Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-07-07164/USCOURTS-caDC-07-07164-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 7, 2008 Decided March 6, 2009

No. 07-7163

CALVERT L. POTTER, ET AL.,

APPELLEES

v.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,

APPELLANT

Consolidated with No. 07-7164

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 01cv01189)

Richard S. Love, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Office

of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, argued the

cause for appellant. With him on the briefs were Peter J.

Nickles, Interim Attorney General, Todd S. Kim, Solicitor

General, and Donna M. Murasky, Deputy Solicitor General.

Joshua A. Doan, argued the cause for appellees. With him

on the brief were William D. Iverson and Arthur B. Spitzer.

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Before: ROGERS and TATEL, Circuit Judges, and WILLIAMS,

Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court by Circuit Judge ROGERS.

Concurring opinion by Senior Judge WILLIAMS.

ROGERS, Circuit Judge: The District of Columbia requires

its firefighters and emergency medical service (“EMS”) workers

(together “firefighters”) to be clean shaven. A number of

firefighters who wear beards for religious reasons challenged

this requirement under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act,

42 U.S.C. § 2000bb et seq. (“RFRA”). The district court

granted summary judgment to the firefighters upon finding that

the District of Columbia had not shown a material issue as to

whether the requirement was narrowly tailored. Specifically, the

district court found the District of Columbia had conceded the

safety for bearded firefighters of one form of respirator (known

as a “SCBA”). We agree the District of Columbia failed to

satisfy its burden in opposing summary judgment by setting

forth specific evidence showing a triable issue of fact as to the

safety of the SCBA, and we affirm.

I.

Because this case centers on the efficacy of certain safety

equipment for bearded firefighters, it is helpful first to describe

the environments in which firefighters work and the protective

equipment they use. We then turn to the district court

proceedings, focusing particularly on the District of Columbia’s

position regarding the safety of the self-contained breathing

respirator. Upon setting forth our standard of review, RFRA

requirements, and the non-moving party’s burden in opposing

summary judgment, we review the record to determine whether

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the District of Columbia raised a material issue of disputed fact

about the safety of SCBAs for bearded firefighters.

A.

 Firefighters encounter dangerous atmospheres. The most

dangerous areas, classified as “immediately dangerous to life

and health,” include all active fires, other oxygen-deprived

environments, and settings in which highly toxic contaminants

may be inhaled. Other areas pose a lesser threat, and still other

areas pose no threat at all. When firefighters do not know the

threat posed by an environment, they must treat it as

immediately dangerous to life and health. 

Firefighters can protect themselves by using a number of

forms of respiratory equipment, all of which use the same tightfitting face mask. The most powerful, a self-contained breathing

apparatus, or SCBA, consists of an air tank, a regulator, and a

mask. A SCBA is designed to maintain “positive pressure” in

the face mask — that is, the atmospheric pressure is greater

inside the mask than outside. Testimony from both parties

indicates that, as a result, a leak in the seal of the face mask will

cause clean air to leak out of the mask into the outside

atmosphere, rather than allowing contaminated outside air to

leak in. The District of Columbia’s “respiratory protection plan”

requires firefighters to use SCBAs in environments that are

actually or potentially immediately dangerous to life and health,

although EMS workers are not trained at all in the use of

SCBAs.

Although this appeal focuses on the safety of SCBAs for

bearded firefighters, much of the district court proceeding

concerned the safety of two other systems: An air-purifying

filter, or APR, consists of a mask and a filter through which the

user breathes. An APR relies on the negative pressure created

by inhalation to draw outside air through the filter. A powered

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air-purifying filer, or PAPR, operates like an APR, but uses a

battery-powered fan to force air through its filter. It is thus

designed to create positive pressure inside the mask. 

B.

In 2001, the D.C. Department of Fire and Emergency

Medical Services implemented a “grooming policy” that

prohibited beards. A number of firefighters challenged the

policy under RFRA, and the district court preliminarily enjoined

enforcement of the policy. The Department accommodated the

plaintiffs for a time but in 2005 issued a separate “safety

policy,” which forbade Department employees who use “tightfitting facepieces” to have “facial hair that comes between the

sealing surface of the facepiece and face.” The firefighters

sought various forms of relief including a permanent injunction

and clarification as to whether the 2001 injunction on the

grooming policy also applied to the new safety clean-shaven

policy. The District of Columbia moved for a judgment as a

matter of law declaring the new policy not in violation of RFRA.

