Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-18-01296/USCOURTS-caDC-18-01296-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission
Respondent
Secretary of Labor
Respondent
Western Oilfields Supply Company
Petitioner

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 24, 2019 Decided January 7, 2020

No. 18-1296

WESTERN OILFIELDS SUPPLY COMPANY, DOING BUSINESS AS

RAIN FOR RENT,

PETITIONER

v.

SECRETARY OF LABOR AND FEDERAL MINE SAFETY AND

HEALTH REVIEW COMMISSION,

RESPONDENTS

On Petition for Review of a Decision of the 

Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission

Byron J. Walker argued the cause for petitioner. With

him on the briefs was Tim Boe.

Daniel Colbert, Attorney, U.S. Department of Labor,

argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief was Ali

A. Beydoun, Counsel, Appellate Litigation. John T. Sullivan,

Attorney, Mine Safety and Health Review Commission, and

Andrew R. Tardiff, Attorney, U.S. Department of Labor, entered

appearances.

Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, SRINIVASAN, Circuit

Judge, and EDWARDS, Senior Circuit Judge.

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Opinion for the Court filed by Chief Judge GARLAND.

GARLAND, Chief Judge: Petitioner Western Oilfields

Supply Co., doing business as Rain for Rent, mounts ambitious

statutory and constitutional challenges to a $116 fine under the

Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977. We deny the

petition for review, taking the opportunity to clear up some

confusion about the rights the Act grants mine operators.

I

Under the Mine Act, the Secretary of Labor is responsible

for setting health and safety standards to govern the nation’s

mines and mine operators. 30 U.S.C. §§ 803, 811. An

“operator” is defined to include “any owner . . . or other person

who operates . . . a . . . mine or any independent contractor

performing services . . . at such mine.” 30 U.S.C. § 802(d). The

Act requires the Secretary to make frequent inspections each

year, without advance notice, id. § 813(a), and authorizes the

Secretary to do so without a warrant, see Donovan v. Dewey,

452 U.S. 594, 596 (1981). On the ground, the Secretary’s

responsibilities are carried out by the Mine Safety and Health 

Administration (MSHA). 29 U.S.C. § 557a. If an owner or

operator violates a health or safety standard, a MSHA inspector

may issue a citation. 30 U.S.C. § 814(a). The cited party may

then challenge that citation before an administrative law judge

(ALJ), see id. § 815(d); before the Federal Mine Safety and

Health Review Commission, in the Commission’s discretion, id.

§ 823(d)(2); and ultimately before this court (or the court of

appeals for the circuit in which the violation is alleged to have

occurred), id. § 816(a)(1). 

Our cited party, Rain for Rent, rents pumps for use in

mines. Those pumps require maintenance, which it also

provides. On February 8, 2017, Rain for Rent employee Jaime

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Tejeda drove a company truck to a quarry operated by Lhoist

North America of Arizona, Inc., to perform maintenance on a

pump that he had previously installed. After parking the truck,

Tejeda went into the mine office to sign in for the day’s work.

At that same moment, a MSHA inspector was waiting in the

parking lot to meet mine representatives for the second day of an

11-day routine inspection. Seeing the truck rock back and forth,

the inspector suspected that Tejeda had neglected to set the

parking brake, a violation of a safety standard governing

unattended vehicles. See 30 C.F.R. § 56.14207. The inspector

walked over to the truck and tried to spot the state of the parking

brake through the window. When that failed, he opened the

door. As he suspected, the parking brake was not set. When

Tejeda returned to his truck, he found the inspector

photographing the brake and, after a brief exchange, was

presented with a citation. 

Rain for Rent unsuccessfully raised a storm of objections to

the citation in a hearing before an ALJ. The Commission

declined to exercise discretionary review, and the ALJ’s

decision therefore became the final decision of the Commission. 

See 30 U.S.C. § 823(d)(1); Commission Notice (J.A. 123). 

Thereafter, Rain for Rent petitioned for our review.

