Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-05-01225/USCOURTS-caDC-05-01225-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Transportation Security Administration
Respondent
Transportation Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO
Petitioner

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 3, 2006 Decided July 3, 2007

No. 05-1225

TRANSPORTATION WORKERS UNION OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO,

PETITIONER

v.

TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION,

RESPONDENT

On Petition for Review of an Order of the

Department of Homeland Security

Hal K. Gillespie argued the cause for petitioner. With him

on the briefs was Richard S. Edelman.

Jeffrica Jenkins Lee, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice,

argued the cause for respondent. With her on the brief were

Peter D. Keisler, Assistant Attorney General, and Michael Jay

Singer, Attorney.

Before: GARLAND and BROWN, Circuit Judges, and

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge BROWN.

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BROWN, Circuit Judge: This case involves a procedural

challenge to the Transportation Security Administration’s recent

Legal Guidance on Criminal History Record Checks. The

guidance is TSA’s latest attempt to define the term “conviction,”

since both statute and regulations bar people with disqualifying

criminal convictions from working in sensitive positions at

airports, but neither statute nor regulations define the term. We

do not reach the merits. The Transportation Workers’ Union

cannot show a causal link between the action it challenges

(issuing the new guidance without notice and comment) and the

injury it suffered (a Union member losing his job). Without

causation, the Union lacks standing and we lack jurisdiction.

I

Congress answered the terrorist attacks of September 11,

2001 in part with the Aviation and Transportation Security Act,

which created a new federal agency, the Transportation Security

Administration, to oversee a toughened security regime for

airports and air traffic. Pub. L. No. 107-71, 115 Stat. 597 (2001)

(codified in part at 49 U.S.C. § 44936 et seq.). The Act requires

“an employment investigation, including a criminal history

record check” for any airport or airline employee or prospective

employee with “unescorted access . . . to (i) aircraft . . . or (ii) a

secured area of an airport . . .”; if an employee or applicant

proves to have been “convicted (or found not guilty by reason of

insanity)” of a listed crime within the preceding ten years, he

may not be hired or must be fired or transferred to a less

sensitive position. 49 U.S.C. § 44936(a)-(b). TSA was to issue

regulations accordingly, id., and did so in February 2002, 67

Fed. Reg. 8340 (Feb. 22, 2002) (codified in part at 49 C.F.R.

§§ 1542.209, 1544.229, .230). But neither statute nor regulations defined the term “conviction,” and “[t]he word . . . is a

chameleon,” Harmon v. Teamsters Local Union 371, 832 F.2d

976, 978 (7th Cir. 1987), with different meanings in different

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states, Dickerson v. New Banner Inst., Inc., 460 U.S. 103, 112

(1983) (noting “varying state laws, procedures, and definitions

of ‘conviction’”), under different federal statutes, id. at n.6 (“To

be sure, the terms ‘convicted’ or ‘conviction’ do not have the

same meaning in every federal statute.”), and even in different

contexts in the common law, Lewis v. Exxon Corp., 716 F.2d

1398, 1400 (D.C. Cir. 1983) (“Under the common law, the term

‘conviction’ has, and continues to have, one of two accepted

meanings . . . .”). As airports and airlines audited current and

prospective employees, TSA received question after question:

Does federal or state law govern the definition of “conviction”?

How should we regard a deferred adjudication? What if charges

were dropped following completion of a first offender program?

And so on.

For some months, TSA responded to these questions

individually. But in May 2003, without prior notice and

comment, TSA published on its website a document entitled

“Legal Guidance on Criminal History Records Checks” (2003

Guidance), aimed at “provid[ing] information for decision

makers involved in adjudicating background checks on individuals with unescorted access authority at our nation’s airports.”

Under the heading “What Is a Conviction?” the 2003 Guidance

explains that federal, not state law determines whether a

defendant was “convicted,” and notes among its examples that

deferred adjudication, with probation, after a guilty plea, counts

as a conviction for purposes of the Act and regulations. States

sometimes use this or similar plea arrangements to keep minor

or first-offender crimes off someone’s criminal record. See, e.g.,

Davis v. State, 968 S.W.2d 368, 370 (Tex. Crim. App. 1998)

(describing “the main benefit of deferred adjudication” as its

“record-cleansing effect”). Perhaps in recognition of that fact,

the 2003 Guidance’s first footnote (Footnote One) states: “In

some cases, a defendant may be advised by a court that he or she

has not entered a plea that constitutes a conviction under state

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law. In such cases, TSA will not consider the offense to be

disqualifying if the applicant can provide sufficient proof of the

court’s advice, generally in the form of a certified copy of the

court proceeding transcript.” In May 2004, again without notice

and comment, TSA issued on its website an updated “Legal

Guidance on Criminal History Records Checks” (2004 Guidance). The differences between the 2003 and 2004 Guidance

were on the whole slight, but Footnote One was gone. “[N]o

individual had produced a certified trial transcript or other

documentation” taking advantage of it, TSA’s brief explains.

