Opinion ID: 678492
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: administrative summary judgment

Text: 19 In this court, PRASA hawks most vigorously a claim of procedural error. This claim spotlights the Board's interpretation of EPA's standard for dispensing (or dispensing with) evidentiary hearings, especially its conclusion that the text of the applicable regulation, 40 C.F.R. Sec. 124.75(a)(1) (stipulating that, to warrant an evidentiary hearing and deflect administrative summary judgment, the non-moving party must establish the existence of material issues of fact relevant to the issuance of the permit), should be read as the functional equivalent of Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c) (which authorizes summary judgment if there is no genuine issue as to any material fact, and thereby requires the non-moving party to establish the existence of a genuinely disputed material fact to forestall summary judgment). Section 124.75, PRASA asserts, contains no genuineness requirement, and, moreover, even if the Board had the authority to read a genuineness requirement into the regulation, it could not do so without giving advance notice. We find no merit in these assertions. 20 The Structure of Administrative Summary Judgment 21 In erecting an adjudicatory framework that included an administrative summary judgment procedure, EPA necessarily contemplated that, to qualify for an evidentiary hearing, a party would have to present a genuine and material dispute. Those two requirements are inherent in the very concept of administrative summary judgment. Any other assumption borders on the chimerical: under federal case law, a material fact is one that may affect the outcome of the case, see Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2510, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986); United States v. One Parcel of Real Property, 960 F.2d 200, 204 (1st Cir.1992); a genuine fact dispute is one that a reasonable decisionmaker could decide in favor of either party under the applicable standard of proof, or in other words, one that is worthy of being more fully adjudicated (trialworthy in the courts' parlance; hearing-worthy in the agencies' parlance). 4 See Liberty Lobby, 477 U.S. at 248-49, 106 S.Ct. at 2510-11; One Parcel, 960 F.2d at 204. To force an agency fully to adjudicate a dispute that is patently frivolous, or that can be resolved in only one way, or that can have no bearing on the disposition of the case, would be mindless, and would suffocate the root purpose for making available a summary procedure. Indeed, to argue--as does petitioner--that a speculative or purely theoretical dispute--in other words, a non-genuine dispute--can derail summary judgment is sheer persiflage. 22 We think that EPA's regulations lawfully can be read to incorporate this binary test, featuring genuineness and materiality. What is more, we refuse to attach talismanic significance to the absence of the stock phrase genuine issue of material fact. The reference found in 40 C.F.R. Sec. 124.75(a)(1) to material issues of relevant fact achieves precisely the same end. In practice, courts and agencies regularly use a variety of terms to describe the two pillars of summary judgment. 23 We hasten to add that, despite this linguistic equivalency, explicitly drawing a connection to Rule 56 accomplishes three things. First, it provides a common vocabulary, easily understandable by litigants, lawyers, and adjudicators. Second, it introduces into an agency's jurisprudence a ready-made ensemble of decisional precedents associated with Rule 56, see, e.g., Garside v. Osco Drug, Inc., 895 F.2d 46, 48 (1st Cir.1990) (holding that at the summary judgment stage the evidence must be examined in the light most favorable to the nonmovant). Third, it carries with it certain expectations, conditioned by everyday experience in the federal courts, about the kind and degree of evidence deemed necessary to create a genuine dispute over a material fact. See, e.g., Liberty Lobby, 477 U.S. at 249-50, 106 S.Ct. at 2510-11 (explaining that to withstand summary judgment, evidence must be significantly probative); Garside, 895 F.2d at 49-50 (discussing type and kind of opinion evidence that may forestall summary judgment). 