On August 11, 2005, based on extensive briefing and a

daylong hearing, the district court modified the 2001 injunction

to allow the Department to assign to administrative duty

employees who could not pass “face-fit tests,” and also to

require the Department to afford the firefighters a reasonable

opportunity to demonstrate they could pass the tests. Potter v.

District of Columbia, 382 F. Supp. 2d 35 (D.D.C. 2005). In its

opinion, the district court stated:

It is undisputed that firefighters who wear beards can

safely operate the positive pressure self contained

breathing apparatus (SCBA) that firefighters use in

situations considered to be immediately dangerous to

life and health [in part because] any break in the seal

between a firefighter’s face and his SCBA mask will

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cause air from the tank to blow out, due to positive

pressure, preventing air from the surrounding

environment from entering the mask. The

disagreement in this case concerns the safe operation

of negative pressure masks by firefighters.

Id. at 39 (emphasis added). A month later, a group of EMS

workers sued to establish that the modified injunction applied to

them, and the district court consolidated the cases. 

Considerable wrangling followed, as some plaintiffs passed the

fit tests, some failed subsequent tests, and both parties moved

for summary judgment — the District of Columbia on July 7,

2006, with the firefighters responding on October 13, 2006 and

cross-moving for summary judgment on October 16, 2006. 

The district court granted summary judgment to the

firefighters. Potter v. District of Columbia, Nos. 01-1189, 05-

1792, Mem. Op. at 2 (D.D.C. Sept. 28, 2007) (“2007 Mem.

Op.”). As in the 2005 opinion, the district court reasoned that

because “the Department now apparently concedes that the

positive pressure in the SCBA system is adequate to protect the

bearded firefighter from any leakage that may be caused by

facial hair,” the case turned on whether bearded firefighters

could safely wear APRs, and whether they need to do be able to

do so. Id. at 13. The District of Columbia had argued that its

clean-shaven policy was necessary because firefighters must be

able to safely use APRs so that they could work for long periods

in an environment, such as the aftermath of a terrorist attack,

which is not imminently dangerous to life and health but still

poses a threat. Mem. in Opp’n to Pls’ Mot. for Summ. J. 10-11.

The district court concluded that the clean-shaven policy was

not sufficiently narrowly tailored, as required under RFRA,

because in such an environment the Department could redeploy

bearded firefighters out of the zone in which APRs would be

required, either “up” into areas in which SCBA systems were

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required, or “down” into areas in which no protection was

needed. 2007 Mem. Op. at 23. The district court denied the

District of Columbia’s motion for reconsideration, and the

District of Columbia appeals.

II.

On appeal, the District of Columbia does not challenge the

district court’s finding that bearded firefighters could be

redeployed away from areas in which a negative-air pressure

mask (ARP) is required. Instead it contends that it never

conceded bearded firefighters can safely use SCBAs and indeed

argued the opposite. Thus it maintains that summary judgment

was inappropriately granted because it raised a genuine issue of

material fact as to the safety for bearded firefighters to wear any

type of tight-fitting face mask, regardless of whether the mask

is used in a positive or negative configuration. 

A.

This court reviews the grant of summary judgment de novo,

Royall v. Nat’l Ass'n of Letter Carriers, AFL-CIO, 548 F.3d 137,

143 (D.C. Cir. 2008). The firefighters’ suggestion that our

review is confined to the lenient abuse of discretion standard

misconceives the issue before the court. They offer that the

district court’s denial of reconsideration — wherein the District

of Columbia first objected as it does on appeal that it had never

conceded SCBAs are safe for bearded firefighters — was “a

case-management ruling” disallowing an opportunity for the

District of Columbia to change its position, and as such

reviewable only for abuse of discretion, see, e.g., Nat’l

Westminister Bank, PLC v. United States, 512 F.3d 1347, 1363

(Fed. Cir. 2008); Berry v. Dist. of Columbia, 833 F.2d 1031,

1037 n.24 (D.C. Cir. 1987). As the firefighters see it, the

propriety of the rejection is “the only real issue” now.

Appellees’ Br. 24, 26. It is true that if this court agrees the

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1

 After City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997), RFRA does not

apply to state governments. Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita

Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal, 546 U.S. 418, 424 n.1 (2006).

