Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-13-17430/USCOURTS-ca9-13-17430-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

VIETNAM VETERANS OF AMERICA;

SWORDS TO PLOWSHARES, Veterans

Rights Organization; TIM MICHAEL

JOSEPHS; WILLIAM BLAZINSKI;

BRUCE PRICE; FRANKLIN D.

ROCHELLE; LARRY MEIROW; ERIC P.

MUTH; DAVID C. DUFRANE;

KATHRYN MCMILLAN-FORREST,

Plaintiffs-Appellants–

Cross-Appellees,

v.

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY;

JOHN BRENNAN, Director of the

Central Intelligence Agency; UNITED

STATES DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE;

ASHTON CARTER, Secretary of

Defense; UNITED STATES

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY; JOHN

M. MCHUGH, Secretary of the Army;

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA;

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF

VETERAN AFFAIRS; ROBERT A.

MCDONALD, Secretary of Veterans

Affairs,

Defendants-Appellees–

Cross-Appellants.

Nos. 13-17430

14-15108

D.C. No.

4:09-cv-00037-

CW

OPINION

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2 VIETNAM VETERANS OF AMERICA V. CIA

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of California

Claudia Wilken, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

September 11, 2014—San Francisco, California

Filed June 30, 2015

Before: J. Clifford Wallace, Mary M. Schroeder,

and William A. Fletcher, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge W. Fletcher;

Partial Concurrence and Partial Dissent by Judge Wallace

SUMMARY*

Veterans Affairs

The panel affirmed in part and reversed in part the district

court’s judgment and injunction entered in an action brought

by veterans organizations, and individuals who were subjects

in chemical and biological weapons experiments conducted

by the United States military, seeking declaratory and

injunctive relief against federal agencies.

The panel agreed with the district court that the U.S.

Army had an ongoing duty under Army Regulation 70-25 to

provide former test subjects with newly available information

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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VIETNAM VETERANS OF AMERICA V. CIA 3

relating to their health, and that this duty was judicially

enforceable under § 706(1) of the Administrative Procedure

Act. The panel held that the district court did not abuse its

discretion in entering its injunction to enforce that duty.

The panel also agreed with the district court that the Army

had an ongoing duty to provide medical care. The panel

disagreed with the district court’s denial of relief on the

ground that the Department of Veterans Affairs provided

medical care that to some degree duplicated the care the

Army was obligated to provide. The panel held that the

district court could not, in the absence of mootness,

categorically deny injunctive relief to former volunteer

subjects seeking necessarymedical care because some former

subjects may be entitled to receive medical care from another

government agency. The panel vacated the district court’s

summary judgment for the government on this claim and

remanded to the district court.

JudgeWallace joined the majority in affirming the district

court’s judgment and injunction compelling the Army to

comply with Army Regulation 70-25’s clear regulatory

mandate, but wrote separately in concurrence because he did

not join the majority’s analysis of regulatory history to

support its textual analysis. Judge Wallace dissented from

the majority’s conclusion that Army Regulation 70-25 also

contained a command that the Army provide medical care to

former research volunteers. He would affirm the district

court’s summary judgment against plaintiffs on their claims

for medical care, but on the alternative ground that their claim

was not judicially enforceable under § 706(1) of the

Administrative Procedure Act.

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4 VIETNAM VETERANS OF AMERICA V. CIA

COUNSEL

James Patrick Bennett, Eugene G. Illovsky, Benjamin F.

Patterson (argued), and Stacey Michelle Sprenkel, Morrison

& Foerster LLP, San Francisco, California, for PlaintiffsAppellants–Cross-Appellees.

Melinda L. Haag, United States Attorney, Stuart F. Delery,

Assistant Attorney General, Charles W. Scarborough

(argued), Brigham John Bowen, Anthony Joseph Coppolino,

and Mark B. Stern, Appellate Staff, Civil Division, United

States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for

Defendants-Appellees–Cross-Appellants.

OPINION

W. FLETCHER, Circuit Judge:

From the inception of the United States’ chemical

weapons program during World War I until the mid-1970s,

the United States military conducted chemical and biological

weapons experiments on human subjects. In these

experiments, tens of thousands of members of the United

States armed services were intentionally exposed to a range

of chemical and biological agents.

Plaintiffs are veterans’ organizations and individuals who

were subjects in these experiments. They filed an individual

and class action complaint seeking declaratory and injunctive

relief against the Department of Defense (“DOD”), the Army,

the Central Intelligence Agency (“CIA”), and the Department

of Veterans Affairs (“VA”). The class comprises “[a]ll

current or former members of the armed forces, who, while

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VIETNAM VETERANS OF AMERICA V. CIA 5

serving in the armed forces, were test subjects” in these

experimentation programs. Two of Plaintiffs’ claims,

brought under § 706(1) of the Administrative Procedure Act

(“APA”), are at issue in this appeal. Plaintiffs claim, first,

that the Army has unlawfully failed to notify test subjects of

new medical and scientific information relating to their health

as it becomes available. They claim, second, that the Army

has unlawfully withheld medical care for diseases or

conditions proximately caused by their exposures to

chemicals during the experiments.

On cross-motions for summary judgment, the district

court held that ArmyRegulation 70-25 (“AR 70-25”) imposes

on the Army an ongoing duty to notify former test subjects of

relevant new health information as it becomes available. The

court issued an injunction requiring the Army to comply with

that duty. The court held, further, that AR 70-25 imposes on

the Army an ongoing duty to provide medical care, but the

court declined to compel the Army to provide such care on

the ground that Plaintiffs could seek medical care from the

VA.

We affirm in part and reverse in part. We agree with the

district court that the Army has an ongoing duty under AR

70-25 to provide former test subjects with newly available

information relating to their health, and that this duty is

judicially enforceable under § 706(1). We also agree with the

district court that the Army has an ongoing duty to provide

medical care. However, the district court denied relief on the

ground that the VA provides medical care that to some degree

duplicates the care the Army is obligated to provide. We

disagree with the district court that relief should have been

denied on this ground.

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I. Background

As relevant to this suit, beginning in 1942 the War

Department (as it was then called) approved the use of human

subjects in experiments to test the effects of chemical

weapons. Some experiments tested the effectiveness of

various chemical agents, while others tested the effectiveness

of protective clothing and other defenses. By the end of

World War II, more than 60,000 service members had served

as subjects in the United States’ chemical weapons research

program.

