Joaquin Q. Atalig v. United States of America

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
JOAQUIN Q. ATALIG,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
v.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA;
BARACK OBAMA; JANET
NAPOLITANO; KEN SALAZAR;
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON; HILDA
L. SOLIS; ERIC H. HOLDER, Jr.,
Attorney General, in their official
capacities,
Defendants - Appellees.
No. 12-17791
D.C. No. 1:11-cv-00023
District of the Northern Mariana
Islands
ORDER
Before: HAWKINS, McKEOWN, and BEA, Circuit Judges.
The memorandum filed on February 25, 2014, is hereby amended. The
pending petition for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc is denied. No further
petitions shall be entertained.
FILED
MAY 16 2014
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

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NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
JOAQUIN Q. ATALIG,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
v.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA;
BARACK OBAMA; JANET
NAPOLITANO; KEN SALAZAR;
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON; HILDA
L. SOLIS; ERIC H. HOLDER, Jr.,
Attorney General, in their official
capacities,
Defendants - Appellees.
No. 12-17791
D.C. No. 1:11-cv-00023
AMENDED
MEMORANDUM*
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern Mariana Islands
Ramona V. Manglona, Chief District Judge, Presiding
Submitted February 19, 2014**
Honolulu, Hawai‘i
Before: HAWKINS, McKEOWN, and BEA, Circuit Judges.
FILED
MAY 16 2014
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).

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Atalig appeals from the district court’s dismissal of his suit challenging the
Consolidated National Resources Act of 2008 (“CNRA”), which applied United
States immigration law to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
(“CNMI”). 48 U.S.C. § 1806 (2013). Atalig alleged that the CNRA interfered
with the CNMI citizens’ right of self-government and right to vote. In response to
a motion to dismiss on the basis of res judicata, the district court sua sponte held
that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction because Atalig had not alleged a sufficient
injury to establish Article III standing. The district court denied a motion for leave
to amend the complaint on the basis that the proposed amendments were futile and
dismissed the action. We affirm.
A federal court has an obligation to assure itself of jurisdiction before
proceeding to the merits by, in addition to other things, inquiring into whether the
plaintiff has standing to sue under Article III of the Constitution. Lance v.
Coffman, 549 U.S. 437, 439 (2007). To establish standing, the complaint must
allege facts sufficient to establish that the plaintiff has suffered injury in fact, “an
invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized, and
(b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.” Lujan v. Defenders of
Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992) (internal citations and quotation marks
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omitted). Alleging a “generalized grievance” is insufficient. Lance, 549 U.S. at
439–40.
The allegations in Atalig’s complaint and proposed amended complaint do
not establish that the he suffered injury in fact. Atalig argues that he was injured
because under the CNRA he cannot affect immigration policy through his vote. He
also argues that the amended complaint would have demonstrated injury in fact
because it alleged, in addition to other facts, that Atalig employs a foreign national
on whose behalf he applied for a visa and that he has an interest in voting on
immigration policy in the CNMI. These alleged injuries do not establish
particularized injury in fact. The CNRA affects Atalig and the rest of the CNMI
voting population in the same way. His alleged injuries are “precisely the kind of
undifferentiated, generalized grievance[s] about the conduct of government that we
have refused to countenance in the past.” See Lance, 549 U.S. at 442.
Similarly, Atalig’s reliance on voter-standing cases, see, e.g., Baker v. Carr,
369 U.S. 186 (1962), is misplaced because he does not argue that his vote has been
diluted or discounted due to the CNRA. Nothing in the complaint would establish
that he has been personally aggrieved by the CNRA. See Braunstein v. Ariz. Dep’t
of Transp., 683 F.3d 1177, 1185 (9th Cir. 2012). Nor would the amended
complaint have cured the defects that the district court identified. The district court
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rightly denied the request to amend. See Steckman v. Hart Brewing, Inc., 143 F.3d
1293, 1298 (9th Cir. 1998).
Finally, Atalig raises in a footnote that the Trusteeship Agreement for the
Northern Mariana Islands, is “a source of individual legal rights, which individual
beneficiaries of the trust have standing to sue to enforce” under People of Saipan v.
United States Department of the Interior, 502 F.2d 90 (9th Cir. 1974). Atalig does
not further address the Trusteeship Agreement, and he does not explain how, if at
all, the CNRA impacts any rights under the Trusteeship Agreement. Accordingly,
this issue is not properly before us on appeal. See Hilao v. Estate of Marcos, 103
F.3d 767, 778 n.4 (9th Cir. 1996) (“The summary mention of an issue in a
footnote, without reasoning in support of the appellant’s argument, is insufficient
to raise the issue on appeal.”).
AFFIRMED.
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