Opinion ID: 3170399
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Regulatory Authority

Text: In its supplemental brief, the Federation argues that its suit does not conflict with the new regulation. In light of our conclusion that DOT has occupied the field, we need not reach that issue. As to field preemption, the Federation offers no argument that the new regulation is not pervasive; indeed, it is hard to see how it could do so.18 Rather, apart from the 18 In its opening brief, filed before the current regulation became final, the Federation argued that the interim regulation was not pervasive. It noted that: “Federal agencies have shown that they are capable of pervasive regulation of self-service terminals similar to air carrier kiosks, and that type of regulation is absent here. For example, the comprehensive standards for NAT’L FED. OF THE BLIND V. UNITED AIRLINES 37 argument, which we have already rejected — that implied field preemption is simply inapplicable because of the FAA saving clause — the Federation argues only that the new regulation cannot field preempt its claims because the regulation itself is invalid. We disagree. Because we have concluded that DOT “meant to pre-empt” the claims at issue here, the question is simply “whether that action [wa]s within the scope of the [agency’s] delegated authority.” de la Cuesta, 458 U.S. at 154. “[W]hen an agency administrator promulgates pervasive regulations pursuant to his Congressional authority, we may infer a preemptive intent unless it appears from the underlying statute or its legislative history that Congress would not have sanctioned the preemption.” Montalvo, 508 F.3d at 471. ATMs and fare machines in the 2010 Americans with Disabilities Act Standards for Accessible Design address such details as clear ground or floor space around machine; speech output for instructions, orientation, transaction prompts, error messages, and all information displayed on the machine’s screen; privacy of input and output; the need for tactile input controls for all functions; the layout of numeric and function keys; visibility and characters used on the display screen; and volume control.” DOT’s final kiosk regulation addresses all or nearly all of these topics. Indeed, the technical specifications in the final regulation were based on the very same 2010 ATM accessibility standards to which the Federation pointed as an example of pervasive regulation. See 78 Fed. Reg. at 67,902–03; Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability in Air Travel: Accessibility of Web Sites and Automated Kiosks at U.S. Airports, 76 Fed. Reg. 59,307-01 (Sept. 26, 2011). 38 NAT’L FED. OF THE BLIND V. UNITED AIRLINES We conclude that DOT acted within its authority in promulgating the field-preemptive § 382.57. First, regulations under the ACAA, like § 382.57, are “covered by the FAA’s general authorization that the Secretary ‘may take action . . . consider[ed] necessary to carry out’ the FAA’s ‘Air Commerce and Safety’ provisions, ‘including . . . prescribing regulations, standards, and procedures, and issuing orders.’” Gilstrap, 709 F.3d at 1000 (quoting 49 U.S.C. § 40113(a)) (first alteration in original). As Gilstrap recognized, the ACAA, as part of the broader FAA, regulates “aviation commerce,” including principally “airlines’ interactions with their customers who have disabilities,” as well as “aviation safety.” Id. at 1005 & n.14. Thus, Congress authorized DOT to promulgate regulations that, like § 382.57, speak to United’s interactions with its customers with disabilities in the context of its kiosks. Second, even granting for the sake of argument the Federation’s argument that, in enacting the ACAA, “Congress did not in any way suggest that” it wanted to preempt state law, this “narrow focus on Congress’ intent to supersede state law [i]s misdirected.” de la Cuesta, 458 U.S. at 154. “A pre-emptive regulation’s force does not depend on express congressional authorization to displace state law.” Id. Rather, as we have explained, “the correct focus is on the federal agency that seeks to displace state law and on the proper bounds of its lawful authority to undertake such action.” City of N.Y. v. F.C.C., 486 U.S. 57, 64 (1988). Nothing in the text or legislative history of the ACAA convinces us that “Congress would not have sanctioned the preemption” intended by the DOT. Montalvo, 508 F.3d at 471; see also Gilstrap, 709 F.3d at 999–1000, 1006–07 (reviewing the legislative history of the ACAA, and NAT’L FED. OF THE BLIND V. UNITED AIRLINES 39 concluding that DOT’s regulation had field-preemptive effect).19 Third, we reject the Federation’s argument that the regulation is invalid because the ACAA “is limited to prohibiting discrimination in ‘air transportation,’” but does not extend to “subsidiary activities” like the operation of airport kiosks that “do not move people or things by aircraft.”20 The ACAA provides that, “[i]n providing air transportation, an air carrier . . . may not discriminate against an otherwise qualified individual” on the basis of current, past, or perceived disability. 