During the World War II-era tests, “soldier volunteers”

were intentionally exposed to a variety of chemical agents. 

According to a 1993 report by the National Academy of

Sciences, they were exposed to Lewisite (an arsenic-based

blister agent) and mustard gas, as well as other “gases such as

phosgene (a choking agent), hydrogen cyanide and cyanogen

chloride (blood poisoning agents), and chloroacetophenone

(tear gas).” A 2006 VA report recounted that these subjects

“were exposed commonly to acutely toxic levels . . . of agents

via small drops applied to the arm or to clothing, or in gas

chambers, sometimes without protective clothing.” “Some

experiments apparently involved less protected subjects who

were reported to have experienced severe burns to the genital

areas, including cases of crusted lesions to the scrotum . . . .

Documented injuries among experimental subjects . . . [were]

initially ‘quite high’—one study of accidental injuries

identified over 1,000 cases of acute mustard agent toxicity

resulting in eye, ear, nose and throat symptoms . . . over a 2-

year period.”

In the 1950s, DOD initiated a new wave of chemical

weapons research and experimentation, focused on “agents

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VIETNAM VETERANS OF AMERICA V. CIA 7

perceived to pose greater threats than sulfur mustard or

Lewisite,” such as nerve agents and chemicals with “intense

psychoactive properties.” These experiments were conducted

over the course of about twenty years, from 1955 to 1975. 

During the course of this research, DOD exposed about 6,700

human subjects to more than 250 different chemical and

biological agents.

Beginning in the 1950s, the Armyestablished policies and

issued regulations governing the use of human subjects. On

February 26, 1953, Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson sent

a memorandum (“the Wilson Directive”) to the Secretaries of

the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The Wilson Directive set

conditions for “the use of human volunteers by the

Department of Defense in experimental research in the fields

of atomic, biological and/or chemical warfare.” It stated that

“[t]he voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely

essential,” and instructed that a volunteer subject “should

have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the

elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to

make an understanding and enlightened decision” about

participating.

On June 30, 1953, Brigadier General John Oakes,

Secretary of the General Staff of the Army, sent a

memorandum (“CS:385”) to the Army’s Chief Chemical

Officer, the Army Surgeon General, and other top Army

officials, reiterating the policies articulated in the Wilson

Directive. CS:385 provided that “[a]gents used in research

must have” several “limiting characteristics,” including

“[c]ontrollable lethality,” “[n]o serious chronicity

anticipated,” “[e]ffective therapy available,” and “[a]dequate

background of animal experimentation.” The memorandum

provided further, that “[a]s added protection for volunteers,

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[other] safeguards will be provided,” including that “[a]ll

apparatus and instruments necessary to deal with any

emergency situations must be available,” and that “[m]edical

treatment and hospitalization will be provided for all

casualties of the experimentation as required.”

In 1962, the Army promulgated AR 70-25, a regulation

prescribing policies and procedures to govern the use of

volunteers in Army research involving human subjects. AR

70-25 reiterated the policies in the Wilson Directive,

including the requirement of voluntary consent. The

regulation provided:

[The volunteer] will be told as much of the

nature, duration, and purpose of the

experiment, the method, and means by which

it is to be conducted, and the inconveniences

and hazards to be expected, as will not

invalidate the results. He will be fully

informed of the effects upon his health or

person which may possibly come from his

participation in the experiment.

The regulation also provided, in language similar to CS:385,

that “[a]ll apparatus and instruments necessary to deal with

likely emergency situations will be available,” “[r]equired

medical treatment and hospitalization will be provided for all

casualties,” and “[a] physician approved by The Surgeon

General will be responsible for the medical care of

volunteers.” The Army reissued AR 70-25 in 1974 with the

foregoing language unchanged.

In 1975, the Army ceased performing large scale

experiments exposing human subjects to chemical agents. In

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the late 1970s, against a backdrop of mounting public concern

about the long-term effects of such experiments, Army

officials exchanged a series of memoranda outlining a

program for notifying past subjects about the health

consequences of their participation in the experiments. On

August 8, 1979, Army General Counsel Jill Wine-Volner

wrote a memorandum to a number of high-level Army

officials and to the Army Surgeon General. She wrote that

the Secretary of the Army

has concluded that, as a policy matter, some

type of notification program is necessary. 

Moreover, the legal necessity for a

notification program is not open to dispute. 

The Department of Justice has concluded that

another Federal agency ‘may well be held to

have a legal duty to notify those . . . drugtesting subjects whose health [it] has reason to

believe may still be adversely affected by

their prior involvement in [the] drug-testing

program.’

(Omission and alterations in original.)

On September 24, 1979, Wine-Volner wrote another

memorandum, this time to the Director of the Army Staff,

providing “broad guidance” about “a program to notify

participants in Army drug or chemical/biological agent

research programs.” The memorandum provided, inter alia:

The Army should review all research

programs, regardless of whether conducted by

the Army or on behalf of the Army by

independent contractors, that were initiated to

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study possible military, rather than medical,

applications of various drugs and chemical/

biological agents. If there is reason to believe

that any participants in such research

programs face the risk of continuing injury,

those participants should be notified of their

participation and the information known today

concerning the substance they received. This

notification should be [e]ffected regardless of

whether the individuals were fully informed

volunteers at the time the research was

undertaken.

On October 25, 1979,Lieutenant General John McGiffert,

Director of the Army Staff, wrote a memorandum to the

heads of Army staff agencies, “establish[ing] Army Staff

responsibilities for review of past Army research involving

possible military applications of drug or chemical/biological

agents.” He wrote, “The objective of this effort is to identify

and notify those research participants who may face the risk

of continuing injury.” He continued,

Participants in those projects who are

considered by medical authority to be subject

to the possible risk of a continuing injury are

to be notified. In the event that long-term

hazards of a substance are not known, The

Surgeon General (TSG) should continue to

monitor research developments, and if at

some future time more information makes it

necessary to take some action, TSG should

recommend appropriate action, including

notification.