24 Notwithstanding the obvious advantages of drawing a parallel between the courts' and the agencies' versions of summary judgment, petitioner contends that the Board went too far too fast. In support, PRASA posits three interrelated arguments: (1) that summary judgment, as it exists in the courts, has no legitimate place in agency practice; (2) that administrative summary judgment does not carry with it the baggage of Rule 56; and (3) that, in all events, EPA took an impermissible shortcut and embraced a Rule 56 standard precipitously, without affording fair notice or an opportunity to respond. These arguments lack force. 25 The Validity of Administrative Summary Judgment 26 The choice between summary judgment and full adjudication--in virtually any context--reflects a balancing of the value of efficiency against the values of accuracy and fairness. Seen in that light, summary judgment often makes especially good sense in an administrative forum, for, given the volume of matters coursing through an agency's hallways, efficiency is perhaps more central to an agency than to a court. See Charles C. Ames & Steven C. McCracken, Framing Regulatory Standards to Avoid Formal Adjudication: The FDA As a Case Study, 64 Cal.L.Rev. 14, 34-35 (1976). At the same time, summary judgment is less jarring in the administrative context; after all, even under optimal conditions, agencies do not afford parties full-dress jury trials. Taking these factors into account, it is unsurprising that most major agencies in the federal system have opted to make available procedures for the summary disposition of adjudicatory matters. See, e.g., 10 C.F.R. Sec. 2.749 (1994) (NRC); 16 C.F.R. Sec. 3.24 (1994) (FTC); 21 C.F.R. Sec. 12.93 (1994) (FDA); 47 C.F.R. Sec. 1.251 (1993) (FCC); 40 C.F.R. Secs. 22.20, 124.75, 164.91 (1993) (EPA); 29 C.F.R. 102.35(h) (1993) (NLRB); 29 C.F.R. Sec. 2200.2 (1993) (OSHA). 5 27 Administrative summary judgment is not only widely accepted, but also intrinsically valid. An agency's choice of such a procedural device is deserving of deference under the very basic tenet of administrative law that agencies should be free to fashion their own rules of procedure. Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. NRDC, 435 U.S. 519, 544, 98 S.Ct. 1197, 1212, 55 L.Ed.2d 460 (1978). Applying this tenet, the Court has upheld an assortment of summary procedures, some closely resembling Rule 56, in the face of claims that the procedures are invalid because they deprive parties of their right to a hearing before the agency. See Heckler v. Campbell, 461 U.S. 458, 467, 103 S.Ct. 1952, 1957, 76 L.Ed.2d 66 (1983); National Indep. Coal Operators' Ass'n v. Kleppe, 423 U.S. 388, 398-99, 96 S.Ct. 809, 814-15, 46 L.Ed.2d 580 (1976); FPC v. Texaco, Inc., 377 U.S. 33, 39-44, 84 S.Ct. 1105, 1109-12, 12 L.Ed.2d 112 (1964); United States v. Storer Broadcasting Co., 351 U.S. 192, 205, 76 S.Ct. 763, 771, 100 L.Ed. 1081 (1956); see also Ames & McCracken, supra, at 41 n. 164 (listing cases to similar effect involving different agencies). Most significantly for our purposes, the Court has given its seal of approval to a highly analogous summary procedure for denial of a hearing, see Weinberger v. Hynson, Westcott & Dunning, Inc., 412 U.S. 609, 621, 93 S.Ct. 2469, 2479, 37 L.Ed.2d 207 (1973) (involving FDA's procedure for administrative summary judgment), and to an earlier version of the very procedure that we review today, see Costle v. Pacific Legal Found., 445 U.S. 198, 214, 100 S.Ct. 1095, 1105, 63 L.Ed.2d 329 (1980). 