District of Columbia conceded the safety of SCBAs for bearded

firefighters, then our review of the district court’s decision not

to allow the District of Columbia to raise the issue anew would

be for abuse of discretion. See Connors v. Hallmark & Son Coal

Co., 935 F.2d 336, 341 n.9 (D.C. Cir. 1991). This appeal turns

on a different question, however. This court must determine

whether the District of Columbia made an affirmative showing

of the opposite. Put differently, this court must decide whether

the District of Columbia’s contention that SCBA systems are not

safe really is a new argument. That issue, integral to the district

court’s ruling on the merits of summary judgment, must be

reviewed de novo. Id.

Under RFRA, the federal government and the District of

Columbia1

 may not substantially burden a person’s exercise of

religion unless the government “demonstrates that application of

the burden to the person – (1) is in furtherance of a compelling

governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of

furthering that compelling governmental interest.” 42 U.S.C. 

§ 2000bb-1; see Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente

Uniao do Vegetal, 546 U.S. 418, 424 (2006). The statute makes

clear that “the term ‘demonstrates’ means meets the burdens of

going forward with the evidence and of persuasion.” 42 U.S.C.

§ 2000bb-2(3). The parties agree that the firefighters wear

beards because of sincere religious beliefs and that their safety

and the safety of those they assist is a compelling government

interest. The issue on which the appeal ultimately turns, then,

is whether the clean-shaven requirement is the least restrictive

means to protect the safety of firefighters.

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Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(c) “mandates the entry

of summary judgment, after adequate time for discovery and

upon motion, against a party who fails to make a showing

sufficient to establish the existence of an element essential to

that party’s case, and on which that party will bear the burden of

proof at trial.” Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-23

(1986); see FED, R. CIV. P. 56(c). Because RFRA obliges the

government to show that a policy that burdens religious freedom

is the least restrictive means to further a compelling interest, the

District of Columbia can only survive a summary judgment

motion by showing that it has established a genuine issue as to

whether its clean-shaven requirement is narrowly tailored to

further the interest of protecting firefighters — that is, it must

demonstrate it argued and proffered evidence to show that

SCBAs are not safe for bearded firefighters. See FED, R. CIV.

P. 56(e). It will not suffice to make that argument for the first

time on appeal, NRM Corp. v. Hercules, Inc., 758 F.2d 676, 680

(D.C. Cir. 1985), for while review of the grant of summary

judgment is de novo, this court reviews only those arguments

that were made in the district court, absent exceptional

circumstances, see Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U.S. 106, 120 (1976);

Woodruff v. Peters, 482 F.3d 521, 525 (D.C. Cir. 2007);

Roosevelt v. E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., 958 F.2d 416, 419

n.5 (D.C. Cir. 1992); see also 10A CHARLES A. WRIGHT,

ARTHUR R.MILLER,&MARY K.KANE,FEDERAL PRACTICE AND

PROCEDURE § 2716 at 282-85 & nn.12-13 (3d ed. 1998).

B.

On appeal, the District of Columbia suggests two possible

reasons that SCBAs might be unsafe for bearded firefighters: (1)

a firefighter might “overbreathe” his respirator by inhaling so

vigorously that the regulator is unable to supply sufficient clean

air to maintain positive pressure, thus drawing in contaminated

air through a leak in the face mask seal, or (2) even if positive

pressure is maintained, a leak of clean air out of the mask will

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exhaust the air supply more quickly than would otherwise

happen. See Appellant’s Br. 13. However, the record shows the

District of Columbia never advanced, and in fact disavowed, any

arguments to that effect before the summary judgment stage.

In a motions hearing in 2005, the Assistant Attorney

General explicitly disavowed any claim that SCBAs were

dangerous for bearded firefighters either because any leaks

would shorten the tank life of SCBA gear or because there was

a low-level long-term risk associated with that gear. The

Assistant stated, “that’s not what we’re worried about,” and

clarified that the District of Columbia’s policy was instead

necessary for “a situation where [firefighters] have to go into a

contaminated area for an extended period of time, [like] the

World Trade Center,” — i.e., a situation that the District of

Columbia maintained would require the use of APRs. Mot.

Hr’g Tr. 6 (June 13, 2005). In the evidentiary hearing shortly

thereafter, Fire Safety Officer Captain William Flint described

the effect of the positive-pressure SCBA system this way: “[I]f

there is a leakage there, the air will then move out from the

inside of the face piece, protecting the wearer from toxic

atmospheres.” Mot. Hr’g Tr. 89 (Aug. 1, 2005). The

firefighters’ expert had declared in 2001 that SCBAs are safe for

bearded firefighters for the same reason. Decl. of Alexander

Santora (May 25, 2001).

