Opinion ID: 216362
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Whether use of three strikes standard was violation of equal protection

Text: Ursack argues that SIBBG's decision to revoke approval of its product after three failures in 2007 amounted to a denial of equal protection because a competing product, the BearVault, failed twelve times in 2005 but did not have its approval revoked. Because SIBBG's decision did not involve a suspect classification, rational basis scrutiny applies, see, e.g., United States v. Flores-Villar, 536 F.3d 990, 998 (9th Cir.2008), and thus the standard of review is identical to arbitrary and capricious review under the APA. See Weston, 255 F.3d at 880. The record indicates that SIBBG had a rational basis for revoking approval of the Ursack in 2007, even though it declined to revoke the BearVault's approval in 2005 after it failed a dozen timesnamely, SIBBG's conclusion that almost all of the BearVault failures were likely caused by the same bear. As a SIBBG member explained to Ursack in an email at the end of the 2005 season: We did not pull the approval on the BearVault because all of the problems were focused on a small area suggesting that one bear figured out how to break into them. If those same incidents were spread over a large area indicating a fundamental problem with the design or the way people use it, I suspect that we would have pulled their approval. The protocol leaves SIBBG a lot of room for applying common sense. 2:ER:141. In contrast, SIBBG did not conclude that the six Ursack failures in 2007 were caused by the same bear. In its reply brief, Ursack acknowledges this difference but speculates that the BearVault failures were caused by multiple bears and that most of the Ursack failures were caused by a single bear. But we must defer to the agency's finding on these matters unless the record shows that the agency's findings were not supported by substantial evidencei.e., unless the evidence in the record would compel a reasonable finder of fact to reach a contrary result. Gebhart v. SEC, 595 F.3d 1034, 1043 (9th Cir.2010) (internal quotation marks omitted, emphasis in original). [4] In the present case, Ursack tells us that, given the average home range of a black bear and the locations of the various container failures, it is likely that not all BearVault failures were caused by a single bear and that all but two of the Ursack failures in 2007 were caused by a single bear. Reply Br. at 6-8. However, the agency is better equipped than the court to determine how many bears were involved in the relevant incidents, and Ursack's statement about the home range of a black bear (which is not supported by citations to the administrative record or anything else) does not show that a reasonable finder of fact would have been compelled to see things Ursack's way. Thus, we must accept the agency's findings on these matters and conclude that the distinctions SIBBG made between the BearVault and the Ursack were rational.