6 28 Petitioner's claim of invalidity consists mainly of rhetorical flourishes and cannot scale this mountain of case law. Due process simply does not require an agency to convene an evidentiary hearing when it appears conclusively from the papers that, on the available evidence, the case only can be decided one way. See Hynson, 412 U.S. at 621, 93 S.Ct. at 2479. It follows that administrative summary judgment, properly configured, is an acceptable procedural device. Applicability of Rule 56 Precedents 29 Petitioner's attempt to break the bond between administrative summary judgment and its courtroom counterpart is similarly unavailing. From its inception, the concept of administrative summary judgment has been linked inextricably to Fed.R.Civ.P. 56. In all probability, it was Professor Davis who first forged this link. He wrote: Some agencies might well take a leaf from the federal rules of civil procedure and permit summary judgment without evidence when no issue of fact is presented. 1 Kenneth C. Davis, Administrative Law Treatise Sec. 8.13, at 578 (1958). A dozen years later, two other leading administrative law scholars seized upon this sentence and developed it into a highly influential report to the Committee on Agency Organization and Procedure of the Administrative Conference of the United States. See Ernest Gellhorn & William F. Robinson, Jr., Summary Judgment in Administrative Adjudication, 84 Harv.L.Rev. 612 (1971) (rendering the report in article form). 30 Consistent with the circumstances of its birth, administrative summary judgment has maintained a close relationship with Rule 56. Many agencies habitually look to Rule 56 case law for guidance in respect to administrative summary judgments. See, e.g., Phillips Pipe Line Co. v. Phillips Pipe Co., 1994 WL 145508, at  1, 1994 FERC LEXIS 757, at  3 (April 26, 1994) (applying 18 C.F.R. Sec. 385.217); United States v. Scotto Bros. Woodbury Restaurant, Inc., 1993 WL 595734, at  6, 1993 OCAHO LEXIS 95, at  14 (December 7, 1993) (outlining practice in Executive Office for Immigration Review). Other agencies, like EPA in the present context, have taken the step of formalizing the relationship. See, e.g., 29 C.F.R. Sec. 2200.2 (1993) (making Rule 56 directly applicable to proceedings before OSHA); see also In re Summary Decision Procedures, 34 F.C.C.2d 485, 487-88 (1972) (characterizing an FCC summary disposition regulation, 47 C.F.R. Sec. 1.251(a)(1), as essentially the same as Rule 56). 31 In view of this history, one respected court has gone so far as to say, perhaps overbroadly, that the principles of summary judgment outlined in Liberty Lobby apply with equal force in the context of administrative judgment. John D. Copanos & Sons, Inc. v. FDA, 854 F.2d 510, 523 (D.C.Cir.1988). We take a more circumspect view. In our opinion, Rule 56 is the prototype for administrative summary judgment procedures, and the jurisprudence that has grown up around Rule 56 is, therefore, the most fertile source of information about administrative summary judgment. Thus, [w]ith minor individual modifications, the summary judgment procedures should be similar in most agencies [to those under Rule 56]. 1 Charles H. Koch, Jr., Administrative Law & Practice Sec. 5.78, at 419 (1985). Hence, we reject petitioner's contention that Rule 56 precedents are inapposite in proceedings before administrative agencies. Departure from Precedent 32 The linchpin of petitioner's final procedural argument is the notion that the Board broke new ground in patterning its inquiry after Rule 56. We disagree. 33 It is well established that agencies are free to announce and develop rules in an adjudicatory setting. See, e.g., NLRB v. Bell Aerospace Co., 416 U.S. 267, 294, 94 S.Ct. 1757, 1771, 40 L.Ed.2d 134 (1974). Of course, there are limits on this freedom. As a general matter, when an adjudicating agency retroactively applies a new legal standard that significantly alters the rules of the game, the agency is obliged to give litigants proper notice and a meaningful opportunity to adjust. 7 See, e.g., Aero Mayflower Transit Co. v. ICC, 699 F.2d 938, 942 (7th Cir.1983); Hatch v. FERC, 654 F.2d 825, 835 (D.C.Cir.1981). By the same token, an agency cannot depart significantly from prior precedent 'without explicitly recognizing that it is doing so and explaining why.'  Congreso de Uniones Industriales v. NLRB, 966 F.2d 36, 39 (1st Cir.1992) (citation omitted); accord Davila-Bardales v. INS, 27 F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir.1994). 