Given these representations by the District of Columbia and

the evidence from the firefighters, it is little wonder that the

district court soon afterwards summarized the case as focused on

the safe operation of negative-pressure systems, i.e., APRs,

because it was “undisputed that firefighters who wear beards can

safely operate” positive-pressure SCBAs. Potter, 382 F. Supp.

2d at 39. Indeed, the District of Columbia affirmatively adopted

this framing of the issue in its 2006 motion for summary

judgment, arguing that the evidence showed that “None of the

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Plaintiffs Can Safely [Wear] Issued Negative Pressure

Face-Pieces.” Id. (emphasis added). 

Of course, the District of Columbia was free to take a

different position in opposing the firefighters’ motion for

summary judgment, and it is its position in opposition that is

relevant here. See Hester v. District of Columbia, 505 F.3d

1283, 1287 (D.C. Cir. 2007). It could have done so in its

response to the firefighters’ statement of undisputed facts or in

its memorandum in opposition to summary judgment. It did not

meet its burden in either. Under Rule 7(h) of the district court’s

local rules, the moving party must submit a statement of

material facts as to which it asserts there is no genuine issue,

D.D.C. R. LCvR 7(h), and the district court may accept these

facts as true if the opposing party does not dispute them,

Waterhouse v. District of Columbia, 298 F.3d 989, 992 (D.C.

Cir. 2002); Jackson v. Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett

& Dunner, 101 F.3d 145, 154 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (construing

predecessor to local rule 7(h)); see FED. R. CIV. P. 56(e). 

The firefighters asserted in paragraph 5 of their Rule 7(h)

statement that because a SCBA “supplies a continuous flow of

pressurized air,” any imperfection in the mask seal would result

in air flowing out of the mask, rather than in, and that “[i]t is

therefore not dangerous for a firefighter to work in a hazardous

environment using a[] SCBA.” Pls.’ Statement of Undisputed

Material Facts In Support of Pls.’ Mot. for Summ. J. at ¶ 5.

They cited their expert’s testimony to this effect as well as the

District of Columbia’s statement that SCBAs present no

imminent danger to bearded firefighters and that the cleanshaven policy was not designed to address any problems arising

from SCBA devices. The firefighters thus offered evidence

showing an absence of a genuine dispute about SCBA safety.

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In response, the District of Columbia did not directly

address the assertion that it is safe for firefighters to use a

SCBA. Instead, its Rule 7(h) statement generally disputed “the

statements in paragraph 5” and went on to explain that a SCBA

does not supply “a continuous flow of pressurized air,” but only

supplies air when the pressure in the mask falls below a certain

level, presumably when the user inhales in a well-sealed mask.

Def.’s Resp. to Pls.’ Statement of Material Facts to Which There

Is No Genuine Issue at 3. The response clarified that “[i]f an

acceptable seal is not maintained, an inward flow of air comes

through the regulator during exhalation or during the pause

between breaths. This feature of the pressure-demand regulator

helps to conserve the supply of air carried on the wearers [sic]

back.” Id. The expert declaration supported these statements.

On appeal, the District of Columbia contends its Rule 7(h)

response suggested the possibility of pulling contaminated air

into the face mask through “overbreathing.” Fairly read, and

according all reasonable inferences to the District of Columbia

as the non-moving party, its response cannot support this

reading. Instead, the response simply addresses whether a

properly functioning SCBA system supplies air all the time or

only when a user inhales, pointing out that the firefighters had

incorrectly stated that SCBAs supply air continuously when in

fact they supply air only as needed. The response does not

contradict the fundamental notion that SCBAs can be worn

safely by bearded firefighters in hazardous environments.

Indeed, the last sentence of the Rule 7(h) statement — “[t]his

feature of the pressure-designed regulator helps to conserve the

supply of air carried on the wearer’s back” — renders the

response susceptible only to the interpretation that the District

of Columbia was explaining the mechanism by which clean air

enters the face mask from the tank. Further, the text cannot

support the District of Columbia’s reading as addressing

“overbreathing” because the response stated that an imperfect

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seal would cause air to come through “the regulator,” i.e., from

the air tank, through the regulator, into the mask, not from the

outside atmosphere into the mask. Given the opportunity and

the burden to dispute the safety of SCBAs, the District of

Columbia instead offered only a technical quibble that did not

reach the fundamental issue. On summary judgment, the district

court is to give credence to uncontradicted and unimpeached

evidence supporting the moving party, and so the district court

could properly take the firefighters’ assertion of SCBA safety as

true. See Jackson, 101 F.3d 145 at 154.