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In 1981 and 1986, the Army took two actions relevant to

the notification program: it amended one record system and

created another. The first system, the Research and

Experimental Case Files, as amended in 1981, compiled a

database about “[v]olunteers (military members, Federal

civilian employees, state prisoners) who participated in Army

tests of potential chemical agents and/or antidotes from the

early 1950’s until the program ended in 1975.” Privacy Act

of 1974; Amendment to System Notice, 46 Fed. Reg. 60,639,

60,640 (Dec. 11, 1981). The purposes of the system were

“(1) to follow up on individuals who voluntarily participated

in Army chemical/biological agent research projects for the

purpose of assessing risks/hazards to them, and (2) for

retrospective medical/scientific evaluation and future

scientific and legal significance.” Id. The second system, the

Medical Research Volunteer Registry, newly created in 1986,

was designed to maintain “[r]ecords of military members,

civilian employees, and non-DOD civilian volunteers

participating in current and future research sponsored by the

U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command.” 

Privacy Act of 1974; New Record System, 51 Fed. Reg.

23,576, 23,577 (June 30, 1986). One of the stated purposes

of the second system was “[t]o assure that the U.S. Army

Medical Research andDevelopmentCommand (USAMRDC)

can contact individuals who participated in research

conducted/sponsored by the Command in order to provide

them with newly acquired information, which may have an

impact on their health.” Id.

In 1988, the Army reissued AR 70-25. The reissued

regulation provided that the Army Surgeon General “will . . .

[d]irect medical followup, when appropriate, on research

subjects to ensure that any long-range problems are detected

and treated.” Chapter 3–1(k) (“subsection (k)”) of the

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reissued version provided, “Volunteers are authorized all

necessary medical care for injury or disease that is a

proximate result of their participation in research.”

The reissued regulation also stated that “commanders will

. . . [e]nsure that research volunteers are adequately informed

concerning the risks associated with their participation, and

provide them with any newly acquired information that may

affect their well-being when that information becomes

available.” Chapter 3–2(h) (“subsection (h)”) specified:

Duty to warn. Commanders have an

obligation to ensure that research volunteers

are adequately informed concerning the risks

involved with their participation in research,

and to provide them with any newly acquired

information that may affect their well-being

when that information becomes available. 

The duty to warn exists even after the

individual volunteer has completed his or her

participation in research. To accomplish this,

the MACOM [(Major Army Commands)] or

agency conducting or sponsoring research

must establish a system which will permit the

identification of volunteers who have

participated in research conducted or

sponsored by that command or agency, and

take actions to notify volunteers of newly

acquired information.

Finally, in what the Army later conceded was a “serious”

editing error, Appendix F provided that “[r]esearch involving

deliberate exposure of human subjects to nuclear weapons

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VIETNAM VETERANS OF AMERICA V. CIA 13

effect, to chemical warfare agents, or to biological warfare

agents” was “exempt from this regulation.”

The Army reissued AR 70-25 two years later. This 1990

revision remains in force today. This revision was, in all

relevant respects but one, the same as the 1988 revision. 

There was, however, one important change — the correction

of the erroneous exemption from coverage of human subjects

who had been deliberately exposed to “nuclear weapon

effect” and to chemical and biological agents. The 1990

“Summary of Change” specified, “This change is published

to correct a serious error that occurred during the final editing

of the current revision. In attempting to respond to guidance

from the Office of The Judge Advocate General that a

subparagraph be moved from the text of the regulation to

appendix F, the wrong sub-paragraph was moved.” Chapter

1–4(d)(4) of AR 70-25 was changed to state explicitly, “The

guidance in this regulation pertains to . . . [r]esearch

involving deliberate exposure of human subjects to nuclear

weapons effect, to chemical warfare agents, or to biological

warfare agents.”

In the decades since the termination of chemical testing

on human subjects, Defendants have identified, contacted,

and notified some of the former subjects. For example, in

1990 DOD contacted 128 veterans who had participated in

World War II mustard gas testing. In 2004, DOD identified

6,387 individuals who had been exposed to mustard gas or

other agents during World War II-era experiments. 

Beginning in March 2005, the VA sent letters to the 319 of

those individuals for whom it could find contact information.

In 2009, Plaintiffs filed suit against DOD, the Army, the

CIA, the VA, and a number of individuals in their official

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capacities. The complaint alleged that the Army was

required, on an ongoing basis, to (1) provide notice to former

test subjects about their exposures to biological and chemical

agents and the currently known health effects of those agents,

and (2) provide medical care to these test subjects for

diseases or conditions proximately caused by their

participation in military experiments.

The district court granted in part and denied in part

Plaintiffs’ motion for partial summary judgment, and granted

in part and denied in part Defendants’ cross-motion for

summary judgment. The court held that the Army has an

ongoing duty to notify former test subjects about newly

available medical and scientific information relating to their

health, and that the Army has not fully complied with that

duty. The court issued an injunction requiring the Army to

comply. The court also concluded that the Army has an

ongoing duty to provide test subjects with medical care, but

it declined to issue an injunction enforcing compliance with

that duty on the ground that medical care was available from

the VA.

The parties cross-appealed.

II. Standard of Review

We review a district court’s summary judgment de novo. 

Or. Natural Res. Council v. Allen, 476 F.3d 1031, 1036 (9th

Cir. 2007). A permanent injunction “‘involves factual, legal,

and discretionary components,’” so we “review a decision to

grant such relief under several different standards.” Momot

v. Mastro, 652 F.3d 982, 986 (9th Cir. 2011) (quoting Walters

v. Reno, 145 F.3d 1032, 1047 (9th Cir. 1998)). We review

legal conclusions underlying the summary judgment de novo,

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VIETNAM VETERANS OF AMERICA V. CIA 15

factual findings for clear error, and the scope of the injunction

for abuse of discretion. Id.

III. Discussion

Section 706(1) of the APA provides that a court “shall

compel agency action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably

delayed.” 5 U.S.C. § 706(1). A court can compel agency

action under this section only if there is “a specific,

unequivocal command” placed on the agency to take a

“discrete agency action,” and the agency has failed to take

that action. Norton v. S. Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA),

542 U.S. 55, 63–64 (2004) (citation omitted). The agency

action must be pursuant to a legal obligation “so clearly set

forth that it could traditionally have been enforced through a

writ of mandamus.” Hells Canyon Pres. Council v. U.S.

Forest Serv., 593 F.3d 923, 932 (9th Cir. 2010). Plaintiffs

argue that AR 70-25 imposes unequivocal commands on the

Armyto provide former test subjects with current information

about their health, and to provide medical care for diseases

caused by the experiments. We agree.