II

In this court, Rain for Rent has raised only three objections

to the Commission’s decision. We consider them below, 1

In particular, Rain for Rent no longer argues that the parking lot

1

was not part of the “mine” within the meaning of the Mine Act, see

Sec’y of Labor v. Rain for Rent, 40 FMSHRC 1267, 1270-72 (2018)

(ALJ), that the truck was not “unattended” while Tejeda was signing

in, id. at 1280, or that the violation was neither as negligent nor as

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“review[ing] the Commission’s legal conclusions de novo, and

its findings of fact for substantial evidence.” Sec’y of Labor v.

Keystone Coal Mining Corp., 151 F.3d 1096, 1099 (D.C. Cir.

1998) (citation omitted).

A

First, Rain for Rent maintains that its employee was not

within the jurisdiction of the Mine Act at the moment the

citation was issued. The Act provides that “each operator of [a] 2

mine . . . shall be subject to the provisions of” the Act, 30 U.S.C.

§ 803, and defines an “operator” to include “any independent

contractor performing services or construction at such mine,” id.

§ 802(d). Rain for Rent “does not contest that it was an

independent contractor for purposes of this proceeding,” Pet’r

Br. 41, and stipulated before the ALJ that it had “provided

services” to Lhoist, see Rain for Rent, 40 FMSHRC at 1268. 

But it insists that it was not “performing services” because

Tejeda had not yet signed in with the mine office for the day. 

We have not had occasion to address what the words

“performing services” mean in isolation, and the Secretary’s 3

grave as the inspector determined, id. at 1280-81.

Or the moment the violation came into being, or the moment the 2

inspection took place -- Rain for Rent is not consistent on this point. 

Compare Pet’r Br. 41 (measuring jurisdiction “at the time the MSHA

inspector cited the alleged violation”), with id. at 42 (measuring

jurisdiction “at the time an alleged violation occurs”), and id. at 12

(measuring jurisdiction “[a]t the time the MSHA inspector observed

the subject of the Citation”). Those distinctions do not matter here.

We disagree with the Secretary’s suggestion that our precedent 3

resolves this case. The Secretary relies in part on a snippet from DQ

Fire &Explosion Consultants, Inc. v. Secretary of Labor, in which we

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regulations only define the term “independent contractor,” not

the phrase “independent contractor performing services.” See

30 C.F.R. § 45.2(c). Rain for Rent maintains that, “[b]y its

tense, ‘performing services’ . . . denotes present, ongoing work.”

Pet’r Br. 42. Assuming without deciding that Rain for Rent is

correct about this, the undisputed record nonetheless shows that

Rain for Rent was performing ongoing services for the mine

operator, Lhoist. Under the Mine Act, the requirement is that

the contractor -- not the particular employee on whom the

citation is served -- be engaged in work at the mine. And Rain

for Rent was. 

The ALJ found as follows:

Prior to the inspection at issue, Lhoist contracted with

Rain for Rent . . . to pump an accumulation of

rainwater out of the quarry pit. Rain for Rent

employee Jaime Tejeda . . . visited the mine site

several times to install the pump, perform maintenance

affirmed a citation despite the petitioner’s contention “that it is not an

operator under the Mine Act because, on the days in question, it was

not performing the type of ‘services’ covered by the statute.” 632 F.

App’x 622, 624 (D.C. Cir. 2015). But that petitioner had not made --

and we were not purporting to respond to -- a temporal argument. 

Instead, the question was whether the services at issue were

sufficiently related to mining. The Secretary also relies on Otis

Elevator Co. v. Secretary of Labor, in which we rejected an argument

that some independent contractors who perform services nevertheless

are not operators because they do not perform the right kind of

services. 921 F.2d 1285, 1289-91 (D.C. Cir. 1990). Again, we did not

purport to address the independent meaning (if any) of “performing

services,” or else we would have had no reason to wonder whether we

could grant deference to regulations that did not define the term. Id.

at 1288 (citing 30 C.F.R. § 45.2(c)). 

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and repairs, and replace the original pump with a larger

model.

Rain for Rent, 40 FMSHRC at 1268 (citation omitted). Indeed,

Tejeda had previously “[driven] the cited truck onto mine

property on multiple occasions” to perform the “same services”

he was there to perform on the day of the citation. Id. at 1273. 

And Rain for Rent’s rented pump (although still in need of

repair) was on-site providing the contractor’s continuing service

when the events at issue here unfolded. There is therefore no

question that, as the ALJ found, “Rain for Rent was performing

pumping services for Lhoist” at the time of the inspection. Id.

at 1274. 