The District of Columbia also failed in its memorandum in

opposition to summary judgment to show that the safety of

SCBAs was a genuine disputed issue. On appeal, the District of

Columbia points out that its memorandum stated that “[e]ven

when used in a positive pressure configuration, use of a tight

fitting face-piece [with a beard] presents an unacceptable risk to

the wearer’s health.” In isolation this statement about positivepressure systems appears to support the District of Columbia’s

position that it contested the safety of SCBAs. Viewed in

context the more likely interpretation is that the response

focused on the “powered air-purifying respirator” (“PAPR”),

another positive-pressure system that was a primary point of

contention in the litigation, although the statement could

nonetheless plausibly have resuscitated an argument that SCBAs

were unsafe. But if this statement was intended as such an

assertion, it was unsupported by evidence because it is followed

by a citation to paragraphs 23 and 24 of Dr. McKay’s

declaration, which do not address SCBAs, or even positivepressure systems in general, but rather the possible long-term

health effects to which firefighters may be exposed through the

use of ill-fitting face masks — effects that would presumably

apply to both positive- and negative-pressure systems. Certainly

there is no trace of evidence regarding overbreathing or

premature air tank depletion, the pitfalls the District of

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Columbia now maintains it addressed. Thus, if in this single

sentence the District of Columbia was (1) recanting its earlier

representation that the clean-shaven policy was not designed to

address safety concerns related to SCBA use and that no such

concerns exist, (2) arguing that the clean-shaven policy was in

fact designed to address such concerns, and (3) contesting the

safety of SCBA devices specifically, the District of Columbia

offered only the kind of “merely colorable or not significantly

probative” evidence that is insufficient to defeat a summary

judgment motion. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S.

242, 249-50 (1986) (citations omitted). 

As regards other evidence referenced by the District of

Columbia on appeal, it was not cited in opposing the

firefighters’ motion for summary judgment. For example, the

testimony by Captain Flint that a tight face seal is important

because a face mask leak in a SCBA system could hasten the

exhaustion of the air supply: “[R]educed service life is an issue

as well, and we need to make sure that we’re maintaining as

much air as possible in the cylinder, which then gets in to the

firefighter’s lungs, instead of wasting it by letting creep outside

of the face piece.” Mot. Hr’g Tr. 102 (Aug. 1, 2005). None of

the District of Columbia’s pleadings or oral argument in the

district court cited this testimony or argued that cannister

depletion is a safety concern, or indeed a concern at all. “It is

well settled that issues and legal theories not asserted at the

District Court level ordinarily will not be heard on appeal.”

District of Columbia v. Air Fla., Inc., 750 F.2d 1077, 1084 (D.C.

Cir. 1984); NRM Corp., 758 F.2d at 680. The District of

Columbia bore the burden of pointing to evidence that could

create an issue of material fact as to the safety of SCBAs and

arguing that the safety issue remained; evidence laying dormant

in the record is not enough, for the district court is not “obliged

to sift through hundreds of pages of depositions, affidavits, and

interrogatories in order to make [its] own analysis and

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determination of what may, or may not, be a genuine issue of

material disputed fact.” Twist v. Meese, 854 F.2d 1421, 1425

(D.C. Cir. 1988); see Jackson, 101 F.3d at 151. In any event, at

most, Captain Flint’s statement could be evidence that would

support an argument about safety, but the testimony alone is not

itself such an argument, especially given that shortly before the

testimony, the Assistant Attorney General disavowed any safety

concerns based on premature canister depletion. Mot. Hr’g Tr.

at 6 (June 13, 2005) (“Now you will have the lifetime that you

can spend in a fire reduced, because every time there’s a break

in the seal and the air has to blow, that’s air that’s not in your

tank, but maybe an hour tank will last 45 minutes. That’s not

what we’re worried about.”). 

The District of Columbia also points to scientific articles,

federal safety regulations, and manufacturer directions

referenced by two declarations by Dr. McKay. All but one of

these sources (the NIOSH standards) were cited by Dr. McKay

in his first declaration in 2005 but not resubmitted or even

referenced in the District of Columbia’s opposition to summary

judgment. Moreover, Dr. McKay’s declaration appears to cite

these sources for the general proposition that beards may

compromise a face mask seal and therefore the efficacy of

respirators, without distinguishing between risks for negativeand positive-pressure systems. See Decl. of Roy T. McKay,

Ph.D at ¶ 16 (Sept. 27, 2005) (“The scientific literature clearly

and consistently recognizes the fact that facial hair at the sealing

surface of a respirator causes increased respirator leakage. Such

leakage decreases the expected performance of the respirator .