A. Duty to Warn

We conclude that Chapter 3–2(h) of AR 70-25

(“subsection (h)”), as promulgated in 1988 and 1990, requires

the Army to provide former test subjects with “newly

acquired information” regarding their health as that

information becomes available. We agree with the district

court that this “duty to warn” applies not only to future

human subjects, but also to test subjects who participated in

experiments predating the regulation. We hold, further, that

the district court did not abuse its discretion in issuing an

injunction enforcing this duty.

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1. Duty to Warn Under AR 70-25

AR 70-25 obligates the Army to warn volunteers of the

risks of participating in the experiments, and to provide them

with new information “that may affect their well-being” as it

becomes available. Subsection (h) of AR 70-25 provides:

Duty to warn. Commanders have an

obligation to ensure that research volunteers

are adequately informed concerning the risks

involved with their participation in research,

and to provide them with any newly acquired

information that may affect their well-being

when that information becomes available. 

The duty to warn exists even after the

individual volunteer has completed his or her

participation in research. To accomplish this,

the MACOM [(Major Army Commands)] or

agency conducting or sponsoring research

must establish a system which will permit the

identification of volunteers who have

participated in research conducted or

sponsored by that command or agency, and

take actions to notify volunteers of newly

acquired information.

Subsection (h) was added to AR 70-25 in 1988. The text

makes clear that the duty to provide notice applies not only to

possible future subjects but also to former subjects. There is

nothing in subsection (h) that limits its application to those

who volunteered in experiments after the promulgation of the

regulation in 1998. Indeed, subsection (h) specifically

requires Army commanders to identify the volunteers “who

have participated in research conducted or sponsored by that

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command or agency, and take actions to notify volunteers of

newly acquired information.” (Emphasis added.) Similarly,

subsection (h) provides that “[t]he duty to warn exists even

after the individual volunteer has completed his or her

participation in research.”

The Army’s revision of AR 70-25 in 1990 makes even

more compelling our reading of subsection (h). The 1990

version retains the provision of the 1988 regulation that

requires notice to human subjects. But the Army made an

important change in 1990 in stating explicitly that the notice

requirement under AR 70-25 applies to “[r]esearch involving

deliberate exposure of human subjects to nuclear weapons

effect, to chemical warfare agents, or to biological warfare

agents.” Chapter 1–4(d)(4). The 1990 revision would have

made little sense if the notice requirement applied only

prospectively. The only subjects to whom Chapter 1–4(d)(4)

could apply are those who had previously been part of Army

experiments. As the district court stated, “Because the Army

did not [in 1988 or 1990] — and does not — engage in such

ongoing testing, there would have been no reason to add this

language to AR 70-25 in 1990 if the regulation did not

encompass those who had alreadybecome such test subjects.”

Our reading of AR 70-25 is consistent with the internal

agency discussions in the years leading up to the 1988 and

1990 revisions of the regulation. Army memoranda

discussing proposed notification programs all recognized an

obligation to warn individuals who had been subjects in past

research and testing about the potential long-term health

risks, as well as to provide additional information about those

risks when such information became available. For example,

Army General Counsel Jill Wine-Volner wrote in her August

1979 memorandum that “the legal necessity for a notification

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program is not open to dispute.” That led Wine-Volner to

write a second memorandum in September 1979 stating that

“[i]f there is reason to believe that any participants in [the

biological and chemical weapons testing] programs face the

risk of continuing injury, those participants should be notified

of their participation and the information known today

concerning the substance they received.” She wrote, further,

“This notification should be [e]ffected regardless of whether

the individuals were fully informed volunteers at the time the

research was undertaken.”

Our reading is also consistent with the amending and

creating of databases in 1981 and 1986. As we describe

above, in 1981 the Army amended a database that included

members of the military who had previously volunteered for

human testing in order “to follow up on individuals who

voluntarily participated in Army chemical/biological agent

research projects for the purpose of assessing risks/hazards to

them.” Privacy Act of 1974; Amendment to System Notice,

46 Fed. Reg. 60,639, 60,640 (Dec. 11, 1981). Then, in 1986,

the Army created a new database that included members of

the military “participating in current and future research” in

order to “contact individuals who participated” in such

research in order to provide them with “newly acquired

information, which may have an impact on their health.” 

Privacy Act of 1974; New Record System, 51 Fed. Reg.

23,576, 23,577 (June 30, 1986). The Army clearly

anticipated using these databases to provide ongoing medical

health information to the volunteers who had participated in

the Army’s chemical and biological research experiments

before 1988.

Despite the foregoing, Defendants contend that subsection

(h) applies only to human subjects upon whom experiments

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were performed after 1988. They contend that subsection (h)

is ambiguous and that under Auer v. Robbins, 519 U.S. 452

(1997), we must defer to the interpretation that the Army has

proposed during this litigation. We find no ambiguity in the

text of subsection (h). But even if subsection (h)

were ambiguous, Auer deference is inappropriate.

Under Auer, “[a]n administrative rule may receive

substantial deference if it interprets the issuing agency’s own

ambiguous regulation.” Gonzales v. Oregon, 546 U.S. 243,

255 (2006). Auer deference is not warranted in all

circumstances. Deference is not warranted “when there is

reason to suspect that the agency’s interpretation ‘does not

reflect the agency’s fair and considered judgment on the

matter in question.’” Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham

Corp., 132 S. Ct. 2156, 2166 (2012) (quoting Auer, 519 U.S.

at 462). “This might occur when . . . it appears that the

interpretation is nothing more than a ‘convenient litigating

position,’” id. (quotingBowen v. Georgetown Univ. Hospital,

488 U.S. 204, 213 (1988)), or a “‘post hoc rationalizatio[n]’

advanced by an agency seeking to defend past agency action

against attack,” id. (quoting Auer, 519 U.S. at 462) (emphasis

and alteration in original).

The Army’s proposed interpretation of subsection (h) is

a “convenient litigating position” that does not warrant Auer

deference. Defendants acknowledge in their briefing that no

court has previously had occasion to construe the notice

provision of AR 70-25, and they point to no prior

interpretation of this provision by the Army, in litigation or

otherwise. Indeed, according to the district court, the Army

admitted that it “developed [its] interpretation only in the

context of this litigation.”

