Opinion ID: 158093
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Direct and Immediate Impact

Text: Turning to the third ripeness consideration, neither the document request letter nor the administrative subpoena has an appreciable direct and immediate impact upon Plaintiffs. While the second prong of the Bennett finality analysis generally requires the court to examine whether any legal consequences arise from the agency action, the approach to the third prong of the ripeness doctrine is a broader one, focusing on financial and operational impacts as well as on legal ones. We begin by comparing the effects of the letter and the subpoena on Plaintiffs with the effects of the obligations imposed on the petitioner in the seminal case on this point, namely, Abbott Laboratories. In that case, the petitioner was forced to choose between costly compliance with food and drug -24- regulations and severe criminal and civil penalties for noncompliance. In determining that the petitioner’s claims were ripe, the Court found that the required changes in products and the costs associated with ensuring compliance and preventing civil and criminal prosecution for noncompliance constituted direct and immediate impacts on petitioner’s daily business. See Abbott Lab., 387 U.S. at 152-53. The document request letter and subpoena have no immediate substantial impact upon Plaintiffs similar to the burdens described in Abbott Laboratories. Plaintiffs’ refusal to comply with the document request letter itself evidences the letter’s lack of impact. The letter did not force Plaintiffs to disclose any information; it merely requested that they cooperate with the investigation. Even after the MMS served Plaintiffs with an administrative subpoena, Plaintiffs still did not suffer any immediate or substantial effect for refusing to comply with it. 7 Any “consequences” Plaintiffs claim to have suffered or to be suffering as a result of their procedural wrangling with Defendants do not constitute direct and immediate impacts because they do not impose any appreciable obligations upon 7 If Defendants were to file a proper enforcement action to obtain the subpoenaed information, Plaintiffs likely could more readily show the type of effects which Abbott Laboratories envisioned. However, while we think the distinction between pre- and post-enforcement impacts is an important one, we do not answer today whether post-enforcement impacts would in fact satisfy the Abbott Laboratories standard. -25- their daily business. See CEC Energy, 891 F.2d at 1110-11 (stating that agency’s action determining jurisdiction only imposed obligation to respond to agency’s further inquiries); cf. Standard Oil, 449 U.S. at 243 (determining that agency’s issuance of complaint had no impact “other than the disruptions that accompany any major litigation”). Further, we do not think Plaintiffs’ alleged burden of having to retain information more than six years old is the type of consequence which, standing alone, creates ripeness. Not only does this type of burden arise from every audit requiring records to “be maintained for a [period] longer” than six years, 30 U.S.C. § 1717(b), but, like the obligation of having to disclose documents, merely being required to retain information does not impose the type of costs or the potential for severe criminal penalties recognized in Abbott Laboratories. Additionally, because the MMS has avowed not to pursue penalties against Plaintiffs under 30 U.S.C. § 1719(c)(2), there is no merit to Plaintiffs’ argument that such penalties would have a substantial and severe impact upon them. For these reasons, we are not persuaded that the document request letter and the administrative subpoena expose Plaintiffs to the type of direct and immediate “injury necessary to justify jurisdiction.” Belle Fourche, 751 F.3d at 335.