Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-04-01381/USCOURTS-caDC-04-01381-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Casino Airlines, Inc.
Petitioner
Federal Aviation Administration
Respondent
National Transportation Safety Board
Respondent

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 24, 2005 Decided February 3, 2006

No. 04-1381

CASINO AIRLINES, INC.,

PETITIONER

v.

NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD AND

FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION,

RESPONDENTS

On Petition for Review of an Order of the

United States Department of Transportation

Mark T. McDermott argued the cause for petitioner. With

him on the briefs was Steven L. Graff.

Agnes M. Rodriguez, Senior Attorney, Federal Aviation

Administration, argued the cause for respondent. With her on

the brief was Peter J. Lynch, Assistant Chief Counsel.

Before: TATEL and GRIFFITH, Circuit Judges, and

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH.

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GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge: Casino Airlines, Inc. (Casino)

seeks review of an order of the National Transportation Safety

Board (NTSB or Board). The Board affirmed the decision of an

Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) to uphold the revocation of

Casino’s air carrier operating certificate by the Federal Aviation

Administration (FAA). We deny Casino’s petition for review

because we find that at least one of the grounds for the Board’s

decision was permissible.

I. BACKGROUND

The FAA Administrator revoked the operating certificate

for Casino, a small regional carrier, on January 23, 2003.

Without a valid certificate, Casino could not conduct air carrier

operations. See 49 U.S.C. § 44711(a)(4). Casino appealed the

revocation to the NTSB. See 49 U.S.C. § 44709(d)(1). The

NTSB assigns appeals to an ALJ, who is authorized to issue an

initial decision. 49 C.F.R. § 821.35(a), (b)(10). Appeals from

ALJ decisions may be made to the Board. 49

C.F.R. § 821.47(a). The carrier may then petition this Court for

review of adverse Board decisions. 49 U.S.C. § 1153(a); 49

U.S.C. § 44709(f).

Before the ALJ, the FAA submitted as its complaint the

“Order of Revocation,” which it is required to do under 49

C.F.R. § 821.31(a), but Casino failed to file an answer as called

for in 49 C.F.R. § 821.31(b). The FAA moved for summary

judgment, asking the Board to affirm the Administrator’s

revocation on the ground that there was no genuine issue of

material fact. Casino did not respond. The FAA attached two

declarations from FAA safety inspectors to its motion. The first

stated that Casino did not have “a qualified Chief Inspector”; the

second stated that Casino did not have an “economic authority.”

Under FAA regulations, an air carrier must employ a qualified

chief inspector and possess an economic authority, 14

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C.F.R. § 119.65(a)(5); 14 C.F.R. § 119.5(i), or face revocation

of its operating certificate. 49 U.S.C. § 44709(b)(1)(A).

The ALJ affirmed the FAA revocation order and gave two

reasons for its decision. First, he held that the allegations of the

complaint were deemed admitted because Casino had not filed

an answer. Second, the ALJ found that there were “no disputed

material facts” because Casino had not opposed the FAA’s

motion for summary judgment. Admin’r v. Casino Airlines,

Inc., NTSB Decisional Order, Docket No. SE-16809 (June 27,

2003) (hereinafter ALJ Opinion), reprinted in Joint Appendix

(J.A.) at 44-45. According to the ALJ, “the proceeding [stood]

for disposition upon the facts of the Complaint which [were]

deemed established and the unopposed representations and

attachments in said Motion [the motion for summary

judgment].” J.A. at 45 (emphasis added).

Casino appealed the ALJ decision to the Board, arguing that

its appeal should not have been dismissed for what it called a

“procedural defect,” given that it was not represented by counsel

at the time. J.A. at 55-56. The Board denied the appeal, stating

that Casino’s pro se status was irrelevant because Casino had

“failed to act in the face of clear notice of the necessity and

timing for doing so.” Admin’r v. Casino Airlines, Inc., NTSB

Order No. 5091, at 3 (May 27, 2004), reprinted in J.A. at 95.

More important to the disposition of this matter, the Board

affirmed the ALJ’s decision to “deem[] [the FAA allegations]

admitted by the unanswered complaint and the law judge’s grant

of the unopposed motion for summary judgment.” Id. (emphasis

added). 

Casino moved for reconsideration, and for the first time in

its challenge to the revocation of its operating certificate, Casino

argued that its Notice of Appeal was the functional equivalent

of an answer, and that the ALJ and the Board should not have

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1

 At oral argument, counsel for Casino also argued that the

NTSB should have considered disciplinary action as an alternative to

revocation. Oral Arg. at 3:45; 6:40. Casino, however, failed to raise

this argument in its briefs and therefore waived the argument. See Ark

deemed the allegations of the complaint admitted. The Board

concurred that the ALJ could have treated the Notice of Appeal

as an answer, but still affirmed its prior decision on the basis of

Casino’s failure to respond to the FAA’s motion for summary

judgment: “[T]he law judge cannot be faulted for not

recognizing the appropriateness of disregarding respondent’s

failure to file a formal answer in the face of [Casino’s]

subsequent failure to respond to the Administrator’s motion for

summary judgment.” NTSB Order No. 5108 (September 14,

2004) at 1-2, reprinted in J.A. at 111-12.