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We do not believe that the interpretation of the notice

provision of AR 70-25 that the Army now advances is the

“agency’s fair and considered judgment on the matter in

question.” Auer, 519 U.S. at 462. The Army supported its

interpretation of AR 70-25 by relying on the testimony of Dr.

MichaelKilpatrick, Director of Strategic Communicationsfor

the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Health

Affairs. However, we have reason to doubt Dr. Kilpatrick’s

analysis. As the district court observed, “Notably, the agency

representative upon whose interpretation Defendants relywas

mistaken about the date on which the operative parts of the

regulation were amended, suggesting that he did not have a

clear understanding of the context in which these changes

were made.”

The text of AR 70-25 requires the Army to provide

ongoing notice to volunteers who “have participated” in the

Army’s testing programs. We conclude that this duty applies

to human subjects in the pre-1990 experiments.

2. Enforceability Under § 706(1)

Even though AR 70-25 imposes a duty on the Army to

provide notice to prior test subjects of information regarding

their well-being, we can enforce that duty only if the text of

the regulation is a “specific, unequivocal command” to take

“discrete agency action.” SUWA, 542 U.S. at 63–64 (citation

omitted). The duty to warn contained in subsection (h) is

such a command.

We recognize that § 706(1) poses an obstacle for parties

seeking to compel agency action. In SUWA, the Court

explained that parties are entitled to relief under § 706(1)

only if the agency “failed to take a discrete agency action that

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it is required to take,” id. at 64, such as “the failure to

promulgate a rule or take some decision by a statutory

deadline,” id. at 63. The plaintiff in that case, the Southern

Utah Wilderness Alliance, alleged that the Bureau of Land

Management (“BLM”) had failed to manage wilderness study

areas “in a manner so as not to impair the suitability of such

areas for preservation as wilderness,” id. at 65 (quoting 43

U.S.C. § 1782(c)), and that BLM had failed to “manage the

public lands . . . in accordance with the land use plans,” id. at

67 (quoting 43 U.S.C. § 1732(a)). The Court held that the

failures to meet these statutory obligations were “[g]eneral

deficiencies in compliance” rather than failures to comply

with commands to perform discrete actions. Id. at 66. 

Therefore, these obligations “lack[ed]the specificityrequisite

for agency action.” Id.

“It is clear that section 706(1) applies to the situation

where a federal agency refuses to act in disregard of its legal

duty to act.” Equal Employment Opportunity Comm’n v.

Liberty Loan Corp., 584 F.2d 853, 856 (8th Cir. 1978).

Unlike the plaintiffs in SUWA, Plaintiffs have alleged both a

legal duty to perform a discrete agency action and a failure to

perform that action. They assert that the Army has an

ongoing “duty to warn” under subsection (h) of AR 70-25 and

that the Army has refused to perform that duty.

The precise efforts Defendants must take to identify

human subjects in past experiments, and the precise content

of the notice to those subjects who have been identified,

necessarily entail some discretionary judgment. But

discretion in the manner in which the Defendants’ duty may

be carried out does not mean that the Defendants do not have

a duty to perform a “discrete action” within the meaning of

§ 706(a) and SUWA. See SUWA, 542 U.S. at 65 (“[W]hen an

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agency is compelled by law to act . . . but the manner of its

action is left to the agency’s discretion, a court can compel

the agency to act, but has no power to specify what the action

must be.”); Firebaugh Canal Co. v. United States, 203 F.3d

568, 578 (9th Cir. 2000) (“Although the district court can

compel the Department of Interior to provide drainage service

as mandated by the San Luis Act, the district court cannot

eliminate agency discretion as to how it satisfies the drainage

requirement.”).

3. The District Court’s Injunction

The Army argues that the district court’s injunction is

improper in its scope and duration. We disagree.

Under the district court’s injunction, the Army must

provide

individuals who, while serving in the armed

forces, were test subjects in any testing

program in which humans were exposed to a

chemical or biological substance for the

purpose of studying or observing the effects

of such exposure (that was sponsored,

overseen, directed, funded, and/or conducted

by the Department of the Army) . . . with

newly acquired information that may affect

their well-being that it has learned since its

original notification, now and in the future as

it becomes available[.]

Specifically, the injunction directs the Army to provide to

members of the class any information that may affect their

well-being that has been acquired by the Army and/or its

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agents since June 30, 2006, or will be acquired in the future. 

The injunction directs the Army to file with the court a report

“describing the efforts it has undertaken to locate the Newly

Acquired Information,” “confirming whether Newly

Acquired Information has been found and describing

generally its nature,” “explaining the plan it has in its

discretion developed for transmitting Newly Acquired

Information to the class members entitled to notification,”

“committing to transmit the Newly Acquired Information”

within 120 days of the entry of the injunction, and “outlining

the plan and policies it has in its discretion developed for

(i) periodically collecting and transmitting Newly Acquired

Information that becomes available to it after the Entry Date

and (ii) providing any necessary update reports to the Court

regarding such future efforts.”

We hold that the injunction is appropriately tailored to

direct the Army to carry out its duty to warn. In requiring the

Army to tell former test subjects about “newly acquired

information that may affect their well-being,” the injunction

merely reiterates the plain language of AR 70-25’s duty to

warn. As subsection (h) stated, “Commanders have an

obligation to ensure that research volunteers are adequately

informed concerning the risks involved with their

participation in research, and to provide them with any newly

acquired information that may affect their well-being when

that information becomes available.”

The district court did not abuse its discretion in entering

this injunction. It expressly preserves the Army’s ability to

act “in its discretion” to develop the appropriate policies in

order to carry out that duty. It does not prescribe particular

policies that the Army should follow. It does not even

specify the means by which the Army must give that notice. 

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In this respect, the injunction does not amount to

programmatic oversight or “judicial entanglement in abstract

policy disagreements which courts lack both expertise and

information to solve.” SUWA, 542 U.S. at 66. The injunction

simply directs the Army to fulfill its duty under subsection

(h).

B. Duty to Provide Medical Care

Chapter 3–1(k) of AR 70-25 (“subsection (k)”) provides,

“Volunteers are authorized all necessary medical care for

injury or disease that is a proximate result of their

participation in research.” Plaintiffs seek an injunction that

would require the Army to provide that care. The parties

agree that the Army and DOD do not currently provide

medical care to former test subjects “in the absence of those

[individuals] being retirees of the military, medical retirees,

reservists or active duty military.”