Even if we were to narrow our focus to the individual

employee, we would come to the same conclusion. Rain for

Rent hangs everything on the fact that Tejeda had not yet signed

in: It no longer denies, as it did before the ALJ, that Tejeda was

already within the boundaries of a “mine” when he parked the

truck. See id. at 1270-72. Nor does it go so far as to argue that

Mine Act jurisdiction did not attach until Tejeda actually

touched the pump. See Recording of Oral Arg. at 19:40-19:45. 

Yet, it offers nothing that would distinguish between the walk

from truck to office and the walk from office to pump. During

each trip, Tejeda was on-site to execute his responsibilities

under a contract for services. As the ALJ put it, “Tejeda’s work

on behalf of Rain for Rent entailed entering the Plant office to

sign in and make his presence known on the site.” 40 FMSHRC

at 1274 (emphasis added). 

B

We turn next to Rain for Rent’s argument that the

inspection violated section 103(f) of the Mine Act. That section

provides that “a representative of the operator . . . shall be given

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an opportunity to accompany the Secretary or his authorized

representative during the physical inspection of any coal or other

mine . . . for the purpose of aiding such inspection and to

participate in pre- or post-inspection conferences held at the

mine.” 30 U.S.C. § 813(f). Because Tejeda missed the first few

minutes of the inspection of his truck, Rain for Rent argues, this

“walkaround” right was violated. And while Rain for Rent

maintains that the violation, standing alone, merits automatic

vacatur of the citation, it also argues that the violation

prejudiced its defense to the citation and warrants vacatur (or at

least suppression of the evidence) on that ground as well. In

particular, Petitioner says, it missed out on its right to refuse the

inspection and mount its jurisdictional defense -- its claim about

the meaning of “performing services” -- before the search began.

1. Like the ALJ, we do not see a violation. As section

103(f) states, the walkaround right is extended “for the purpose

of aiding [the] inspection.” Id. In other words, the provision

gives an operator a chance to provide information that might be

mitigating or material -- to argue, for instance, that the brake

was in fact set, or that the inspector had misunderstood how it

worked. See Big Ridge, Inc. v. Sec’y of Labor, 36 FMSHRC

1677, 1735 (2014) (ALJ) (explaining that the representative’s

role is to “point out hazards, offer justifications, proffer

mitigating circumstances, and collect evidence that may support

a perspective contrary to the inspector’s view at hearing”). But

Rain for Rent was not denied that chance because Tejeda

returned while the condition of the brake was still plain to see

and had an opportunity to say whatever he wanted to the

inspector. Rain for Rent points to nothing that it would have

done differently if its employee had been present before the door

was opened -- other than refuse the inspection entirely.

The problem for Rain for Rent is that the statute does not

create such a “right to refuse.” Certainly no such right appears

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on the face of the Act. To the contrary, section 103(a) of the Act

grants the Secretary a “right of entry to, upon, or through any

coal or other mine.” 30 U.S.C. § 813(a). Accordingly, as we

said in Donovan v. Carolina Stalite Co., “[r]efusal to admit an

authorized representative into a facility for purposes of

conducting an inspection pursuant to § 103(a) is a violation of

the Act.” 734 F.2d 1547, 1549 n.2 (D.C. Cir. 1984). Moreover,

the Act provides that “no advance notice of an inspection shall

be provided to any person” (with exceptions not relevant here). 

30 U.S.C. § 813(a). It is hard to understand what good that

provision would do if any operator could delay a surprise

inspection by blocking it without penalty. 

In maintaining that a right to refuse nonetheless exists, Rain

for Rent points to section 108 of the Act, which provides: “The

Secretary may institute a civil action for relief . . . whenever [a

mine] operator or his agent . . . refuses to admit [the Secretary’s]

representatives to the . . . mine.” Id. § 818(a)(1). Rain for Rent

also highlights language from our decision in Carolina Stalite. 

There, we noted that section 108 proceedings provide a mine

operator with “an adequate forum . . . to show that a specific

search [was] outside the federal regulatory authority or to seek

. . . an order accommodating any unusual privacy interests that

[it] might have.” Carolina Stalite, 734 F.2d at 1556-57 (quoting

Dewey, 452 U.S. at 604-05). We described this as a “right to

force MSHA to go to court to gain entry to [a] plant.” Id. at

1557. But in pressing these quotations, Rain for Rent

misunderstands both Carolina Stalite and the Act.

