Opinion ID: 859134
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Mine Operators

Text: Petitioners argue that the record demands here are warrantless searches and prohibited by the Fourth Amendment. A government agency typically must secure a warrant before conducting a search of commercial premises or a business. See v. City of Seattle, 387 U.S. 541 (1967). A warrant is not always necessary, though, to search a business operating in a pervasively regulated industry because businesses in those industries have lower expectations of privacy. New York v. Burger, 482 U.S. 691, 702 (1987) (in closely regulated industries, “where the privacy interests of the owner are weakened and the government interests in regulating particular business are concomitantly heightened, a warrantless inspection of commercial premises may well be reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment”); United States v. Biswell, 406 U.S. 311 (1972); Colonnade Catering Corp. v. United States, 397 U.S. 72 (1970). In Donovan v. Dewey, the Supreme Court held that mining falls into this category — it is so pervasively regulated that it should be excepted from the warrant requirement for the purposes of regulating mine safety. The Court observed that the 1977 Mine Safety Act regulated “industrial activity with a notorious history of Nos. 12-2316 & 12-2460 27 serious accidents and unhealthful working conditions,” and that the Act’s regulation of mines “is sufficiently pervasive and defined that the owner of such a facility cannot help but be aware that he ‘will be subject to effective inspection.’ ” 452 U.S. at 602-05, citing Biswell, 406 U.S. at 316. The Court upheld the Mine Safety Act’s scheme of warrantless inspections of surface and underground mines. Donovan is highly instructive but does not fully answer the Fourth Amendment question here, for Donovan concerned physical safety inspections of mines, not demands for production of medical and personnel files in mine custody. While Donovan found that the mining industry is sufficiently regulated to justify an exception from the warrant requirement, the fact that these document demands occur in the context of a pervasively regulated industry does not end the inquiry. Warrantless searches of pervasively regulated industries must still be reasonable. Burger, 482 U.S. at 702. In determining whether a warrantless search of a closely-regulated enterprise pursuant to a regulatory scheme is reasonable, the Supreme Court has taught that such a search is reasonable if it satisfies three elements: the government has a substantial interest in the regulatory scheme prompting the search, a warrantless search is necessary to accomplish the goals of the regulatory scheme, and the regulatory scheme provides enough certainty and regularity to put business operators on notice and to limit individual agent discretion. See Burger, 482 U.S. at 701-03. 28 Nos. 12-2316 & 12-2460 Although the parties have briefed the issue primarily in terms of warrantless searches, the distinct differences between the document demands here and unannounced physical inspections, as in Donovan or Burger, persuade us that the Fourth Amendment issues are better understood in terms of the law applicable to administrative subpoenas. In essence, what section 50.41 permits is not an intrusion in which government inspectors themselves open file cabinets and examine computer hard drives, but rather an administrative subpoena that requires mine operators to allow MSHA inspectors to review and keep copies of the records. The record demands meet the Fourth Amendment requirements for administrative subpoenas.
Petitioners argue that the record demands here run afoul of the Fourth Amendment protections for commercial enterprises. The record demands here, however, are of a different nature than the challenged searches in the Supreme Court’s cases delineating the Fourth Amendment’s protections for closely-regulated industries. Most of those cases address physical inspections of commercial premises. See, e.g., Burger, 482 U.S. at 712 (inspection of vehicle identification numbers at junkyard was excepted from warrant requirement after owner refused to permit officers to review his vehicle records); Donovan, 452 U.S. at 602 (warrantless physical inspection of mine for apparent safety violations as authorized by Mine Safety Act did not violate Nos. 12-2316 & 12-2460 29 Fourth Amendment); Marshall v. Barlow’s, Inc., 436 U.S. 307, 322-25 (1978) (entry into electrical and plumbing installation business to inspect for workplace safety conditions by OSHA inspector required warrant). In this case, however, MSHA is not seeking to require mine operators to permit inspectors to enter mine operators’ private offices and search through mine operators’ file cabinets and computer files. Rather, MSHA seeks only to require the mine operators to provide certain documents. It is up to the mine operators them- selves to search for, review, identify, and produce the responsive documents. For Fourth Amendment pur- poses, therefore, such demands are administrative subpoenas rather than physical searches carried out by government agents. See Oklahoma Press Pub. Co. v. Walling, 327 U.S. 186, 195 (1946) (subpoenas requiring newspaper publishing companies to produce specified records that would determine compliance with Fair Labor Standards Act were not searches for Fourth Amendment purposes: “the records in these cases present no question of actual search and seizure, but raise only the question whether orders of court for the production of specified records have been validly made”); RSM, Inc. v. Buckles, 254 F.3d 61, 63, 69 (4th Cir. 2001) (“demand letters” from ATF requiring firearms licensees to “submit information concerning their firearms purchases and sales for the past three years” were “analogous to [ ] administrative subpoena[s]” and met the Fourth Amendment’s requirements for such subpoenas). Although the Mine Safety Act does not expressly refer to MSHA’s document review power as the power to 30 Nos. 12-2316 & 12-2460 issue an “administrative subpoena,” the authority the Act confers upon MSHA amounts to an administrative subpoena in substance. It is the authority to