Opinion ID: 165516
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Rational Relation to Valid Government Purpose

Text: 33 The Government argues that protecting classified information from disclosure and the timely closing of the contaminated Rocky Flats facility 18 are valid governmental purposes supporting its motion to dismiss the qui tam action. Relators agree. Where the parties part company, however, is on the question of whether dismissal of the action bears a rational relation to the stated objectives. Based on evidence adduced at the five-day evidentiary hearing, the district court, adopting the recommendation of the magistrate, concluded that it does. We concur. 34 The Government demonstrated that classified documents required in the litigation 19 would present a risk of inadvertent disclosure, implicating national security. The degree to which classified documents could be declassified or redacted was unknown. However, anyone handling classified information would need a security clearance. The magistrate judge found that the risk of inadvertent disclosure of classified information was greatest where much classified information was involved in the litigation; the risk lessened where classified information could be declassified or redacted. In the court's view, the risk of inadvertent disclosure, even if theoretically minimal, as the Relators argued, was sufficient to justify dismissal of the action. As the Sequoia test instructs, to establish a rational relation to a valid governmental purpose, [t]here need not be a tight fitting relationship between the two; it is enough that there are plausible, or arguable, reasons supporting the agency decision. United States ex. rel. Sequoia Orange Co. v. Sunland Packing House Co., 912 F.Supp. 1325, 1341 (E.D.Ca.1995) (quotation marks omitted). The Government met the test here. 35 The Government also demonstrated the litigation would delay the clean-up and closure of Rocky Flats by diverting the focus of security planners and management from the clean-up effort, by requiring the reassignment of personnel from the project to a review of classified documents for declassification or redaction in aid of litigation, and by placing an added financial burden on the project through a requirement to shift funds from clean-up to litigation. The Relators argued that many of their claims could have been determined without a significant diversion of resources by the Government. The magistrate concluded that while the evidence of diversion of resources from the clean-up effort to litigation was not concrete (Appellants' Br., Tab I at 21), it sufficiently established the likelihood of some diversion of resources, and any diversion of personnel attention away from the closure project would negatively impact the closure schedule. 20 ( Id. at 22) Once again, the Government satisfied the Sequoia test by advancing a plausible, or arguable reason for the dismissal. Id.