49 U.S.C. § 41705(a). But we have understood, and continue to understand, the term “[i]n providing air transportation,” id., broadly, to generally include “airlines’ interactions with their customers who have disabilities.” Gilstrap, 709 F.3d at 1005 n.14. In Gilstrap, for example, we held that the ACAA regulations occupied the field implicated by Gilstrap’s claim that “United did not provide the assistance that Gilstrap requested for moving through the airports.” 709 F.3d at 1007 19 The Federation points to legislative history indicating that the ACAA was modeled after § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, argues that the latter Act permits concurrent state regulation, and asks us to infer that Congress therefore intended the same as to the ACAA. United and the United States point to countervailing indications in the legislative history, including a desire that disabled persons have the benefit of consistent accessibility practices. See 55 Fed. Reg. at 8012 (citing legislative history). Taken together, we are not persuaded that the legislative history establishes Congressional intent to foreclose field-preemptive regulations like the one at issue here. 20 This argument appears to have been raised for the first time in the Federation’s reply brief. We assume for the sake of argument that it has not been waived. 40 NAT’L FED. OF THE BLIND V. UNITED AIRLINES (emphasis added). Moving through an airport is not air transportation, yet we concluded that the ACAA regulations validly preempted the application of any different or higher state standard of care as to that issue. Id. Consistent with Gilstrap, we conclude that “[t]he ACAA was intended to ensure nondiscriminatory treatment of airline passengers,” Elassaad v. Independence Air, Inc., 613 F.3d 119, 133 (3d Cir. 2010), whether on an airplane, in an airport, at a kiosk, or otherwise. DOT thus has authority to promulgate regulations, like the one at issue here, that concern the ability to use devices designed to facilitate the provision of airplane transportation. Fourth, we also reject the Federation’s argument that, because Congress did not intend the ACAA to apply to intrastate air transportation, the Federation’s claims, to the extent they relate to purely intrastate travel, are not preempted.21 The Federation is correct that the term “air transportation” is defined in the FAA as “foreign air transportation, interstate air transportation, or the transportation of mail by aircraft,” apparently exclusive of intrastate air transportation. 49 U.S.C. § 40102(a)(5); see also 14 C.F.R. § 298.2 n.1. But DOT’s authority to promulgate regulations is not so constrained as the Federation suggests. Rather, the Secretary “may take action [he] considers necessary” to effectuate the provisions at issue here. 49 U.S.C. § 40113(a). United, like most airlines, does not maintain separate kiosks for interstate travel and intrastate travel. Faced with the likelihood of a single set of kiosks, the Secretary could 21 Again, although the issue was not raised in the district court, we assume for the sake of argument that it has not been waived. NAT’L FED. OF THE BLIND V. UNITED AIRLINES 41 reasonably conclude that a rule governing accessibility of kiosks in general is “necessary” to ensure ACAA compliance with regard to interstate travel. Thus, the Federation’s argument fails to demonstrate that the regulation is beyond DOT’s authority. Finally, the Federation notes that it has, in a different case, challenged the new regulation’s validity under the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), 5 U.S.C. § 551 et seq., and that, if the challenge is successful, “the rulemaking may be invalidated, in which case there would no longer be any basis for implied preemption of the claims that are subject to this appeal.”22 The filing of a case in a different jurisdiction that might lead to the rule’s invalidation has no pertinence to the preemption question before this court.23 In sum, § 382.57 pervasively and comprehensively regulates the field of airport kiosk accessibility, and is within DOT’s delegated authority. We therefore hold that the 22 The Federation initially filed that suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, but that court ruled that it lacked jurisdiction over that case, transferring it to the D.C. Circuit in lieu of dismissal. See Nat’l Fed’n of Blid v. U.S. Dep’t of Transp., No. 14-CV-85 (TSC), — F.Supp.3d —, 2015 WL 349156 (D.D.C. Jan. 28, 2015). The case remains pending. 23 We do not understand the Federation to have argued in this case that the regulation is invalid under the APA, notwithstanding its statement that it “adopt[s]” the challenge to the rulemaking. To the extent that the Federation has gestured at such an argument, we decline to address it, both because the Federation has not “specifically and distinctly argue[d]” it, United States v. Marcia-Acosta, 780 F.3d 1244, 1250 (9th Cir. 2015) (internal quotation marks omitted), and because it raises an issue essentially different from the one the Federation has heretofore presented on appeal. 42 NAT’L FED. OF THE BLIND V. UNITED AIRLINES Federation’s state-law claims are impliedly field preempted under the ACAA.