inspect and copy specific documents in the possession of mine operators and the authority to issue citations and orders and impose penalties if mine operators do not cooperate. It is true that most administrative subpoenas are not self-executing, meaning that the agency cannot seek penalties for non-compliance until after a judicial officer has ordered compliance. But here, as we discuss further below, the Act provides mine operators with a variety of tools with which to defer and mitigate the imposition of penalties, thus mitigating the extent to which MSHA’s document inspection demands may be more coercive than ordinary administrative subpoenas. For purposes of our Fourth Amendment analysis, we look to the substance of MSHA’s inspection power rather than how the Act nominally refers to those powers. And the power at issue here more closely resembles an administrative subpoena than a search or a seizure. A subpoena also implicates the Fourth Amendment, but only to the extent of requiring that the demand for information be “sufficiently limited in scope, relevant in purpose, and specific in directive so that compliance will not be unreasonably burdensome.” See v. City of Seattle, 387 U.S. 541, 544 (1967). The record demands here satisfy these criteria. First, the record demands are sufficiently limited in scope. The records demanded are limited to those that are necessary for MSHA to determine compliance Nos. 12-2316 & 12-2460 31 with 7000-1 and 7000-2 reports: personnel records to verify employee hours work and medical records to verify accurate injury and illness reporting. The demands are narrowly written so as to not require mine operators to produce records that would not aid MSHA in verifying compliance with Part 50 reporting requirements. Moreover, the demands cover relevant records from only one year. In light of these limits, the demands meet the first prong of the Fourth Amendment’s requirements for administrative subpoenas. Second, the record demands are relevant to the goals of the statutory scheme and the government’s interest in miner safety. Congress has articulated a strong government interest in mine safety that drives the system of Part 50 audits and these demands for documents to verify compliance with other important regulatory requirements. When Congress passed the Mine Safety Act in 1977, it responded to a pressing need for tighter safety regulation of mines. See Donovoan, 452, U.S. at 602 (“it is undisputed that there is a substantial federal interest in improving the health and safety conditions in the Nation’s underground and surface mines,” and “Congress was plainly aware that the mining industry is among the most hazardous in the country”). The importance of miner safety remains strong today. Unfortunately, we need only look to the twenty-nine miners who died in the 2010 disaster at the Upper Big Branch mine — the “deadliest coal mine disaster this nation has experienced in forty years.” See A Tragic Anniversary: Improving Safety at Dangerous Mines 32 Nos. 12-2316 & 12-2460 One Year After Upper Big Branch: Hearing Before the S. Comm. on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, 112th Cong. 1 (2011) (statement of Joseph A. Main at 1, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health). An MSHA briefing following the Upper Big Branch accident reveals the importance of accurate reporting of safety violations. MSHA reported that in the years preceding the accident, the number of safety violations and citations for Upper Big Branch mine had increased and were “not only [ ] more numerous than average, they [were] also more serious.” Briefing by Department of Labor, Mine Safety and Health Administration on Disaster at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch MineSouth at 4 (April 5, 2010). These numerous and serious violations would have put Upper Big Branch into a “pattern of violation” status (thus permitting heightened scrutiny) in the year before the accident, but for an error in MSHA’s reporting system. Although this computer error was a different kind of error than deliberate or unintentional under-reporting of injuries on 7000-1 forms, the error tragically illustrates the importance of ensuring accurate reports of injuries and illnesses. Artificially low injury rates and severity measures can cause MSHA to miss mines that should otherwise be in POV status and subject to more rigorous inspection and regulation. Finally, the record demands are specific enough that it will not be unreasonably burdensome for mine operators to comply with the demands. The letters MSHA sent to mine operators specifically listed the documents to be reviewed (e.g., “All payroll records and time sheets Nos. 12-2316 & 12-2460 33 for all individuals working at your mine for the covered time period,” Joint App. 32), and listed specific examples of the types of documents included in the demand: All medical records, doctor’s slips, worker compensation filings, sick leave requests or reports, drug testing documents, emergency medical transportation records, and medical claims forms in your posses- sion relating to accidents, injuries, or illnesses that occurred at the mine or may have resulted from work at the mine . . . . Id. These demands are quite specific with regard to the type of records demanded (medical and payroll). While the medical record demand may require mine operators to sort between relevant and irrelevant medical records, the demand provides specific enough guidance so that any such sorting should not unreasonably burden mine operators. The demand sets a clear standard for which medical records are relevant: accidents, injuries, or illnesses, that occurred at the mine or may have resulted from work at the mine. Sorting between relevant and irrelevant medical records with this guidance should not be burdensome for mine operators, who are usually quite familiar with mine injuries and illnesses. Thus, although the petitioners ask us to invalidate these demands as warrantless inspections offensive to the Fourth Amendment, we find that they are in sub- stance administrative subpoenas and they satisfy the Fourth Amendment’s requirements for such subpoenas. 34 Nos. 12-2316 & 12-2460