We conclude that subsection (k), as promulgated in 1988

and 1990, requires the Army to provide former test subjects

with medical care for any injuries or diseases that were

proximately caused by Army experiments in which they

participated. The fact that the VA provides medical care to

some former test subjects, for reasons independent of AR 70-

25, does not relieve the Army of its duty under that

subsection.

1. Duty to Provide Care Under AR 70-25

The text of subsection (k) compels the conclusion that the

Army must provide care to former test subjects. It provides

that “[v]olunteers are authorized all necessary medical care”

for any injuries or diseases that are the proximate result of

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their participation in Army experiments. The key to a proper

understanding of subsection (k) is the word “authorized.” 

The natural reading of the word “authorized” is that the

volunteers are entitled to receive the “necessary medical

care” specified in the subsection. To take a familiar example,

when a collective bargaining agreement says that an

employee is authorized a certain amount of sick leave, the

employee is entitled to that leave. She must show that she is

actually sick — just as test subjects must show they suffer

from diseases that are a proximate result of their participation

in government experiments — but if she can do so, she is

entitled to take time off for sick leave. The meaning of

“authorized” is no different here.

The background of AR 70-25 is consistent with the

natural reading of “authorized.” The current version of

subsection (k) was promulgated in 1988. But this was not the

first time that the Army pledged to provide medical care. In

the 1962 and 1974 versions of AR 70-25, the Army stated

that “[a]ll apparatus and instruments necessary to deal with

likely emergency situations will be available,” that

“[r]equired medical treatment and hospitalization will be

provided for all casualties,” and that “[a] physician approved

byThe Surgeon General [of the Army] will be responsible for

the medical care of volunteers.” In stating that medical

treatment and hospitalization “will be provided,” the Army

undertook to provide that care. There is no evidence in the

record that the Army intended to restrict volunteers’ access to

medical care when, in the 1988 version of AR 70-25, it

replaced that language with subsection (k). If the Army

intended to go back on its pledge to provide medical care, it

would hardly have done so by providing that “volunteers are

authorized” to receive medical care.

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In its brief, the government accepts that subsection (k)

requires the Army to provide necessary medical care for

injuries or diseases that are the proximate result of

volunteers’ participation in Army experiments. But the Army

reads a temporal limitation into the Army’s obligation to

provide medical care. That is, the Army believes it must

provide medical care to volunteers only for the duration of

their participation in experiments. If the Army is right that

the conceded obligation in subsection (k) contains such a

temporal limitation, Plaintiffs’ claim to ongoing medical care

must fail. However, if the Army is wrong on this point, it has

effectively conceded that it has a duty to provide ongoing

medical care to Plaintiffs.

The government argues in its brief that “the early versions

of AR 70-25 make clear that the only medical care

contemplated under that regulation was care during the

pendency of the relevant testing program itself. Nothing in

any of the later versions of AR 70-25 expands the limited

scope of medical care available beyond the period that an

individual is participating in a specific experiment.” We do

not agree. We see nothing in the text of the current version

of AR 70-25, or its predecessor versions, to support a

conclusion that the Army’s duty to provide medical care ends

as soon as the experiment ends. The Army’s argument is

inconsistent with the plain text of subsection (k), which

states, “Volunteers are authorized all necessary medical care

for injury or disease that is a proximate result of their

participation in research.” Nothing in this language states or

even suggests a temporal restriction on volunteers’

entitlement to receive medical care. Not only is the Army’s

argument inconsistent with the text, but it also makes little

sense. If the Army is right, volunteers were entitled to

medical care if they became sick during the actual

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experiment, but not if they fell sick as a result of the

experiment the day after it ended.

In sum, we agree with the government that subsection (k)

requires the Army to provide medical care to all of those

authorized to receive it. We simply disagree as to the period

during which the care must be provided. The temporal

limitation for which the government argues cannot be found

in the text of subsection (k). Instead, the text compels the

conclusion that the only limitation is causal. We hold, as did

the district court, that “AR 70-25 entitles [Plaintiffs] to

medical care for disabilities, injuries or illnesses caused by

their participation in government experiments,” not only

during the course of the experiment but also after the

experiment has ended.

2. Injunction to Provide Medical Care

Section 706(1) of the APA provides that a reviewing

court “shall . . . compel agency action unlawfully withheld.” 

The word “shall” requires a court to compel agency action

when, as here, there is a “specific, unequivocal command”

that the agency must act. SUWA, 542 U.S. at 63–64 (citation

omitted). “The term ‘shall’ is usually regarded as making a

provision mandatory, and the rules of statutory construction

presume that the term is used in its ordinary sense unless

there is clear evidence to the contrary.” Firebaugh Canal

Co., 203 F.3d at 573–74; cf. United States v. Monsanto,

491 U.S. 600, 607 (1989) (finding that “Congress could not

have chosen stronger words to express its intent that

forfeiture be mandatory” than to state that a court “shall”

order forfeiture).

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In Forest Guardians v. Babbitt, 174 F.3d 1178 (10th Cir.

1999), the Tenth Circuit held that once a failure to act has

been established under § 706(1), the reviewing court must

compel the agency to act. Id. at 1187. The Tenth Circuit

recognized that while a court generally has discretion to deny

injunctive relief to remedy a statutory violation, “Congress

may ‘restrict[] the court’s jurisdiction in equity’ by making

injunctive relief mandatory for a violation.” Id. (alteration in

original) (quoting Weinberger v. Romero-Barcelo, 456 U.S.

305, 313 (1982)). The Tenth Circuit held that “when a statute

uses the word ‘shall,’” as § 706(1) does, “Congress has

imposed a mandatoryduty upon the subject of the command.” 

Id. We agree with the Tenth Circuit that § 706(1) requires a

reviewing court to issue injunctive relief whenever it finds

that an agency action has been unlawfully withheld. Id.

