Public Lands: Federal Oil and Gas Leases; Coastal Zone Management Act Breach of Contract: Damages Limitation of Actions

摘要

In this case, a lessee who did not participate in the Amber litigation, files its own action seeking damages for the same events that led to the various Amber opinions. See 171 O.&G.R. 1-???? supra. Ram did not file suit until 2009 seeking restitutionary damages. The United States files a motion to dismiss on limitations grounds. The applicable statute of limitations for actions filed in the Court of Claims is six years. 28 U.S.C. § 2501. The issue is determining when the claim accrued which would start the running of the limitations period. For a contract action, the claim normally accrues at the time the breach occurs. The United States argues that the claim accrued in 2001, when the Department of the Interior, in response to a federal court order revoking its previously-issued suspension orders which had allowed the underlying federal oil and gas leases to be maintained. Ram argues that the breach did not occur until either 2005 or 2009, when the Court of Federal Claims made determinations in the Amber litigation relating to the breach of contract. The court finds that the claim accrued in 2001 when the suspension orders were revoked because that put Ram on notice that it needed to do something in order to keep its leases alive or file an action asserting a breach of contract.