## Facts

- Environmental organizations sued federal officials and the U.S. Forest Service over management of four Texas national forests, including timber-harvesting practices and compliance with federal environmental statutes.
- The litigation evolved to challenge forest planning and timber sales using even-aged management (including clearcutting) under the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) and NEPA.
- In May 1993, the district court issued a preliminary injunction barring the Forest Service from conducting even-aged management in any of the four Texas national forests.
- The district court reasoned that NFMA permitted even-aged management only in “exceptional circumstances,” and it found plaintiffs likely to succeed on the merits.
- After the injunction, the Texas Forestry Association and the Southern Timber Purchasers Council (industry groups whose members purchased and processed national-forest timber and held related contractual interests) moved to intervene under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(a)(2).
- The district court denied intervention, finding the motion untimely and/or concluding that the federal defendants adequately represented the industry groups’ interests.
- The industry groups appealed the denial of intervention; the federal defendants and timber interests also challenged the preliminary injunction.

## Issues

1. Whether the timber-industry groups were entitled to intervene as of right under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(a)(2) based on timeliness, a direct and legally protectable interest, impairment, and inadequate representation.
2. Whether the district court erred in issuing a preliminary injunction broadly prohibiting even-aged management by construing NFMA to restrict such methods to “exceptional circumstances,” and in treating that construction as central to likelihood of success under NFMA and NEPA.

## Decision

- The court reversed the denial of intervention and held the timber-industry groups were entitled to intervene as of right under Rule 24(a)(2).
- The court concluded the intervention motion was timely in context because the groups acted promptly once the injunction and ensuing agency response concretely threatened their interests.
- The court held the groups had a direct, substantial, legally protectable interest tied to economic and contractual stakes in national-forest timber sales and related business operations.
- The court found the injunction and litigation could, as a practical matter, impair the groups’ ability to protect those interests.
- The court held the federal government could not be presumed to adequately represent the industry groups’ specific economic interests.
- The court vacated the preliminary injunction and remanded, rejecting the district court’s view that NFMA confines even-aged management to “exceptional circumstances.”

## Legal Principles

- Intervention as of right under Rule 24(a)(2) requires a timely motion, a direct and legally protectable interest, a risk of practical impairment absent intervention, and inadequate representation by existing parties.
- Timeliness for Rule 24 is evaluated flexibly, including when the applicant became aware its interests were threatened and the relative prejudice to existing parties and the applicant.
- Government defendants do not automatically adequately represent private economic and contractual interests that may diverge from broader public or regulatory objectives.
- NFMA contemplates even-aged management within a multiple-use statutory scheme and does not impose an “exceptional circumstances” prerequisite as a categorical limit.
- When a preliminary injunction rests on an erroneous statutory construction central to likelihood of success, vacatur and remand are appropriate.

## Conclusion

The Fifth Circuit held that timber-industry organizations with concrete contractual and economic stakes could intervene as of right in the forest-management litigation and vacated a broad preliminary injunction because the district court’s “exceptional circumstances” reading of NFMA improperly treated even-aged management as presumptively unlawful.


Sierra Club v. Espy, 38 F.3d 792 (5th Cir. 1994)