The district court concluded that the Army is required

under subsection (k) to provide necessary medical care on an

ongoing basis, but held that an injunction was unnecessary,

given the availability of medical care from the VA. The court

explained that it would “not enjoin one government agency

to provide health care when another agency has been

congressionally mandated to do so.” Notably, however, the

district court did not hold that the availability of medical care

from the VA rendered Plaintiffs’ request for an injunction

moot. Nor do Defendants argue to us that the availability of

medical care from the VA renders the Plaintiffs’ request

moot. We can readily see why they do not make such an

argument, for there is nothing in the record upon which to

base a conclusion that the medical care available from the VA

would be equal in scope and quality to the medical care that

Plaintiffs claim is owed to them by the Army. Indeed, the

government admitted in the district court that it does not

provide medical care to former test subjects “in the absence

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of those [former subjects] being retirees of the military,

medical retirees, reservists or active duty military.” In the

absence of mootness, we cannot agree that the Army’s duty

to provide care is excused by the availability of medical care

from another government agency, even if that care that would

overlap to some degree and in some manner with the care that

the Army is required to provide.

We hold that the district court may not, in the absence of

mootness, categorically deny injunctive relief to former

volunteer subjects seeking necessary medical care because

some former subjects may be entitled to receive medical care

from another government agency. Given the present posture

of the case, however, we do not address whether and in what

manner the district court might nonetheless take the VA’s

provision of medical care into account in formulating an

injunction on remand.

Conclusion

We hold that Chapter 3–2(h) of AR 70-25 imposes a duty

on the Army to provide all former test subjects with newly

acquired information that may affect their well-being, and

that this duty is judicially enforceable under § 706(1). We

hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion in

entering its injunction to enforce that duty. We hold, further,

that the district court was right to find that Chapter 3–1(k)

imposes a duty to provide medical care. The district court did

not, however, have the power to decline to compel care on the

ground that another agency was providing similar care to

some former test subjects. We therefore vacate the district

court’s summary judgment for the government on this claim

and remand to the district court.

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AFFIRMED in part, REVERSED and REMANDED in

part.

WALLACE, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting

in part:

I agree that the text of AR 70-25 unequivocally

commands the Army to provide certain newly acquired

information to all former research volunteers when that

information becomes available. Because the Army has

“unlawfully withheld” agency action by denying that it owes

this duty to certain past volunteers, I join the majority in

affirming the district court’s judgment and injunction

compelling the Army to comply with AR 70-25’s clear

regulatory mandate. See 5 U.S.C. § 706(1). I write separately

in concurrence on this point only because I do not join the

majority’s analysis of regulatory history to support its textual

analysis.

I dissent, however, from the majority’s conclusion that

AR70-25 also contains a “specific, unequivocal command”

that the Army provide medical care to former research

volunteers. I would affirm the district court’s decision to

grant summary judgment against Plaintiffs on their claims for

medical care, but on the alternative ground that their claim is

not judicially enforceable under section 706(1) of the

Administrative Procedure Act (APA).

I.

“Section 706(1) of the APA . . . serves important interests,

but [it] does not give us license to ‘compel agency action’

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whenever the agency is withholding or delaying an action we

think it should take.” Hells Canyon Pres. Council v. U.S.

Forest Serv., 593 F.3d 923, 932 (9th Cir. 2010). Rather, our

authority to “compel agency action” is “carefully

circumscribed to situations where an agency has ignored a

specific . . . command,” id., that is located in a federal statute

or “agency regulation[] that ha[s] the force of law,” Norton v.

S. Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), 542 U.S. 55, 65 (2004).

Moreover, the “purportedly withheld action must not only be

‘discrete,’” Hells Canyon, 593 F.3d at 932, meaning that it

must be a “precise, definite act,” SUWA, 542 U.S. at 63, “but

also ‘legally required,’” 593 F.3d at 932, meaning that the

text of the statute or regulation contains an “unequivocal

command” about which an official has “no discretion

whatever,” 542 U.S. at 63 (internal quotation marks omitted),

such that the duty “could traditionally have been enforced

through a writ of mandamus.” Hells Canyon, 593 F.3d at 932.

A.

Our analysis must focus exclusively on the text of the

relevant statutes or regulations to determine whether this

standard is satisfied. This purely textual approach, amounting

to a “clear-statement rule,” is not unique to the section 706(1)

context. It is indispensable whenever a statute requires us to

determine whether a particular text obligates agency actors to

assume a specific duty or to perform a discrete act.

Like an action brought under section 706(1) of the APA,

for example, a citizen suit may be brought under section

505(a)(2) of the Clean Water Act only where plaintiffs

“allege[] a failure of the [EPA] Administrator to perform any

act or duty under this chapter which is not discretionary with

the Administrator.” 33 U.S.C. § 1365(a)(2). If plaintiffs are

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to succeed in their citizen suit against the Administrator, we

have held that “the nondiscretionary nature of the duty must

be clear-cut—that is, readily ascertainable from the statute

allegedly giving rise to the duty.” WildEarth Guardians v.

McCarthy, 772 F.3d 1179, 1182 (9th Cir. 2014). In other

words, “[w]e must be able to identify a ‘specific, unequivocal

command’ from the text of the statute at issue using

traditional tools of statutory interpretation; it’s not enough

that such a command could be teased out ‘from an

amalgamation of disputed statutory provisions and legislative

history coupled with the [agency’s] own earlier

interpretation.’” Id. (emphasis added), quoting Our

Children’s Earth Found. v. E.P.A., 527 F.3d 842, 851 (9th

Cir. 2008) (stating that plaintiffs must “point to a

nondiscretionary duty that is readily-ascertainable and not

only [] the product of a set of inferences based on the overall

statutory scheme” (alteration in original) (internal quotation

marks omitted)).

B.

Because our inquiry under section 706(1) is necessarily

limited to whether the text of the relevant Army regulations

states a specific, unequivocal command to take discrete

agency action, I cannot join the majority’s perusal of

“internal agency discussions in the years leading up to the

1988 and 1990 revisions of [AR 70-25],” nor its discussion of

the Army’s creation of volunteer databases in 1981 and 1986.

The majority includes these historical observations because

it believes they support our reading of AR 70-25. They do, of

course, but that is irrelevant. Our job is to determine only

whether a statute or regulation itself objectively creates a

mandatory duty. As we have previously held, it is

inappropriate “for us to divine a ‘specific, unequivocal

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command,’ from an amalgamation of disputed statutory

provisions and legislative history coupled with the [agency’s]

own earlier interpretation.” Our Children’s Earth Found.,

527 F.3d at 851, quoting SUWA, 542 U.S. at 63. To be sure,

the majority does not rely exclusively—or even chiefly—on

non-textual sources in concluding that the Army has an

unequivocal duty to warn. But by including a discussion of

regulatory history and historical facts in support of its textual

analysis, the majority improperly suggests that these extratextual sources and observations have some bearing on

whether we are authorized to compel unlawfully withheld

agency action under section 706(1). I write separately to

dispel any doubt: they do not. I thus join in the result but not

that part of the majority’s analysis.

