez Pueblo sued the Pueblo and its governor for declaratory relief under the Civil Rights Act, alleging that tribal officials had denied them burial rights in the community cemetery, the ability to build a Protestant church or use homes for worship, access by missionaries, and use of communal property, while threatening loss of property and rights unless they adopted Catholicism, all in violation of a tribal ordinance protecting freedom of worship. The plaintiffs claimed these acts deprived them of rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The court dismissed the complaint, holding that it lacked jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3) because the defendants' actions were not taken under color of any state law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage. The core reasoning was that Pueblo tribal governments derive their authority from inherent tribal sovereignty subject to federal oversight, not from the State of New Mexico, as confirmed by precedents like United States v. Sandoval and the Pueblo Lands Act, so the Civil Rights Act did not apply.

religious libertycivil rightsfederal power

The case involved a plaintiff who sued a Colorado corporation in New Mexico federal court alleging antitrust violations that occurred entirely in Colorado, selecting that forum due to its longer four-year statute of limitations compared to Colorado's two-year limit. The defendant moved to transfer venue to the District of Colorado under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a), citing convenience for parties, witnesses, and documents, along with jurors' better familiarity with local conditions. The court granted the motion, holding that the transfer was appropriate for convenience and justice, that the phrase 'where it might have been brought' in the statute refers to venue and jurisdiction rather than possible defenses like statutes of limitations, and that the defendant's explicit waiver of the shorter Colorado limitations period eliminated any risk to the plaintiff's rights.

business & regulatoryprocedure