Respondent’s Br. 11. 

Jose Valle, an American Airlines stock clerk with

unescorted access to secure areas, pled guilty in Texas in 1998

to felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon (arising from

a domestic dispute with his wife), and in exchange received

deferred adjudication with four years community supervision,

which he completed without incident. American Airlines

learned of the deferred adjudication in 2002, but did not

construe it at that time as a “conviction” within the meaning of

49 U.S.C. § 44936 or 49 C.F.R. §§ 1542.209, 1544.229.

American Airlines might have reconsidered in 2003—since at

first glance, at least, Valle’s deferred adjudication counts as a

conviction under the 2003 Guidance—but it did not. American

Airlines didn’t revisit the issue until 2005, when it audited some

of its employees’ criminal history records (applying, naturally,

the 2004 Guidance) and suspended Valle without pay “due to

[his] inability to hold unescorted [Secure Identification Display

Area] access, an Essential Job Function of [his] position.”

Memorandum from American Airlines to Jose Valle (Mar. 24,

2005) (Petitioner’s App. 21). The suspension memo gave no

further explanation and made no reference to any statute or

regulation.

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Valle gave the letter to his union, the Transportation

Workers Union, which wrote American Airlines asking for

documents relating to the suspension. One of the documents

American Airlines sent was the 2004 Guidance. “This was the

first time,” the Union explains, “that TWU ever saw the May

2004 Guidance Memorandum and the first time that TWU

became aware of it.” Petitioner’s Br. 4 (emphasis in original).

Sixty days later, the Union brought this challenge to TSA’s

rulemaking pursuant to the Aviation and Transportation Security

Act, 49 U.S.C. § 46110(a) (“[A] person disclosing a substantial

interest in an order issued by the [TSA] . . . may apply for

review of the order by filing a petition for review in the United

States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit . . . .”).

II

This case turns on the causation prong of Article III

standing. The three-part test for standing described in Lujan v.

Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992), requires (1)

injury in fact, (2) causation, and (3) redressability. The causation requirement concerns the link “between the injury and the

conduct complained of”; the second is some legal wrongdoing

(a bullet fired with ill intent, an investor tricked) and the first its

alleged result (a loss of life or property). Id.; see also Allen v.

Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 753 n.19 (1984) (defining and contrasting

causation and redressability). We must, then, be very clear

about what conduct and injury the Union puts at issue, for

although standing is an anterior question of jurisdiction, the grist

and elements of our jurisdictional analysis require a peek at the

substance of plaintiff’s arguments. See Allen, 468 U.S. at 752

(“Typically . . . the standing inquiry requires careful judicial

examination of a complaint’s allegations to ascertain whether

the particular plaintiff is entitled to an adjudication of the

particular claims asserted.”); Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 500

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(1975) (“Although standing in no way depends on the merits of

the plaintiff’s contention that particular conduct is illegal, it

often turns on the nature and source of the claim asserted.”

(internal citation omitted)).

The Union challenges the issuance of the 2004 Guidance,

but not on the usual ground that the 2004 Guidance’s definition

of “conviction” is arbitrary, contrary to statute, or in excess of

TSA’s statutory authority, 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A), or that the

definition constitutes a “legislative rule” or “substantive rule,”

which would require notice and comment, rather than an

“interpretive rule,” which would not, compare 5 U.S.C. § 553(b)

with id. § 553(d); see also Appalachian Power Co. v. EPA, 208

F.3d 1015, 1024 (D.C. Cir. 2000) (distinguishing legislative and

interpretive rules). Indeed, the Union concedes that the 2003

and 2004 Guidances were interpretive. Petitioner’s Br. 10, 18.

The Union instead relies on a line of cases holding that an

agency cannot significantly change its position, cannot flip-flop,

even between two interpretive rules, without prior notice and

comment. See Alaska Prof’l Hunters Ass’n, Inc. v. FAA, 177

F.3d 1030, 1033-34 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (requiring notice and

comment before the FAA could reverse a decades-old interpretation of its commercial pilot regulations in Alaska); Ass’n of Am.

R.R. v. Dep’t of Transp., 198 F.3d 944, 950 (D.C. Cir. 1999)

(recognizing general requirement of notice and comment before

revising established rules, but permitting an initial period of

revision before rules become established); Paralyzed Veterans

of Am. v. D.C. Arena L.P., 117 F.3d 579, 586 (D.C. Cir. 1997)

(“Once an agency gives its regulation an interpretation, it can

only change that interpretation . . . through the process of notice

and comment rulemaking.”). Thus, the “conduct complained

of” here is the procedural wrong of switching from the 2003 to

2004 Guidance without notice and comment. The injury alleged

is Valle losing his job. (The Union abandoned any claim of

injury to itself and standing in its own right when it conceded in

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oral argument that “its only claim to standing is through

[Valle].” Oral Arg. at 13:10; see also Warth, 422 U.S. at 511.