II.

I dissent from the majority’s conclusion that AR 70-25

creates an unequivocal duty for the Army, enforceable under

section 706(1), to provide medical care to former research

volunteers. As stated above, the Supreme Court’s standard

under section 706(1) for compelling agency action is

demanding. See SUWA, 542 U.S. at 63. We ourselves have

explained that we can compel agency action only when the

legal obligation is “so clearly set forth that it could

traditionally have been enforced through a writ of

mandamus.” Hells Canyon, 593 F.3d at 932.

Only two provisions of AR 70-25, as promulgated in

1988, could potentially provide the basis for a judicially

enforceable duty to provide medical care. Neither does.

A.

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1.

The first is Chapter 3-1(k) (subsection (k)), which

provides, “Volunteers are authorized all necessary medical

care for injury or disease that is a proximate result of their

participation in research.” This subsection is not an

“unequivocal command” to provide medical care. That is,

while the authorization in subsection (k) certainly removes a

barrier to volunteers’ receipt of medical care—making it

clear, at least, that volunteers should not be denied medical

care for lack of authorization—it does not clearly require the

Army to provide medical care. This is a far cry from the

typical mandatory language we usually require in section

706(1) cases. See Rivas v. Napolitano, 714 F.3d 1108, 1111

(9th Cir. 2013) (observing that “[t]he mandatory language

used in the regulation makes the act of reconsideration nondiscretionary”).

The majority, of course, believes the more “natural

reading” of the word “authorized” is that “the volunteers are

entitled to receive the ‘necessary medical care’ specified in

the subsection.” But regardless of how “natural” the majority

believes its reading to be, it is not the only plausible reading.

The only thing that subsection (k) makes clear is that

volunteers are authorized to receive medical care, which is

one or two logical steps away from the majority’s conclusion

that the Army has a legal obligation to provide them with that

medical care. Although it is possible to read into the text of

subsection (k) the assumption that the authorization is the

only thing volunteers need in order to be entitled to medical

care, and the assumption that the Army has a duty to provide

medical care to anyone who is entitled to it, it is also possible

to read the text of subsection (k) without those assumptions.

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Because the text is reasonably open to interpretation, it does

not state an unequivocal command.

The majority derives no legitimate support for its position

from examining the now-defunct 1962 and 1974 versions of

AR 70-25. For the reasons stated in Part I of my separate

opinion, this history is simply irrelevant to the textual

analysis the Supreme Court requires us to undertake when

analyzing a section 706(1) claim. SUWA, 542 U.S. at 63.

2.

Subsection (k)’s “authorization” for medical care, in

addition to not being legally required, also is not discrete

agency action. Discrete agency action for purposes of section

706(1) is a “precise, definite act,” like the promulgating of a

rule or the taking of some decision by a statutory deadline.

SUWA, 542 U.S. at 63. The phrase “[v]olunteers are

authorized all necessary medical care for injury or disease

that is a proximate result of their participation in research,”

does not qualify as “the ordering of a ‘precise, definite act . . .

about which [an official] ha[s] no discretion whatever.’” Id.

This is most easily demonstrated by comparing subsection (k)

to subsection (h)—the “duty to warn” subsection—which

does command discrete agency action.

Subsection (h) unambiguously identifies which agency or

officers (“Commanders”; “MACOM”) are “legally required”

(“have an obligation”; “must establish”) to perform a

“discrete action,” (“provide [volunteers] with any newly

acquired information”) which is described “precise[ly]” and

“definite[ly]”:

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• What: “information that may affect their wellbeing”;

• When: “when [it] becomes available” and “even

after the individual volunteer has completed his or

her participation in research”;

• To Whom: “research volunteers”—“[t]o

accomplish this, [the Army] must establish a

system which will permit identification of

volunteers who have participated in research . . .

and take actions to notify volunteers of newly

acquired information.”

Subsection (k), in contrast, leaves us to guess at which

agency officer is obligated to provide the medical care

(assuming, of course, that “authorized” means “required”—it

does not), what such medical care would consist of, or when

and how long medical care must be provided (only during

research? only in “emergency” situations? forever?). As a

result, subsection (k) “lack[s] the specificity requisite for

agency action.” SUWA, 542 U.S. at 66.

B.

Only one other provision of AR 70-25 could possibly

provide the basis for a judicially enforceable duty to provide

medical care: Chapter 2-5(j) (subsection (j)). Subsection (j)

provides, “The Surgeon General . . . will . . . [d]irect medical

followup, when appropriate, on research subjects to ensure

that any long-range problems are detected and treated.”

Subsection (j), like subsection (k), lacks the usual language

of obligation. Subsection (j) contemplates action by the Army

Surgeon General only “when appropriate.” That grant of

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discretion prevents us from concluding that this language

represents a “specific, unequivocal command” directing the

Surgeon General to provide medical care.

C.

For these reasons I would affirm the district court’s

summary judgment against Plaintiffs on their claims for

medical care, but on the alternative ground that their claim is

not judicially enforceable under section 706(1) of the APA.

I am not unsympathetic to the notion that those who have

served our country—especially those who have risked their

health and well-being in that service—should have access to

appropriate medical care. However, the Supreme Court has

counseled us, and we have recognized, that “[e]ven if a court

believes that the agency is withholding or delaying an action

the court believes it should take, the ‘ability to compel agency

action is carefully circumscribed to situations where an

agency has ignored a specific legislative command.’”

Gardner v. U.S. Bureau of Land Mgmt., 638 F.3d 1217,

1221–22 (9th Cir. 2011), quoting Hells Canyon, 593 F.3d at

932. “As much as we as citizens are concerned with the plight

of veterans seeking the prompt provision of the health care

and benefits . . . as judges we may not exceed our

jurisdiction.” Veterans for Common Sense v. Shinseki,

678 F.3d 1013, 1016 (9th Cir. 2012) (en banc). I am therefore

compelled to dissent from this part of the majority opinion.

 Case: 13-17430, 06/30/2015, ID: 9593403, DktEntry: 46-1, Page 37 of 37