Court Opinion

ID: 9469633
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:45:30.106014+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:29.133112
License: Public Domain

WIDENER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
I believe the doctrine of impossibility expressed in Buffalo Mining Company is applicable here. I also do not believe that Chenery II or Bell Aerospace authorizes the imposition of a fine without notice even if an administrative position is changed as result of adjudication. The language of Bell, indeed, explicitly explains that that decision was not a case in which a fine was involved.
I
As the majority opinion correctly sets out, the Secretary does not contest the factual findings of the administrative law judge; rather, they have been, accepted throughout this proceeding.
Among those findings are that Sewell had 203 underground employees 1 before the strike and 32 during it. These 32 employees worked on three shifts, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, only in “fixing up hazard conditions.” The conditions cited in the two notices of violation were the result of natural deterioration in the mine during the strike. There were not sufficient personnel available during the strike to eliminate all the conditions which occurred in the mine as result of natural deterioration which might constitute violations. Sewell followed the practice of correcting the most serious conditions first.
Although the Secretary accepted these findings of fact among others, and although he admitted that the mine operator had discretion in performing repairs by assigning its available personnel to whatever tasks it deemed important, he took the position, which the Commission accepted, that the mine operator should have “danger[ed] off [roped off] and post[ed] such areas so as to prevent miner access and exposure.” As a result of the finding of the Commission that the operator should have roped off and posted some of the areas where conditions existed in violation of safety standards, the Commission then found that the repair of the conditions at the two locations for which violations were charged was “difficult but not impossible.” Having'found the repair work to be “difficult” rather than “impossible,” the Commission then remanded the case to the administrative law judge for imposition of the fines.
No safety standard exists, either by way of statute or regulation, that a condition in a mine which is a violation of a safety standard may be brought into compliance by roping it off and posting it.2 A simple reference to the admitted facts I have recited above shows that the conditions for which Sewell was fined were in fact impossible to correct, for Sewell was working all available personnel around the clock seven days a week doing nothing but correcting the natural deterioration of the mine. It also was correcting the most serious conditions first. Thus, it is admitted that it was in fact impossible for the two conditions for which violations were charged to have been corrected without letting other and more serious conditions go.
I think that the holding of Buffalo Mining Company, at 259, “that Congress did not intend that a Section 104(b) notice be issued or a civil penalty assessed where compliance with a mandatory health or safety standard is imposed due to unavailability of equipment, materials, or qualified technicians,” applies here. While the Secretary admits *1073that correcting the conditions in question was in fact impossible, he changes the legal effect of “impossible” to that of merely “difficult” by the simple stratagem of invoking a new regulation unheard of until that time, that of roping off and posting. This departure from logic, accepting the standard of review in the majority opinion at 1069, I think, is not only unreasonable and plainly erroneous, it is arbitrary and inconsistent with mine safety regulations. Indeed, there is no regulation. And this is also admitted.
II
The Board concluded, and the majority notes, that Sewell could have posted signs and roped off the areas of the mine in question, thereby avoiding liability. So Se-well is in actuality being fined for not roping off the areas involved and posting signs. As before noted, no statute or regulation contains such a requirement; neither was notice provided from the agency regarding this requirement.3
The majority dismisses this argument, relying upon Chenery II and Bell Aerospace, but the difficulty with the reasoning of the majority is that neither of those cases involved the imposition of a fine without notice. While I, of course, agree that an administrative agency may adopt new principles through adjudicative proceedings, I do not believe that this means that the agency may then go a step further and impose a fine for the new violation.
The Supreme Court itself acknowledged just such a distinction in Bell Aerospace when it stated at 295:
The possible reliance of industry on the Board’s past decisions with respect to buyers does not require a different result. It has not been shown that the adverse consequences ensuing from such reliance are so substantial that the Board should be precluded from reconsidering the issue in an adjudicative proceeding. Furthermore, this is not a case in which some new liability is sought to be imposed on individuals for past actions which were taken in good faith reliance on Board pronouncements. Nor are fines or damages involved here. . . . (Italics added.)
The Ninth Circuit has applied this language from Bell to prevent the Immigration and Naturalization Service from establishing a new standard through adjudication when its application would have resulted in deportation or voluntary departure. Ruangswang v. INS, 591 F.2d 39 (9th Cir. 1978). The court looked at the lack of notice, the severity of the consequences, and the right of the alien to rely on the regulations in effect at the time in concluding that the agency abused its discretion in so acting through the adjudicatory process.4
I believe that the quoted language from Bell is equally applicable here. A fine must be said to be an adverse consequence of considerable import regardless of its amount. Especially when I couple this with the fact that Sewell had no notice at all of any roping off and posting requirement un*1074til the case was tried, I can find no reason that the public interest requires such ad hoc rule making by adjudication rather than by the standard procedures. See Majestic Weaving, 355 F.2d at p. 860.
I would reverse the Commission.

. Normally, underground, there is one maintenance man for each production man.

. 30 U.S.C. § 863(d) requires preshift examinations of mines and posting of danger signs in hazardous places. Sewell was not charged with violation of the preshift examination statute, and the record is clear that the posting of signs under that statutory provision has nothing to do with the case at hand.

. Probably in violation of the notice provisions of 30 U.S.C. § 814.

. The following cases have relied upon Bell in refusing to permit administrative change of position without notice by adjudication. Bahat v. Sureck, 637 F.2d 1315 (9th Cir. 1981) (similar to Ruangswang); Natural Gas Pipeline Co. v. FERC, 590 F.2d 664 (7th Cir. 1979) (court disallowing the termination of rate base treatment of advances); United Gas Pipe Line Co. v. FERC, 597 F.2d 581 (5th Cir. 1979), cert. den. 445 U.S. 916 (1980) (court disallowing the termination of rate treatment of advances); Drug Package, Inc. v. NLRB, 570 F.2d 1340 (8th Cir. 1978) (court refusing to enforce retroactive bargaining order). In Air Products & Chemicals, Inc. v. FERC, 650 F.2d 687 (5th Cir. 1981), the court did permit the agency to abandon a previously approved incentive plan, but, relying upon Bell, found insufficient adverse consequences to those affected. See also the following cases, which, not relying upon Bell, have spoken against retroactive application of administrative rulings changed by adjudication. Lodges 743 & 1746, etc. v. United Aircraft, 534 F.2d 422 (2d Cir. 1975), cert. den. 429 U.S. 825 (1976); NLRB v. Majestic Weaving Co., 355 F.2d 854 (2d Cir. 1966); NLRB v. E & B Brewing Co., 276 F.2d 594 (6th Cir. 1960), cert. den. 366 U.S. 908, 81 S.Ct. 1083, 6 L.Ed.2d 236 (1961); NLRB v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 225 F.2d 343 (8th Cir. 1955).