Wyo-Ben v. Burgum

── Wyo-Ben v. Burgum ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit Date: June 01, 2026 Category: General Appellate Case: 25-8008 Document: 42-1 Date Filed: 06/01/2026 Page: 1 FILED United States Court of Appeals UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT June 1, 2026 _________________________________ Christopher M. Wolpert Clerk of Court WYO-BEN, INC., a Montana corporation, Petitioner - Appellant, v. No. 25-8008 DOUGLAS J. BURGUM, an individual, in (D.C. No. 2:19-CV-00215-ABJ) his official capacity as Secretary of the (D. Wyo.) United States Department of Interior; STEVAN PEARCE, an individual, in his capacity as Director of the United States Bureau of Land Management, ∗ Respondents - Appellees. _________________________________ ORDER AND JUDGMENT ** _________________________________ Before MORITZ and FEDERICO, Circuit Judges, and ALLEN, District Judge. *** _________________________________ Petitioner-Appellant Wyo-Ben, Inc. (“Wyo-Ben”), appeals from the district court’s denial of its petition 1 under 5 U.S.C. § 706(1) seeking to compel ∗ Pursuant to Fed. R. App. P. 43(c)(2), Stevan Pearce is automatically substituted for Jon Raby in this appeal. ** This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. *** The Honorable Ann Marie McIff Allen, U.S. District Judge, District of Utah, sitting by designation. 1 Although the pleading is styled as a “Complaint,” see Aplt. App. I at 9, the parties refer to one another (and the district court referred to them) as Petitioner and Respondent. For the sake of clarity, we use this same nomenclature and, consequently, refer to the Complaint as a “petition.”  Appellate Case: 25-8008 Document: 42-1 Date Filed: 06/01/2026 Page: 2 Respondents-Appellees, the Secretary of the Interior (the “Secretary”) and the Director of the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”), to review an application for a mineral patent, which Wyo-Ben filed over thirty years ago. See Aplt. App. I at 9–13. This case is before this Court following a previous order of remand, in which a prior panel determined that Wyo-Ben had presented one potentially timely claim to the district court. See Wyo-Ben Inc. v. Haaland, 63 F.4th 857, 881 (10th Cir. 2023). Specifically, while the record clearly showed that BLM had acted on Wyo-Ben’s mineral-patent application in 1994, Wyo-Ben argued BLM had not acted pursuant to a proper delegation of authority from the Secretary and, consequently, the record before the prior panel did not reveal whether the Secretary had ever acted on Wyo- Ben’s application. Id. at 868. Accordingly, the prior panel concluded Wyo-Ben’s claim against the Secretary was potentially timely under the repeated-violations doctrine. See id. at 875. In reviewing the proceedings in the district court following remand, it is now clear that Wyo-Ben’s only remaining claim is also untimely because BLM acted pursuant to authority lawfully delegated from the Secretary when it acted on Wyo-Ben’s application in the 1990s. Consequently, exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm. I. BACKGROUND In March 1993, 2 Wyo-Ben