Court Opinion

ID: 9492687
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:47:14.912819+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:25.833539
License: Public Domain

O’SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
I concur. I do so, however, only because I am forced to by the strict standard of this Court’s review. As the Court right*1077ly points out, we can reverse the Interior Board of Land Appeals (“IBLA”) only if its decision is “arbitrary, capricious, not supported by substantial evidence, or contrary to law.” Op. at 1074 (citing Gilmore v. Lujan, 947 F.2d 1409, 1411 (9th Cir.1991)). Perhaps our system of administrative law might possibly benefit from a similar constraint upon the IBLA in its review of decisions rendered by administrative law judges (“ALJs”).
I acknowledge that IBLA may conduct a de novo review of cases that have already been decided by an ALJ; nevertheless, a system of review that pays no respect to the findings of those decisionmakers most intimate with the matter is ripe for abuse. A party that relies upon the arguments it and its opponent have made in the initial forum may be sandbagged by entirely new contentions raised before the IBLA if that tribunal deems them admissible. Many close cases will allow the IBLA to make such a fatal decision without necessarily triggering the egregious breach required by Gilmore for this Court to remedy the misstep. The case before us may be one such instance.
In this case, the ALJ stated specifically that the government “made a case for approximately 112,000 short tons of indicated and inferred reserves of mineral bearing in excess of 20 percent chromite in the immediate area on these and other claims held by [Hjelvik].” Based on that case, the ALJ concluded that Hjelvik was “entitled to a finding of these amounts of reserves being present on the claims at a minimum.” Furthermore, in arguing the marketability issue, the government used a 1946 report by H.L. James to support its arguments on what method of mining could be used on these claims, and the ALJ pointed out that the James report was a source of the 112,000 ton figure. James postulates that the approximate quantity of “inferred chromite” is an amount “not to exceed 100,000 metric tons.” When converted, 100,000 metric tons roughly equals 112,000 short tons.
Turning to the testimony of Hjelvik’s expert, James Border, the ALJ recounted that Border prepared a marketability report based on three figures: 112,000 tons, 380,000 tons, and 1,000,000 tons. He made no mention of the 16,840 or 22,340 ton figures which the IBLA later relied upon in its de novo review and redetermi-nation without remand to the ALJ. Because the ALJ had already found Hjelvik’s evidence to the larger figures speculative, he ignored those analyses, finding that “only [Border’s] analysis as to the 112,000 short tons is pertinent.” The ALJ then found that “[bjeeause of [Hjelvik’s] greater consistency in [his] evidence and more reasonable approach to marketability, the testimony of Mr. Border is given greater credibility and weight than the collective testimony of [the government’s] mineral examiner and the information he relied upon in forming his opinions upon marketability.” “The venture,” the ALJ concluded, “would be profitable both at the close of 1983 and in 1990.”
Finally, in his litany of findings of fact, the ALJ made no mention at all of either the 16,840 or the 22,340 ton figure, but did find, inter alia, that:
(a) “The total inferred reserves in the area available to [Hjelvik] for milling in the amount of 112,000 short tons is of chromite mineral having a cut-off grade of 20 percent”;
(b) “James A. Border, a Professional Engineer with excellent credentials as a mining engineer, was found to have greater credibility and his testimony was given greater weight in the areas of mining, milling and transportation than that accorded the witnesses for [the government]”; and
(c) “In the scenario envisioned by Mr. Border, the 112,000 tons of inferred ore would yield 70,562 tons of 40 percent chromite concentration after milling.”
Were this Court to review the record de novo, I would have little difficulty finding for the claimants and upholding the deci*1078sion of the ALJ. Sadly, we are bound by the standard of substantial evidence, and I must therefore honor the decision of the IB LA.