Opinion ID: 104757
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: violation of law or regulation.

Text: Since the District Court was overruled by the Court of Appeals only because of the latter's property rights theory and since the complaint without these allegations had earlier been held insufficient, it may be questioned whether other grounds to sustain the judgment below can be availed of. But even if the allegations fail to show a property right that equity will protect, they might be sufficient to show a special injury or interest, such as would enable plaintiff to raise the question of violation of law or regulation in the proposed leasing. To end a litigation already pending too long, we assume, without deciding, that plaintiff may raise this issue which we now consider. The only claim of law violation is that the Secretary is proposing to violate his own regulation, promulgated pursuant to the Act and hence having the force of law. That it binds him as well as others while it is in effect is not doubted. The regulation on literal reading does not purport to prohibit the Secretary from any leasing unless need for new mines be shown. It does direct the General Land Office (now the Bureau of Land Management) to find need for additional capacity before recommending new leasing. Its recommendation, however, is only advisory and can be overruled or disregarded. On its face, therefore, the regulation would seem to be directed primarily to a procedural matter within the Department of the Interior. However, it is claimed that the letters of Secretary Ickes at the time it was adopted and the uniform practice since, show it to have been a regulation fixing a controlling policy. We proceed on that assumption. In the case before us the Secretary neither repudiates the regulation nor stands upon any right to depart from it. He says that, properly construed, it does not apply to the proposed Big Horn lease. It only prevents a lease which will introduce a new competitor to the field and not, he says, a lease which would only enable an existing mine and an established business to continue. Sheridan argues that this reasoning sanctions an evasion of the regulation in that Big Horn opened its mine on partially depleted state lands knowing it must get federal lands also or quit. The implication is that state lands were used as a sort of portal in which to stand while prying a federal lease out from under the regulation. Plaintiff insists that the Secretary is required to act in the light of conditions when Big Horn first applied, and not as of now when it has built up a going business on the inadequate state leases, aided by war conditions. But the action is one in equity, and equity will administer such relief as the exigencies of the case demand at the close of the trial. Bloomquist v. Farson, 222 N. Y. 375, 380, 118 N. E. 855, 856; Lightfoot v. Davis, 198 N. Y. 261, 273, 91 N. E. 582, 586. The question on injunction is whether the action threatened will be a violation if it now takes place in light of conditions shown by the proposed amended complaint. That pleads findings of the Department which show what has happened since the Big Horn application was filed. Without recourse to federal lands, it has established a mine and a business in the face of Sheridan competition. If time has improved Big Horn's position in this respect, it must be noted that the delay in acting on its application has been largely due to plaintiff's protests and litigations. We think a court of equity cannot term unreasonable the view of the Secretary that Big Horn's lease is not for an additional coal mine, need for which must be proved. It does not use federal reserves to add a new competitor to the market. It uses them to keep one there. We think the distinction is substantial and the Secretary's interpretation of the regulation is permissible, even if not inevitable. The declining market following the war and the growing use of oil may present difficult problems of survival for government lessees and of fair dealing for the Secretary. But courts can intervene only where legal rights are invaded or the law violated. We think the District Court rightly concluded that the amended complaint fails to state a legal case for the relief asked. Accordingly, the judgment below is Reversed. MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.