Opinion ID: 220189
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Does the penalty exception apply?

Text: Plaintiffs argue alternatively that even if a citizen suit for penalties while remediation is ongoing is a challenge, the jurisdiction-stripping statute has an exception for such suits. They rely on subsection (h)(2),54 quoted in context above. Subsection (h)(2) does not apply to citizens suits. Plaintiffs 51 Id. 52 Id. at 1115-16. 53 42 U.S.C. § 9613(h). 54 The operative words of subsection (h)(2) are as follows: “No Federal court shall have jurisdiction . . . to review any challenges to removal or remedial action . . . in any action except one of the following: . . . . (2) An action to enforce an order issued under section 9606(a) of this title or to recover a penalty for violation of such order.” 42 U.S.C. § 9613(h)(2) (emphasis added). 8912 PAKOOTAS v. TECK COMINCO METALS argue for a “plain language” reading, and we agree that such a reading is appropriate. But it does not suffice to only read the word “penalty.” We must read all of the statutory language, including the word “recover.”55 That word means, in this context, to get money. Ordinarily, “recover” “refers to the getting back of something lost,” or “[t]o receive a favorable judgment in a lawsuit.”56 If Pakootas and Michel were the parties entitled to “recover” the penalties for the 892 days of noncompliance, then the exception would apply to them. But they are not. [9] The penalty provision speaks to penalties for violation of orders issued under 42 U.S.C. § 9606(a). Such penalties are denoted in § 9606(b) as “Fines.”57 The fines are paid to the EPA as an enforcement or cost recovery action for the Superfund.58 They are not disbursed to persons claiming to be injured by the pollution. The statutory scheme provides that a person who without sufficient cause fails to comply with an order such as the one at issue in this case “may . . . be fined . . . for each day.”59 In appropriate circumstances, reimbursement of the fine or a portion thereof “from the [Super]Fund” may be sought.60 The penalty money is Superfund money, payable to the government, not payable to citizens who bring lawsuits. [10] Thus what Pakootas and Michel seek is not a penalty payable to themselves, but enforcement of a penalty payable 55 Id. 56 See American Heritage Dictionary 1035 (2d Coll. ed. 1985). 57 42 U.S.C. § 9606(b). 58 See 42 U.S.C. § 9613(h); see also General Electric Co. v. Jackson, 610 F.3d 110, 115 (D.C. Cir. 2010) (“Central to this case, these two options — comply and seek reimbursement, or refuse to comply and wait for EPA to bring an enforcement or cost recovery action — are exclusive.”). 59 l42 U.S.C. § 9606(b)(1). 60 42 U.S.C. § 9606(b)(2). PAKOOTAS v. TECK COMINCO METALS 8913 to the Superfund. Such a lawsuit is not one to “recover” money. It is one to compel the payment of money to the Superfund. If we had jurisdiction, there would be a serious question as to whether Pakootas and Michel could state a claim for the EPA to recover money it has chosen not to recover at this time, but we cannot even consider that question unless the exception applies, since without the exception, we lack jurisdiction. [11] Citizen suits for specified relief, including penalties, are provided for in 42 U.S.C. § 9659. That provision subjects citizen suits to the § 9613(h) exceptions: “Except as provided . . . in section 9613(h) of this chapter relating to timing.”61 Section 9613(h)(2) provides an exception to the jurisdictional bar for actions “to enforce an order issued under section [9606(a)] of this title or to recover a penalty for violation of such order.”62 Thus, this exception to jurisdiction stripping allows the government to enforce its orders and recover penalties for violation of them even when a cleanup is ongoing. And only the government has that prerogative. This statutory scheme becomes much easier to interpret if we consider the sections together, to figure out what rational purpose Congress might have had.63 And that purpose, as we 61 42 U.S.C. § 9659. 62 42 U.S.C. § 9613(h)(2). 