. . .”); e.g., id. (quoting

article, “It is concluded that persons with excessive facial hair

. . . cannot expect to obtain as high a degree of respirator

performance as persons who are clean shaven”); id. at ¶ 19

(“Numerous standards and guidelines prohibit the presence of

facial hair at the sealing surface of a tight fitting respirator.”).

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In another context, this might suffice to create a genuine issue

of material fact as to the safety of SCBAs, because concerns as

to the greater category (all systems that use tight-fitting masks)

would include concerns as to the lesser (SCBA systems in

particular). However, throughout the litigation both parties and

the district court were careful to distinguish between negativeand positive-pressure systems and their effects; witnesses for

both parties testified or declared that leaks in SCBAs did not

result in breathing contaminated air, Mot. Hr’g Tr. 89 (Aug. 1,

2005), and the district court and the summary judgment

pleadings expressed an understanding that the case turned on

the safety of negative-pressure APRs, not SCBAs, see Def.’s

Mem. in Support of Sum Judg. at 15 (July 7, 2006). Against this

background, the district court could only interpret Dr. McKay’s

declaration and the supporting information, both submitted

almost two years earlier, as expressing general concern about

the safety of tight-fitting face masks and thus relevant to the

safety of APRs, not SCBAs. 

The District of Columbia notes that one scientific article

does discuss specific risks of SCBA systems for bearded users,

B.J. Held, Facial Hair and Breathing Protection, INT’L FIRE

CHIEF, Dec. 1980, at 25, 26-27, and that NIOSH standards

discourage the use of “pressure-demand respirators” with facial

hair, NANCY BOLLINGER, U.S. DEP’T OF HEALTH AND HUMAN

SERVS., NAT’L INST. FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY & HEALTH,

NIOSH RESPIRATOR SELECTION LOGIC 48 (2004). Although

these two sources were attached to Dr. McKay’s 2005

declaration, he did not discuss the safety of SCBA systems or

point to that aspect of the article or report. See McKay Decl. at

¶ 16 (Sept. 27, 2005) (noting Held study “[r]eviewed the

variability in facial hair leakage with respect to” five factors).

At no point before or during the summary judgment

proceedings did the District of Columbia cite the portions of

either source that address SCBAs, nor argue that those sources

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demonstrated SCBAs are unsafe. Like the testimony of Captain

Flint, this information lay fallow in the record, and a reversal of

summary judgment cannot rest on arguments that the District of

Columbia could have, but did not, develop based on the factual

record it produced in the district court. Jackson, 101 F.3d at

151; Twist, 854 F.2d at 1425.

Under exceptional circumstances, a federal appellate court

will consider arguments against summary judgment not made

in the district court. See Singleton, 428 U.S. at 120; E.I. Du

Pont, 958 F.2d at 419 n.5. The District of Columbia has not

contended on appeal, much less demonstrated, that such

exceptional circumstances exist here. Nor has it contended that

the district court abused its discretion in not allowing this

objection to be raised for the first time in a motion for

reconsideration. Instead, the District of Columbia contends it

disputed the safety of SCBAs all along, including in its

opposition to summary judgment. The record shows otherwise.

Accordingly, because the District of Columbia did not carry its

burden in opposing summary judgment to establish an issue of

material issue regarding the safety of SCBAs, summary

judgment for the firefighters was appropriate and we affirm.

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WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge, concurring: The record 

here unequivocally discloses a disputed issue of material fact.

Yet the district court granted summary judgment. If the sole

aim of the law were an open search for truth, we would 

plainly reverse.

The plaintiffs claim that a policy of the District of

Columbia requiring that firefighters be clean-shaven violates

their rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, 42 

U.S.C. § 2000bb et seq. The District acknowledges that the

plaintiffs’ religious aversion to being clean-shaven is sincere,

and no one disputes the proposition that the District’s interest

in safety—that of the plaintiffs themselves, fellow workers

whose safety is linked to their performance, and the citizenry 

at large—is compelling. For the reasons developed in the

court’s opinion, the case comes down to whether bearded 

firefighters can safely rely on a self-contained breathing

apparatus (“SCBA”). Before us the District contends that it

should have had a chance to prove at trial that with a bearded 

wearer the SCBA poses serious safety risks for which the

District’s policy is the least restrictive solution. Unfortunately

for the District, its own muddled litigation strategy rendered 

summary judgment for the plaintiffs a legitimate outcome.

