Opinion ID: 184854
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Statute of Limitations and Retroactivity

Text: NMA next contends the IFR violates the five-year statuteof limitations governing penalty enforcement, 28 U.S.C.s 2462, because it authorizes permit-blocking based on viola__________ alternative contention that the presumptions violate establishedprinciples of stockholder and director liability. 10 We do not address NMA's contention that the IFR's rebuttablepresumptions of ownership shift the burden of proof to the permittee in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C.s 556(d). The challenged burden framework is set out not in theIFR but in OSM's procedural rules, see 43 C.F.R. ss 4.1374(b),4.1384(b), which are subject to appeal in a separate pending action. See supra note 3. tions more than five years old. In addition, it claims the IFRhas retroactive effect in blocking permits based on violationsthat attached to an applicant before November 2, 1988, theeffective date of the Ownership and Control Rule. We conclude the section 2462 limitation period does not apply to thepermit blocks because the Congress intended to exempt themfrom its scope but agree that the IFR is impermissiblyretroactive insofar as it reaches back before November 2,1988. Section 2462 provides: Except as otherwise provided by Act of Congress, an action, suit or proceeding for the enforcement of any civil fine, penalty, or forfeiture, pecuniary or otherwise, shall not be entertained unless commenced within five years from the date when the claim first accrued if, within the same period, the offender or the property is found within the United States in order that proper service may be made thereon. 28 U.S.C. s 2462. By the statute's express terms, its limitation period is inapplicable where otherwise provided by Actof Congress--and SMCRA so provides. Section 510(c) expressly directs the appropriate regulatory authority to denypermits [w]here the schedule or other information availableto the regulatory authority indicates that any surface coalmining operation owned or controlled by the applicant iscurrently in violation of environmental laws, irrespective ofwhen the claim first accrued. 30 U.S.C. s 1260(c) (emphasisadded). Because the statute expressly requires permit blocking based on current, ongoing violations, whenever first committed, we conclude that the Congress intended to exemptpermit denials from section 2462's limitation period. Cf.Mullikin v. United States, 952 F.2d 920, 924-29 (6th Cir.1991) (s 2462 not applicable to assessing tax-fraud penaltiesunder 26 U.S.C. s 6701 because [i]t is the Court's view thatit was the intent of Congress in enacting Section 6701 thatthere be no statute of limitations governing the assessment of penalties), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 827 (1992); Lamb v. UnitedStates, 977 F.2d 1296 (8th Cir. 1992) (following Mullikin).11 The rule against retroactivity is not so easily avoided. Anadministrative rule is retroactive if it takes away or impairsvested rights acquired under existing law, or creates a newobligation, imposes a new duty, or attaches a new disability inrespect to transactions or considerations already past. Association of Accredited Cosmetology Schs. v. Alexander, 979F.2d 859, 864 (D.C. Cir. 1992) (citation omitted). OSM's viewof controller liability, first promulgated in the 1988 Ownershipand Control Rule and retained in the IFR, imposes a newdisability, permit ineligibility, based on transactions or considerations already past, namely pre-rule violations by mineoperators over whom permit applicants acquired control before the rule's effective date.12 Before the rule took effectthere was no clear liability under the statute for violations byentities indirectly controlled by the applicant. While OSM'sconstruction of section 510(c)--to impose liability for suchdownstream violations--is a reasonable one, see supra Part I,it is not mandated by the statutory language. Where beforethere was a range of possible interpretations of the statutory language--including imposing liability only for violationsby the applicant's own, directly controlled operations--the __________ 11 We recognize that the Fourth Circuit has held that section 2462does apply to permit blocking under section 510(c). See ArchMineral Corp. v. Babbitt, 104 F.3d 660 (4th Cir. 1997). The Archcourt, however, based its holding on the premise that, contrary toOSM's position, a permit block is an action, suit or proceeding forthe enforcement of any civil fine, penalty, or forfeiture, withoutconsidering whether the Congress in enacting SMCRA intended toexempt such blocks from section 2462. Because we hold that theCongress intended no limitation period for the permit blocks, weneed not decide whether such blocks are, as Arch held, penal or,as OSM maintains, remedial. 12 In the case of pre-rule violations by operators over whom anapplicant assumed control after the rule issued, the regulation is notretroactive because the applicant's disability is in respect to itsassumption of control, a transaction occurring after the effectivedate. rule established a precise interpretation, which in a sensechanges the legal landscape. Health Ins. Ass'n of Am., Inc.v. Shalala, 23 F.3d 412, 423-24 (D.C. Cir. 1994), cert. denied,513 U.S. 1147 (1995). Applying the rule's specific interpretation to impose liability based on pre-rule acts therefore givesit retroactive effect which OSM can do only if authoritytherefor is conveyed by Congress in express terms. Bowenv. Georgetown Univ. Hosp., 488 U.S. 204, 208 (1988) (citationsomitted); see also Health Ins. Ass'n of Am., Inc., 23 F.3d at422-25. Because section 510(c) contains no express termsauthorizing retroactive liability, we hold that the IFR isinvalid insofar as it block permits based on transactions(violations and control) antedating November 2, 1988, theOwnership and Control Rule's effective date.