Opinion ID: 784873
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The OSHA Investigation

Text: 18 We are guided in this portion of our inquiry by the Supreme Court's decision in Ports, for which we stayed our consideration of the merits of this appeal. The Ports Court held that state sovereign immunity barred the Federal Maritime Commission (the FMC) from adjudicating a private party's complaint against a nonconsenting state. Ports, 535 U.S. at 747, 122 S.Ct. 1864. In Ports, a ship operator had filed a complaint with the FMC alleging that the South Carolina State Ports Authority (the Authority), a state agency, had violated the Shipping Act of 1984, 46 U.S.C.App. § 1701 et seq., by repeatedly denying it permission to berth a cruise ship at a Charleston port. Id. at 747-48, 122 S.Ct. 1864. The operator sought both injunctive and compensatory relief. Id. at 748-49, 122 S.Ct. 1864. In accordance with the FMC's Rules of Practice and Procedure, the complaint was referred to an ALJ. Id. at 749, 122 S.Ct. 1864. The Authority responded by, inter alia, filing a motion to dismiss, alleging that it was entitled to sovereign immunity and therefore could not be required to appear before the ALJ. The Supreme Court agreed and concluded that state sovereign immunity barred the FMC from adjudicating a private party's complaint against a nonconsenting state. 19 The Ports Court explained that [t]he preeminent purpose of state sovereign immunity is to accord States the dignity that is consistent with their status as sovereign entities. Id. at 760, 122 S.Ct. 1864. An integral component of that dignity is immunity from private suits. Id. at 751-52, 122 S.Ct. 1864. While the FMC argued that Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity was limited, as a literal reading of the text implies, to any suit in law or equity, see U.S. Const. Amend. XI (emphasis added), the Supreme Court observed that the sovereign immunity enjoyed by the States extends beyond the literal text of the Eleventh Amendment. Id. at 754, 122 S.Ct. 1864. To determine whether the Eleventh Amendment protected South Carolina from the administrative proceeding, the Supreme Court examine[d] FMC adjudications to determine whether they are the type of proceedings from which the Framers would have thought the States possessed immunity when they agreed to enter the Union. Id. at 756, 122 S.Ct. 1864. 20 Subjecting a state to adjudication in proceedings brought by a private party in any forum, the Court continued, offends principles of sovereign immunity. See id. at 760, 122 S.Ct. 1864 (Simply put, if the Framers thought it an impermissible affront to a State's dignity to be required to answer the complaints of private parties in federal courts, we cannot imagine that they would have found it acceptable to compel a State to do exactly the same thing before the administrative tribunal of an agency....). When the proceeding walks, talks, and squawks like a lawsuit, sovereign immunity bars a private citizen from requiring the state's presence. Id. at 757, 122 S.Ct. 1864 (quoting S.C. State Ports Authority v. Fed. Maritime Comm'n, 243 F.3d at 174). 21 The Court catalogued the similarities between civil litigation in federal courts and the FMC administrative proceeding, noting in particular the similarities between an ALJ and a trial judge, the adversarial nature of both proceedings, their shared insulation from political influence, the similar rules governing the taking of evidence, and the parallels between FMC administrative procedures and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, id. at 756-59, 122 S.Ct. 1864, and concluded that the similarities between FMC proceedings and civil litigation are overwhelming, id. at 759, 122 S.Ct. 1864. The Court explained that [g]iven both th[e] interest in protecting States' dignity and the strong similarities between FMC proceedings and civil litigation,... state sovereign immunity bars the FMC from adjudicating complaints filed by a private party against a nonconsenting State. Id. at 760, 122 S.Ct. 1864. 22 The Court pointed out that this bar to administrative adjudications brought by a private citizen against a nonconsenting state did not foreclose the federal government from enforcing its laws. Of course, the Court wrote, the Federal Government retains ample means of ensuring that state-run ports comply with ... federal rules. Id. at 768, 122 S.Ct. 1864. The Court noted particularly that the federal government is not barred from investigating a claim or instituting adjudicative proceedings based on a private citizen's complaint. Id. at 768, 122 S.Ct. 1864 (The FMC ... remains free to investigate alleged violations of the Shipping Act, either upon its own initiative or upon information supplied by a private party, and to institute its own administrative proceeding against a state-run port. (citations omitted)); see also id. at 768 n. 19, 122 S.Ct. 1864 ([P]rivate parties remain perfectly free to complain to the Federal Government about unlawful state activity and the Federal Government remains free to take subsequent legal action. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)). As the Court thus made clear, the fact that a private party's complaint triggers a dispute does not necessarily implicate a state's sovereign immunity. The only step the FMC may not take, consistent with this Court's sovereign immunity jurisprudence, is to adjudicate a dispute between a private party and a nonconsenting State. Id. 23 OSHA concedes that, in light of Ports, it may not adjudicate Rapkin's complaint if it is not a party to the proceedings. OSHA contends, however, that it may investigate the complaint for the purpose of deciding whether to intervene in the action. OSHA argues that the prohibited adjudication is an ALJ hearing in which the federal government is not a party, not any earlier investigation. State DEP contends to the contrary that the process by which OSHA would investigate Rapkin's complaint and, perhaps, subsequently issue an order is itself an adjudication barred by principles of sovereign immunity under Ports. 24 We agree with OSHA. OSHA's investigation regarding the actions of State DEP is just that: an investigation, not an adjudication. Unlike the FMC proceeding at issue in Ports, the OSHA investigation does not involve any formal trial procedures. While there are some similarities between the OSHA investigation and a civil trial, the hallmarks of adjudication noted in Ports are missing: There is no neutral trier of fact, id. at 757, 122 S.Ct. 1864, who is functionally comparable to a trial judge, id. at 756, 122 S.Ct. 1864; the proceedings are not adversar[ial] in nature, id. at 757, 122 S.Ct. 1864; parties do not present [their] case, whether by oral or documentary evidence, nor can they engage in discovery, id. at 757-58, 122 S.Ct. 1864; and the procedure bears no resemblance to that required by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, let alone being virtually indistinguishable from it, id. at 758, 122 S.Ct. 1864. Unlike an adjudication, in which the parties drive the investigation of the case, in OSHA investigations, OSHA is in charge. It is OSHA, not the private citizen, that may enter and inspect places and records, question people, and require the production of any documents or other evidence it deems reasonable. See 29 C.F.R. § 24.4(b). Unlike the adjudication at issue in Ports, during the OSHA investigation, the State of Connecticut is not required to defend itself in an adversarial proceeding against a private party before an impartial federal officer. Ports, 535 U.S. at 760-61, 122 S.Ct. 1864. In sum, the OSHA investigation is an investigation, of a materially different character than an adversarial trial. It does not walk[ ], talk[ ], and squawk[ ] ... like a lawsuit. Id. at 757, 122 S.Ct. 1864 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). 25 The First Circuit's opinion in Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management v. United States, 304 F.3d 31 (1st Cir.2002), is instructive. There, the court also considered the OSHA whistle-blower provisions. Even as it held that sovereign immunity barred OSHA from adjudicating a private claim, the court observed that its holding did not prevent OSHA from receiving complaints, conducting its own investigations on such complaints, and making determinations as to liability under 29 C.F.R. § 24.4(d)(1). Id. at 54 n. 13; see also Ohio EPA v. United States Dep't of Labor, 121 F.Supp.2d 1155, 1166-67 (S.D.Ohio 2000) (observing that the Department of Labor is free to initiate a broad range of investigatory techniques to determine whether it should exercise discretion in pursuing a claim and noting that an investigation by employees of the agency in the form of taking of statements, subpoenaing documents, reviewing records and work sites, etc. is an act of an investigatory, rather than an adjudicatory, nature). Indeed, we are aware of no court that has held that a state's sovereign immunity bars proceedings in which a possible whistle-blower violation — by OSHA or otherwise — was investigated in advance of an ALJ adjudication. Cf. Florida v. United States, 133 F.Supp.2d 1280, 1283, 1289 (N.D.Fla.2001) (concluding upon a request for injunction after the termination of the Assistant Secretary's investigation that the administrative adjudication was barred because it was not a step in a Department of Labor investigation, which would, by implication, be permitted). 26 While an OSHA investigation may have repercussions for State DEP — if the Secretary determines that a violation has occurred, the Secretary shall issue an order awarding relief, 29 C.F.R. § 24.4(d)(1), and State DEP will be required to request a hearing if it wishes to make that order inoperative, see id. § 24.4(d)(2) — these collateral consequences are insufficient to transform an investigation into an adversarial adjudication akin to a civil trial. 27 We conclude that OSHA did not violate Connecticut's sovereign immunity by engaging in a preliminary investigation. Therefore, the injunction was overbroad insofar as it prevented OSHA from investigating Rapkin's claim.