With standing only as Valle’s representative, if at all, the Union

must show injury to him. See Hunt v. Wash. Apple Adver.

Comm’n, 432 U.S. 333, 343 (1977).) We come, then, to a single

question: Did the change from the 2003 to 2004 Guidance

without notice and comment cause Valle to be fired?

The fundamental problem with the Union’s standing claim

is that, absent the 2004 Guidance, Valle’s deferred adjudication

would have constituted a conviction and cost him his job

anyway. The 2003 Guidance and 2004 Guidance are alike in

almost every relevant respect. In particular, both make deferred

adjudication and community supervision following a plea of

guilty or no contest a “conviction” within the meaning of 49

U.S.C. § 44936 and 49 C.F.R. §§ 1542.209, 1544.229, and

1544.230. The only arguably relevant difference between the

pair is the 2003 Guidance’s revoked Footnote One, promising

that “TSA will not consider the offense to be disqualifying” if a

court advised the defendant “that he or she has not entered a plea

that constitutes a conviction under state law,” provided the

defendant “can provide sufficient proof of the court’s advice,

generally in the form of a certified copy of the court processing

transcript.” As both parties agreed at oral argument, Valle has

standing if he can claim this footnote’s shelter, and lacks it if he

cannot. Oral Arg. at 2:37, 13:01, 30:23.

This petition comes to us directly under 49 U.S.C.

§ 46110(a) without any prior evidentiary hearing before TSA or

American Airlines—in part because Footnote One had been

dead for a year by the time Valle was fired, and neither he nor

the Union had any reason to invoke its protection had they

known of it. So we must ourselves apply Footnote One to

Valle’s claim, with no factual findings (or opportunity to get

them on remand) concerning the advice Valle did or didn’t get

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from a Texas court. This happens from time to time in agency

cases, and we have established that the petitioner bears the

“burden of production in the court of appeals” and “must

support each element of its claim to standing ‘by affidavit or

other evidence.’” Sierra Club v. EPA, 292 F.3d 895, 899 (D.C.

Cir. 2002) (quoting Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 561). The

two highly problematic snippets of evidence the Union presents

plainly fall short of the standard of proof Footnote One requires.

Footnote One is conditional: An offense is not disqualifying if the employee or job applicant can provide “sufficient

proof”—on the order of a certified court transcript—that a court

said the plea did not count as a conviction under state law. The

Union has not submitted a certified court transcript. We have

instead Valle’s own sworn affidavit from 2006, stating:

Prior to agreeing to accept the state’s plea bargain, my

attorney advised me that if I entered into the agreement and

successfully completed a period of community supervision,

my plea would not be considered a conviction under Texas

state law. Though I did not hear that information directly

from the court, I understood that my attorney was relaying

information to me that the court had specifically provided

to him to give to me. If I had not been advised by the court,

through my attorney, that my plea would not constitute a

conviction under Texas state law, I would not have entered

into the plea bargain agreement.

TSA argues Valle fails Footnote One because he was, by his

own admission, advised of his conviction status by his lawyer

rather than the court. At the very least, we agree that a party’s

self-interested claims about what a judge told him (or rather, a

party’s self-interested claims about what a lawyer told him about

what a judge told the lawyer) are far less reliable than a certified

transcript where we can read what the judge actually said.

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Footnote One requires the latter or its evidentiary equivalent.

At oral argument, the Union’s counsel offered—for the first

time—a second piece of evidence. Oral Arg. at 2:58. Referring

the court to the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure’s provision

governing deferred adjudication (never cited in the briefs),

counsel pointed out language requiring that “[a]fter placing the

defendant on community supervision under this section, the

judge shall inform the defendant orally or in writing of the

possible consequences . . . of a violation of community supervision.” TEXAS CODE CRIM.PROC.ANN. art. 42.12. § 5. We are

asked to infer, on this slim basis, that the judge in Texas

informed Valle of the fact that his plea would not constitute a

conviction under state law. Even were we willing to do so, the

argument comes too late. See Sierra Club v. EPA, 292 F.3d 895,

900 (D.C. Cir. 2002) (“[A] petitioner whose standing is not selfevident should establish its standing by the submission of its

arguments and any affidavits or other evidence appurtenant

thereto at the first appropriate point in the review proceeding. . . . [A]n argument first made in the reply comes too late.”

(internal quotation marks and citation omitted)). 

One could object, although counsel assumes the point rather

than arguing it, that the causation question is answered simply

by noting that Valle had a job and lost it when the 2004 Guidance was applied to him. He was fired, one could say, because

of the 2004 Guidance, and therefore the 2004 Guidance was the

cause of his injury—QED. But this argument makes too little of

the particular claim the Union advances. The question is not

whether the 2004 Guidance caused Valle to be fired but whether

the change from the 2003 to 2004 Guidance caused Valle to be

fired. The change caused nothing, for, were every word

distinguishing the 2003 and 2004 Guidances to be erased, Valle

would be fired just the same and for just the same reason.

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* * *

The petition is therefore

Denied.

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