What we said in Carolina Stalite was what the Supreme

Court had earlier explained in Donovan v. Dewey: section 108

limits the Secretary’s remedies when a mine operator refuses

entry in contravention of the Act. “The Act prohibits forcible

entries, and instead requires the Secretary, when refused entry

onto a mining facility, to file a civil action in federal court to

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obtain an injunction against future refusals.” Dewey, 452 U.S.

at 604 (emphasis added). In other words, if an operator refuses

to permit an inspection, the operator has a “right” to require

MSHA to go to court to gain entry because Congress did not

empower the agency to force its way into the property. See Rain

for Rent, 40 FMSHRC at 1276 (rejecting the argument that the

Act’s “prohibition of forcible entry is . . . necessarily the same

as [a] granted right to deny inspection”). But section 108 has no

application in a case like this one, where there never was such

a refusal. 

2. Even if there had been a violation of Rain for Rent’s

walkaround rights, we would reject the petitioner’s contention

that the violation warrants vacatur or suppression. The statute

does not expressly state the consequences of violating section

103(f)’s walkaround right, except to say, somewhat cryptically,

that “[c]ompliance with this subsection shall not be a

jurisdictional prerequisite to the enforcement of any provision

of this chapter.” 30 U.S.C. § 813(f). Neither party has offered

a persuasive account of what this language means.4

Even in the absence of such a proviso, however, we have

interpreted a substantially identical walkaround right in the

Occupational Safety and Health Act to require that an employer

show “prejudice it suffered as a result of not being represented

during the inspection, a requirement imposed by every circuit

that has considered the issue.” Frank Lill & Son, Inc. v. Sec’y

of Labor, 362 F.3d 840, 846 (D.C. Cir. 2004) (internal quotation

marks omitted). Whatever the “not a jurisdictional prerequisite

to enforcement” language means, it must at least mean that a

harmless violation does not preclude enforcement. Otherwise,

The Commission’s last encounter with the question did not 4

produce a majority opinion. See Sec’y of Labor v. SCP Invs., LLC, 31

FMSHRC 821, 821-22 (2009). 

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compliance with section 103(f) would effectively be an absolute

prerequisite, whether denominated as “jurisdictional” or

something else. 

And as we have noted, Rain for Rent suggests nothing that

it would have done differently if its employee had been present

the moment the inspector opened the truck’s door -- nothing,

that is, other than refuse entry based on a claim that the

inspector exceeded his jurisdiction under the Mine Act. See

Pet’r Br. 39. Not only is that defense without merit, see supra

Part II.A, but witnessing the full inspection would not have

improved it. Nor was Rain for Rent’s ability to present it to the

ALJ or this court impeded in any way.

C

Finally, Rain for Rent maintains that the warrantless

inspection of its truck violated the Fourth Amendment because

the petitioner was not afforded an opportunityfor precompliance

review. In support, it cites the Supreme Court’s opinion in

Dewey, which upheld the Mine Act against a Fourth

Amendment challenge. But the Court did not hold there, nor has

it ever held, that precompliance review is necessary for the

constitutionality of warrantless administrative searches in a

closely regulated industry like mining.5

A “closely regulated” industry is one with “such a history of 5

government oversight that no reasonable expectation of privacy . . .

could exist for a proprietor over the stock of such an enterprise.” City

of Los Angeles v. Patel, 135 S. Ct. 2443, 2455 (2015) (quoting

Marshall v. Barlow’s, Inc., 436 U.S. 307, 313 (1978)). The Court has

“identified” mining as one of the few such industries. Id. (citing

Dewey, 452 U.S. 594); see also Dewey, 452 U.S. at 603 (finding that

“the regulation of mines [that the Act] imposes is sufficiently

pervasive and defined that the owner ofsuch a facility cannot help but

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Dewey states the test for the constitutionality of a

warrantless inspection program in such an industry: there must

be a “substantial federal interest” that informs the regulatory

scheme; Congress must have reasonably determined “that a

system of warrantless inspections was necessary if the law is to

be properly enforced and inspection made effective”; and the

inspection program, “in terms of the certainty and regularity of

its application,” must “provide[] a constitutionally adequate

substitute for a warrant.” Dewey, 452 U.S. at 602-03; accord

City of Los Angeles v. Patel, 135 S. Ct. 2443, 2456 (2015); New

York v. Burger, 482 U.S. 691, 702-03 (1987). Dewey held that

the Mine Act satisfied all of the elements of that test. There is

no requirement of precompliance review in this framework, nor 6

is there one in the Mine Act itself.