34 These principles do not assist petitioner's cause. Though petitioner asseverates that, in the proceedings below, EPA abruptly adopted a new legal standard that substantially changed the showing required of a party seeking an evidentiary hearing, this scenario is more imagined than real. Here, the record reflects neither a departure from precedent nor an alteration of the required showing. To the contrary, the Board's approach to section 124.75 proceeds naturally from its earlier construction of the provision and falls well within the mainstream of its previously established practice. We explain briefly. 35 Although the Board never before has made the equation between Rule 56 and EPA's summary judgment procedure so explicit, it traditionally has equated its procedural standard for denial of an evidentiary hearing anent an NPDES permit with the Rule 56 yardstick. On at least three prior occasions, the Board suggested that section 124.75's reference to the presentation of material issues of fact relevant to the issuance of the permit requires the nonmovant to set forth a genuine issue of material fact. See In re City of Jacksonville, Etc., NPDES Appeal No. 91-19 (Aug. 4, 1992), slip op. at 2; In re Miami-Dade Water & Sewer Auth. Dep't, NPDES Appeal No. 91-14 (July 27, 1992), slip op. at 17; In re Great Lakes Chem. Corp., NPDES Appeal No. 84-8 (Sept. 3, 1985), slip op. at 4. 8 36 Then, too, EPA has long espoused the view, in a wide variety of settings, that while the Civil Rules are not binding on agencies, they may inform administrative practice in appropriate situations. See, e.g., In re Harmon Elecs., Inc., 1993 WL 326423, at  4, 1993 RCRA LEXIS 113 at  9- 10 (Aug. 17, 1993); In re Premier Metal Prods., 1992 RCRA LEXIS 156, at  2 (Dec. 23, 1992). This is an approach rather consistently followed both by EPA, see, e.g., In re Wego Chem. & Mineral Corp., 1993 WL 61174, at  8, 1993 TSCA LEXIS 91, at  25- 26 (Feb. 24, 1993), and by the federal courts, see, e.g., Amberg v. FDIC, 934 F.2d 681, 685 (5th Cir.1991) (suggesting that administrative decisionmakers should look for guidance to the Civil Rules when interpreting regulations containing concepts or language derived in part from those rules). 37 In sum, the procedure to which PRASA objects did not spring suddenly and unannounced from EPA's bureaucratic brow. Rather, by the time that the agency decided this case, the concept that only the presence of a genuine issue about a material fact could forestall brevis disposition had taken deep root in administrative soil. Thus, PRASA should have known all along that it would be expected to present a genuine and material dispute in order to earn an evidentiary hearing. Though the Board had never before invoked Rule 56 in haec verba as a guide to section 124.75, any reasonable litigant familiar with administrative practice in general and with EPA's precedents in particular should have anticipated that it would be required to present evidence adequate to overcome the functional equivalent of a Rule 56 motion. 9 38 Little more need be said. The Board's use of Rule 56 here was consistent both with its prior practice and with prevalent understandings of administrative summary judgment. Thus, the Board's articulation, albeit new in a certain sense, falls well within the range of hitherto unspoken principles that appropriately may be announced in the course of rendering an adjudicative determination. See Bell Aerospace, 416 U.S. at 294, 94 S.Ct. at 1771; SEC v. Chenery Corp., 332 U.S. 194, 202-03, 67 S.Ct. 1575, 1580-81, 91 L.Ed. 1995 (1947); Molina v. INS, 981 F.2d 14, 22-23 (1st Cir.1992). 39 In the last analysis, courts must take a practical, commonsense view of the restrictions that constrain an agency's freedom to alter prior practices. Those restrictions, properly construed, do not lock an agency into a position where it invariably must parrot the same phrases or perpetually chant the same mantra. Reasonable refinement and reformulation are both permissible and advisable in administrative adjudication. Nothing more transpired here.