Orff v. United States
A group of individual landowners and water users (the farmers) of the Westlands Water District (Westlands) sued the United States for breaching a contract the United States entered into with Westlands for the delivery of water. The district court originally concluded that federal sovereign immunity had been waived and ruled on the merits of the farmers' claims. The district court then changed its mind on reconsideration, ruling that sovereign immunity barred the farmers' claims. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court, holding that sovereign immunity deprived it of jurisdiction to hear the farmers' claims. The court of appeals found that the farmers were only incidental, not intended, third party beneficiaries of the contract between Westlands and the United States. As such, they were not "a contracting entity" toward which the government had waived sovereign immunity.
Question Presented:
The question presented is whether farmers are "intended" third-party beneficiaries of their irrigation district's water service and repayment contracts
with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and, therefore, entitled to sue the Bureau for breach thereof, as the Federal Circuit has long held, or merely "incidental" third-party beneficiaries and,
therefore, not so entitled, as the Ninth Circuit holds in the decision below.