On November 9, 2004, Casino petitioned this Court for

review of the NTSB orders.

II. ANALYSIS

We have jurisdiction to hear this petition for review

pursuant to 49 U.S.C. §§ 1153(a) and 44709(f), and, applying

the familiar standard of review found in 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(a),

we uphold the NTSB orders because they are “not ‘arbitrary,

capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in

accordance with the law.’” See Am. Fed’n of Gov’t Employees,

AFL-CIO v. FLRA, 778 F.2d 850, 863 (D.C. Cir. 1985) (quoting

5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(a)).

Casino rests its challenge to the Board’s decision upon its

argument that the ALJ and the NTSB should have treated

Casino’s notice of appeal letter as an answer to the FAA

complaint and should not, therefore, have deemed the

allegations in the FAA complaint admitted.1

 But we need not

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Las Vegas Rest. Corp. v. NLRB, 334 F.3d 99, 108 n.4 (D.C. Cir.

2003); see also Oral Arg. at 10:17.

2

 In any case, it is not entirely clear that the Board acted

arbitrarily and capriciously when it refused to treat the notice of appeal

as an answer to the FAA complaint. To be sure, the NTSB did find,

in Administrator v. Ocampo, NTSB Order No. EA-5113 (Sept. 28,

2004), at 3, that a “notice of appeal” should be treated as an “answer,”

but this decision was issued after the NTSB issued its order on

reconsideration on September 14, 2004. Given our conclusion in this

case, we do not address whether a decision can be arbitrary and

capricious or contrary to precedent if the precedential opinion relied

upon was issued after the issuance of the decision being challenged

but before the filing of the notice of appeal.

address this issue because both the ALJ and the NTSB relied on

another independent and valid ground for their decisions:

Casino’s failure to respond to the motion for summary

judgment.2

Although “[i]t is axiomatic that we may uphold agency

orders based only on reasoning that is fairly stated by the agency

in the order under review,” Williams Gas Processing – Gulf

Coast Co., L.P. v. FERC, 373 F.3d 1335, 1345 (D.C. Cir. 2004)

(citing SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U.S. 80, 88 (1943)), the

contested decision need not be a model of clarity. As long as

“the agency’s path may reasonably be discerned,” we will

uphold the decision even if it is “of less than ideal clarity.”

Bowman Transp., Inc. v. Ark.-Best Freight Sys., Inc., 419 U.S.

281, 285-86 (1974); see also Chritton v. NTSB, 888 F.2d 854,

862 (D.C. Cir. 1989) (upholding Board decision even though the

decision was “less than crystal clear”). We have consistently

held that “[w]hen an agency relies on multiple grounds for its

decision, some of which are invalid, we may nonetheless sustain

the decision as long as one is valid and ‘the agency would

clearly have acted on that ground even if the other were

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unavailable.’” Mail Order Ass’n. of Am. v. U.S. Postal Serv., 2

F.3d 408, 434 (D.C. Cir. 1993) (quoting Syracuse Peace Council

v. FCC, 867 F.2d 654, 657 (D.C. Cir. 1989), cert. denied, 493

U.S. 1019 (1990)).

In this case, we can “reasonably discern” that Casino’s

failure to respond to the summary judgment motion was an

independent ground for the decisions at issue. The ALJ, for

example, held that “the proceeding stands for disposition upon

the facts of the Complaint which are deemed established and the

unopposed representations and attachments in said Motion [the

motion for summary judgment].” ALJ Opinion at 45 (emphasis

added). On appeal from that decision, the Board noted that the

ALJ had based its decision on Casino’s failure to file a

complaint and Casino’s failure to respond to the motion for

summary judgment. NTSB Order No. 5091, at 3. And, in its

denial of the motion for reconsideration, the Board explained

that it was denying the appeal because Casino had not responded

to the summary judgment motion. NTSB Order No. 5109, at 1-

2. 

We agree with the Board. Its regulations provide that “[a]

party may file a motion for summary judgment on the basis that

the pleadings and other supporting documentation establish that

there are no material issues of fact to be resolved and that party

is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” 49

C.F.R. § 821.17(d). Here, the FAA filed a motion for summary

judgment and attached affidavits declaring that Casino did not

have the required economic authority and was not employing a

chief inspector. Casino did not file a response to the motion for

summary judgment, and, consequently, NTSB properly

concluded that there were “no material issues of fact to be

resolved.” Id.

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Casino reads the Board’s decision differently and argues

that the Board held only that a notice of appeal cannot serve as

an answer if a party does not file a response to a subsequent

motion for summary judgment. But that is not a fair reading of

what the Board said. The Board’s language could have been

more direct, but we do not think there can be a reasonable

dispute that the Board orders were based, at least in part, on the

undisputed fact that Casino failed to respond to the FAA’s

motion for summary judgment. That is a sufficient basis for the

Board’s decision and for our decision to deny the petition for

review.

So ordered.

 

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