Rain for Rent nevertheless maintains that Dewey’s

requirement of “certainty and regularity” implies a requirement

of precompliance review. But Dewey explained that the Mine

Act meets the “certainty and regularity” requirement because: 

(1) it “requires inspection of all mines and specifically defines

the frequency of inspection,” and (2) “the [health and safety]

standards with which a mine operator is required to comply are

all specifically set forth in the Act or in Title 30 of the Code of

Federal Regulations.” 452 U.S. at 603-04 (emphasis omitted). 

Again, the Court did not mention a precompliance review

requirement.

be aware that he will be subject to effective inspection”) (internal

quotation marks omitted).

Accord Zadeh v. Robinson, 928 F.3d 457, 464 (5th Cir. 2019)

6

(“No opportunity for precompliance review is needed for

administrative searches of [closely regulated] industries.”); Liberty

Coins, LLC v. Goodman, 880 F.3d 274, 280-81 (6th Cir. 2018) (same). 

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Rain for Rent’s argument to the contrary focuses on the

paragraph that follows Dewey’s discussion of the “certainty and

regularity” requirement. There, the Court noted:

[T]he [Mine] Act provides a specific mechanism for

accommodating any special privacy concerns that a

specific operator might have. The Act prohibits

forcible entries, and instead requires the Secretary,

when refused entry onto a mining facility, to file a civil

action . . . to obtain an injunction against future

refusals.

Dewey, 452 U.S. at 604 (citing 30 U.S.C. § 818(a)). Dewey is,

frankly, ambiguous as to whether this discussion of section 108

is part of its Fourth Amendment analysis, or simply a

description of an additional -- but not constitutionally required --

protection afforded by the Mine Act. Subsequent Supreme

Court cases do not include anything like it in their descriptions

of what is necessary to provide a constitutionally adequate

substitute for a warrant in a closely regulated industry.

7

In Patel, the Court indicated that “an opportunity for

7

precompliance review” isrequired for the constitutionality ofsearches

under “general administrative search doctrine,” but not for searches

under the “more relaxed” test applicable to “closely regulated

industries” like mining. 135 S. Ct. at 2454. In Burger, the Court

explained that the “certainty and regularity” requirement means that

a statutory scheme “must advise the owner ofthe commercial premises

that the search is being made pursuant to the law and has a properly

defined scope, and it must limit the discretion of the inspecting

officers.” 482 U.S. at 703. Burger held that a warrantless search of

an automobile junkyard under a New York regulatory scheme satisfied

those requirements. Id. at 711-12. It did so without mentioning either

a precompliance review requirement or a provision like section 108 of

the Mine Act. Indeed, the New York statute did not contain any such

requirement or provision. See Burger, 482 U.S. at 708-11 (describing

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But the relevance of section 108 to Dewey’s constitutional

analysis is not something we need divine in order to resolve the

challenge presently before us. As we explained in Part II.B,

section 108 does not create a freestanding right of refusal; it

creates only a prohibition against forcible entry when entry is

refused. Section 108 has no application here because the

Secretary’s inspector was not refused entry. And because no

feature of the statute that Dewey upheld against constitutional

attack was violated, Rain for Rent’s challenge must fail. 

8

III

For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that Rain for Rent’s

statutory and constitutional challenges lack merit. Accordingly,

its petition for review is

Denied.

the statute’s relevant features in detail).

 Rain for Rent also suggests that Dewey’s approval of the Mine 8

Act’s warrantless inspections was predicated, in part, on the

protections provided by the Act’s walkaround provision, 30 U.S.C.

§ 813(f), which we discussed in Part II.B. But that provision is not

mentioned anywhere in Dewey or any of the subsequent Supreme

Court opinions discussed above.

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