Opinion ID: 75555
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Reasonable Corporate Officer

Text: 96 Hansen and Randall contend that the district judge undermined the jury's fact-finding function by directing that they treat the defendants as responsible corporate officers (RCO). They maintain that the instruction as given permitted the jury to convict them on the basis of their corporate positions instead of their individual liability. They suggest that the district court's separate RCO instruction allowed the jury to believe that it applied equally to the conspiracy, CWA and RCRA charges. The district judge instructed the jury: 97 Under the federal Clean Water Act, the definition of a person specifically includes corporations and individual corporate officers. You are instructed that the Defendants, Christian Hansen, Randall Hansen, and Alfred Taylor are persons for purposes of the Clean Water Act. 98 R22-191. Taylor's attorney objected that [t]he statute says, ' . . . and responsible corporate officers.' R22-209. The district judge then explained [w]herever I have used the term 'corporate officers,' I mean responsible corporate officers. Id. 99 In a CWA case, the term 'person' means . . . any responsible corporate officer. 33 U.S.C. § 1319(c)(6). The RCRA counts require proof that each defendant knew of the violations' potential for harm and danger. 42 U.S.C. § 6928(e). In United States v. MacDonald & Watson Waste Oil Co., 933 F.2d 35 (1st Cir. 1991), the First Circuit vacated a conviction under 42 U.S.C. § 6928(d)(1) after finding that the district court's instruction, which relied on the RCO doctrine in part and which instructed that the officer must have known or believed that the illegal activity of the type alleged occurred incorrectly permitted a finding of guilt without a determination that the defendant possessed actual knowledge of the specific violation. Id. at 51. The First Circuit reasoned that the RCO doctrine was inapplicable where the defendant was charged under a statute that required explicit knowledge. Id. 51-55. The Ninth Circuit has held that: 100 [U]nder the CWA, a person is a 'responsible corporate officer' if the person has authority to exercise control over the corporation's activity that is causing the discharges. There is no requirement that the officer in fact exercise such authority or that the corporation expressly vest a duty in the officer to oversee the activity. 101 United States v. Iverson, 162 F.3d 1015, 1025 (9th Cir. 1998). Explaining that [t]he relevant inquiry is whether the instructions as a whole are misleading or inadequate, the Ninth Circuit rejected the defendant's argument that the RCO instruction allowed the jury to convict him without finding a violation of the CWA. Id. at 1026. The district judge had stated the elements needed for the government's proof and told the jury that the CWA 'also holds accountable' RCOs. Id. The Ninth Circuit found the instructions not erroneous, reasoning that the [RCO] instruction relieved the government only of having to prove that defendant personally discharged or caused the discharge of a pollutant and that [t]he government still had to prove that the discharges violated the law and that defendant knew that the discharges were pollutants. Id. We find this issue meritless. The clarifying instruction given by the district court was requested by the defendants. The district court's instruction on responsible corporate officer was not given as to the CWA counts, Counts 2-21, but was given only as to Counts 22-34.