With their motion for summary judgment plaintiffs

submitted their “Statement of Material Facts,” describing a

SCBA as

suppl[ying] a continuous flow of pressurized air from

tanks worn by firefighters into their facemasks, so that

any minor imperfections in the facemask’s seal will result

in an outward flow of clean air from the mask, rather than 

an inward flow of potentially dangerous gases or

particulates. It is therefore not dangerous for a firefighter

to work in a hazardous environment using an SCBA.

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Joint Appendix (“J.A.”) 110–11 ¶ 5. If this were undisputed,

the District’s safety claim (at least as they frame it here)

would dissolve. But the District disputed plaintiffs’

statement, saying,

The Defendant disputes the statements in paragraph 5. A

SCBA does not supply ‘a continuous flow of pressurized 

air;’ rather, pressure-demand regulators are designed to 

provide breathing air into the facepiece when the pressure

in the facepiece falls below a pre-defined (positive) value.

If an acceptable seal is not maintained, an inward flow of

air comes through the regulator during exhalation or

during the pause between breaths. This feature of the

pressure-demand regulator helps to conserve the supply 

of air carried on the wearers [sic] back.

Id. at 111 ¶ 5. In support, the District relied on an expert

declaration, which labeled the plaintiffs’ assertion as

“incorrect” and explained that “[w]hen an acceptable seal is

maintained, no inward flow of air comes through the regulator

during exhalation or during the pause between breaths.” Id. at

120 ¶ 22.

The District’s response is susceptible of two 

interpretations. On the one hand, the District could have been 

simply correcting a rather inconsequential technical detail—

clarifying, in other words, that there are times when no air is

supplied through the regulator. On the other hand, the District

could have been saying that, absent an acceptable seal, the

user is at risk of breathing in contaminated outside air. The

references to air from the “regulator” and conservation of air

supply favor the first interpretation; but the pointlessness of

correcting plaintiffs’ technical error, prefaced by the claim to

“dispute[]” their contention, supports the second. The balance

favors the first interpretation, legitimating the grant of

summary judgment to the plaintiffs.

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But the record also contains scholarly work making the

second interpretation far more plausible. The District’s

expert, Roy T. McKay, in his first declaration identified a

number of articles on “the science of facial hair and the

negative performance it has on respiratory protection,” id. at

87, among them Bruce J. Held, Facial Hair and Breathing 

Protection, Int’l Fire Chief, Dec. 1980, at 25, J.A. 90

(reporting on research at Lawrence Livermore National

Laboratory under contract W-7405-ENG-48). According to 

Held, “a person doing moderately heavy to heavy work can 

‘overbreathe’ the air supply if there is a leak, and suck or pull

in outside contaminated air through the leak.” J.A. 92.

McKay’s citation and provision of the Held article came,

to be sure, in a declaration that didn’t call attention to the

“overbreathing” problem. It would thus have required a good

deal of digging on the part of the district court to discover

Held’s expert conclusion on the matter. To avert the need for

such digging, the district court’s Local Rule 7(h) states:

An opposition to [a summary judgment] motion shall be

accompanied by a separate concise statement of genuine

issues setting forth all material facts as to which it is

contended there exists a genuine issue necessary to be

litigated, which shall include references to the parts of the

record relied on to support the statement.

The rule embodies the thought that judges “are not like pigs,

hunting for truffles buried in briefs” or the record. United 

States v. Dunkel, 927 F.2d 955, 956 (7th Cir. 1991).

However buried the Held article may have been, though,

the record clearly alerted the court to the Occupational Safety 

and Health Administration’s belief that facial hair poses risks

for the use of respirators generally. As the district court noted

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in its 2005 opinion, the District’s disputed order simply 

requires firefighters to 

comply with the face-fit requirements of 29 C.F.R.

§ 1910.134, which is the OSHA regulation for

“respiratory protection.” That regulation provides, at

§ 1910.134(g)(1)(i), that

The employer shall not permit respirators with tightfitting facepieces to be worn by employees who 

have:

(A) Facial hair that comes between the sealing 

surface of the facepiece and the face or that interferes

with valve function.