63 See Henry M. Hart, Jr. & Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process 1378 (William N. Eskridge, Jr. & Philip P. Frickey eds., 1994) (1958); 2 Henry M. Hart Jr. & Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process 1414-15 (tent. ed. 1958) (“In determining the more immediate purpose which ought to be attributed to a statute, and to any subordinate provision of it which may be involved, a court should try to put itself in imagination in the position of the legislature which enacted the measure . . . . It should assume, unless the contrary unmistakably appears, that the legislature was made up of reasonable persons pursuing reasonable purposes reasonably . . . . The court should then proceed to [ask] . . . Why would reasonable men, confronted with the law as it was, have enacted this new law to replace it? . . . . The most reliable guides to an answer will be found in the instances of unques8914 PAKOOTAS v. TECK COMINCO METALS have said, is to prevent lawsuits that would interfere with the cleanup process.64 It makes sense that if the polluter is not performing its cleanup duties, then the EPA can swing its hammer without waiting for years until the cleanup is done. It does not make sense to read the statute as though it allowed a citizen suit to take away this compliance device before the cleanup is complete. And that pragmatic arrangement is the one the words of the statute adopt. The separate citizen suit exception that Congress provided to the jurisdiction-stripping statute bolsters this reading. Citizen suits are allowed under subsection (h)(4) for claims that the remediation itself violates the statute.65 We note that even in this circumstance, Congress wrote an exception to this citizen suit exception (so that jurisdiction remains absent), “where a remedial action is to be undertaken at the site.”66 This careful structuring by Congress would be gutted if a citizen suit could escape the limitations and the exception to the exception in subsection (h)(4). Yet that is just what plaintiffs urge, dancing around subsection (h)(4)’s citizen suit provision and trying to use the different exception in subsection (h)(2). tioned application of the statute. Even in the case of a new statute there almost invariably are such instances, in which, because of the perfect fit of words and context, the meaning seems unmistakable . . . . What is crucial here is the realization that law is being made, and that law is not supposed to be irrational.”). 64 See, e.g., McClellan Ecological Seepage Situation v. Perry, 47 F.3d 325, 330 (9th Cir. 1995). 65 The operative words of subsection (h)(4) are as follows: “No Federal court shall have jurisdiction . . . to review any challenges to removal or remedial action . . . in any action except one of the following: . . . . (4) An action under [42 U.S.C. § 9659] (relating to citizens suits) alleging that the removal or remedial action taken under [42 U.S.C. § 9604] or secured under [42 U.S.C. § 9606] was in violation of any requirement of this Act. Such an action may not be brought with regard to a removal where a remedial action is to be undertaken at the site.” 42 U.S.C. § 9613(h)(4). 66 Id. PAKOOTAS v. TECK COMINCO METALS 8915 Subsection (h)(4) is the exception for citizen suits. It makes sense in this statute to apply “the expressio unius, or inclusio unius, principle.”67 Subsection (h)(2) is thus for the government, so that it can wield its own hammer during the cleanup if it deems that prudent, subsection (h)(4) is for citizen suits. The provisions for a citizen suit in subsection (h)(4) imply that citizen suits are not allowed under subsection (h)(2). [12] We have found no circuit court authority to aid us in this interpretation. Plaintiffs urge us to follow a district court case from Puerto Rico,68 defendants a (more thoroughly reasoned) district court case from our own circuit.69 We agree with the conclusion reached in Fairchild Semiconductor Corp. v. EPA that the (h)(2) exception applies only to “[a]n action to enforce an order issued under section 9606(a) of this title or to recover a penalty for violation of such order[,]” and that only the government may issue orders or recover penalties for violations of those orders under § 9606(a),70 so subsection (h)(2) does not apply to citizens suits. Both sides cite snippets of language from our decisions in our earlier decision in this case,71 McClellan Ecological Seepage Situation v. Perry,72 and City of Rialto v. West Coast Loading Corp.,73 but in none of those cases were we faced with deciding whether citizen suits for penalties fall within the subsection (h)(2) exception. Now we are. We conclude that they do not. 67 Longview Fibre Co. v. Rasmussen, 980 F.2d 1307, 1312-13 (9th Cir. 1992) (noting that “ ‘when a statute limits a thing to be done in a particular mode, it includes a negative of any other mode’ ” (quoting Raleigh & Gaston Ry. Co. v. Reid, 80 U.S. 269, 270 (1871))). 68 M.R. (Vega Alta), Inc. v. Caribe General Elec. Products, Inc., 31 F. Supp.2d 226, 233 (D. Puerto Rico 1998). 69 Fairchild Semiconductor Corp. v. EPA, 769 F. Supp. 1553 (N.D. Cal. 1991), aff’d, 984 F.2d 283 (9th Cir. 1993). 70 Id. at 1560-61. 71 Pakootas I, 452 F.3d 1066 (9th Cir. 2006). 72 47 F.3d 325 (9th Cir. 1995). 73 581 F.3d 865 (9th Cir. 2009). 8916 PAKOOTAS v. TECK COMINCO METALS