Potter v. District of Columbia, 382 F. Supp. 2d 35, 40 (D.D.C.

2005).

The OSHA regulation, to be sure, appears not to govern

the District’s firefighters. 29 U.S.C. § 652(5) excludes state

employees generally, and § 652(7) explains that the term

“state” includes the District. Although under some conditions

Environmental Protection Agency regulations may extend 

coverage to otherwise exempt workers, see 40 C.F.R.

§§ 300.5, 300.150(d), the District has made no real effort to 

show that those conditions are applicable to plaintiffs. The

regulation—on which the District’s own policy was based—

nonetheless plainly reflected OSHA’s judgment that facial

hair poses excessive risk.

Moreover, the OSHA regulation clearly rested on the

agency’s concern with “overbreathing.” Explaining its

decision to require fit testing with positive-pressure

respirators, OSHA observed:

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Even positive pressure respirators do not always maintain 

positive pressure inside the facepiece, particularly when 

facepiece fit is poor, strenuous work is being performed,

and overbreathing of the respirator occurs . . . . Leakage

must be minimized so that users consistently achieve the

high levels of protection they need.

63 Fed. Reg. 1152, 1223/2 (1998). OSHA’s explanation for

its decision went on at length, and its position was firm.

While a judge isn’t a pig hunting for truffles in the

parties’ papers, neither is he a potted plant. A judge on notice

of a contradiction between the plaintiffs’ position and the

views of a federal agency might hesitate to find the issue

wholly undisputed. And the district court in this case was not

passive across the board. In accepting the plaintiffs’ theory 

that bearded firefighters could be quickly redeployed either to

areas requiring the use of SCBAs or to areas not requiring any 

respirators, it reached back for evidence introduced over two

years earlier, in a different context, and not identified in the

plaintiffs’ summary judgment motion. See Tr. of Status

Conf., Nov. 29, 2007, at 4–5 (explaining that evidence

introduced in the August 1, 2005 hearing “is what informed 

the plausibility of the reassignment plan that I talked about” in 

the September 28, 2007 memorandum opinion). While this

variance in the court’s zeal is troubling, the District rests no

claim on the fact, and such a claim, even if made, would likely

not justify a different result. Departures from passivity are

almost always bound to give one side a net benefit, yet such

departures are not ipso facto error. Burdett v. Miller, 957 F.2d

1375, 1380 (7th Cir. 1992) (“[Judges] should not be criticized

when they point out to counsel a line of argument or inquiry

that he has overlooked, although they are not obligated to do 

so. . . . When the unfolding evidence persuaded the district

judge that the plaintiff’s counsel had misidentified the RICO

enterprise, she could without impropriety have invited him to 

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shift the line of his attack . . . .” (internal citations omitted));

cf. United States v. Carson, 455 F.3d 336, 355 (D.C. Cir.

2006) (explaining that the “threshold for a showing of bias is

high”—the judge’s conduct must “reveal such a high degree

of favoritism or antagonism as to make fair judgment

impossible” (quoting United States v. Edmond, 52 F.3d 1080,

1099 (D.C. Cir. 1995), and Liteky v. United States, 510 U.S.

540, 555 (1994))).

The outcome, nonetheless, seems extraordinarily 

unsatisfactory. Looking on the bright side, one might see it as

constituting a semi-natural experiment, in which the District

of Columbia will fight calamities with some of its firefighters

bearded, while other firefighting entities adhere to OSHA’s

rule or its equivalent. Perhaps the difference will prove

inconsequential. The experiment is far from ideal, however.

Most obviously, the likelihood of acute calamity—and thus

the risk that response teams will be stretched to the breaking 

point—seems greater in the District than almost any other

American city.

Of course even a permanent injunction is not

irredeemably permanent. The Federal Rules of Civil

Procedure allow judges to “relieve a party or its legal

representative from a final judgment, order, or proceeding” if,

among other things, “applying it prospectively is no longer

equitable.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(5). The rule applies to a

permanent injunction as long as a party seeking relief “can

show ‘a significant change either in factual conditions or in 

law.’” Agostini v. Felton, 521 U.S. 203, 215 (1997) (quoting

Rufo v. Inmates of Suffolk County Jail, 502 U.S. 367, 384

(1992)). While the exact nature of such a change may be hard

to imagine, there is at least some comfort in the hope that the

experiment launched by this judgment will end without

having falsified the plaintiffs’ theory.

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