Court Opinion

ID: 9475839
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:39:44.692948+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:58.144996
License: Public Domain

WILL, Senior District Judge,
concurring.
I fully concur in Chief Judge Wald’s excellent opinion. I write separately only to point out what I believe is an additional compelling ground for ordering the field sanitation rules to be issued forthwith. In my view, the Secretary of Labor’s October 21, 1985 decision to delay the issuance of standards for an additional two years violated the 1982 settlement agreement between the parties.
On July 16, 1982, the district court entered the settlement agreement in Case No. 85-1176, a predecessor to this case involving the same parties and the same issue. See ante at 619 n. 4. The agreement provided that the Secretary would make a good faith effort to complete a field sanitation standard within 31 months (February 1985) and that the plaintiffs would have access to OSHA documents prepared in connection with the development of the standard. In addition, the agreement stated as follows:
Plaintiffs agree to the final and complete dismissal of this action when a field sanitation standard is promulgated, or when Defendants publish a determination under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, 29 U.S.C. § 651 et seq., not to promulgate a field sanitation standard____ Plaintiffs reserve any and all rights to challenge ... the decision not to promulgate a standard.
The settlement agreement thus contemplated that the Secretary would, within the time frame prescribed, commit to one of two courses of action: issuing a standard or making a final decision not to adopt a standard. This assured the plaintiffs of obtaining either the full relief sought or, at the least, prompt judicial review. What was clearly foreclosed under the agreement was any further delay by the Secretary in either issuing a standard or deciding not to issue a standard.
On April 16, 1985, two months after the deadline under the settlement agreement, the Secretary published his “final” decision not to adopt any field sanitation standards. This decision became the subject of a new court challenge, No. 85-1349, filed on June 10, 1985. In accordance with the settlement agreement, the terms of which the Secretary apparently had satisfied, this *634court dismissed the original case, No. 85-1176, on July 24, 1985.
At this point, if the Secretary had not changed course and decided to forestall final agency action for an additional two years, the farmworkers finally would have secured the judicial determination they had been pursuing since 1978. And given the massive, uncontradicted record indicating the inadequacy of the existing field conditions, the history of which is canvassed in Chief Judge Wald’s opinion, the farmworkers had, at a minimum, a very good chance of success.
On October 21, 1985, however, the new Secretary of Labor, while making findings documenting the necessity for field sanitation standards, issued his decision to delay promulgation of a standard for two more years, during which time the states were to be given the opportunity to develop state standards at least equal to the proposed national standard. Since the primary reason for the enactment of the OSH Act and its provisions for uniform national standards was state inaction, it cannot have surprised the Secretary that only six states adopted standards, some of which fall below the proposed minimum, a substantial number of states took no action, and 12 others indicated they have no intention of adopting any standards.
The Secretary’s October decision had the effect of vacating the April decision; accordingly, Case No. 85-1349, the action for review of the April decision, was mooted and dismissed. As before, the farmworkers were compelled to file a new case, this time the present action for review of the October decision. The October decision had the further effect of placing the Secretary in default of the settlement agreement. Instead of prompt judicial review, which was the farmworkers' fall-back position under the settlement agreement, the farmworkers were left, once again, with neither of the alternatives to which they were entitled.
The farmworkers certainly did not get the benefit of the bargain they entered into under the settlement agreement. Whether the Secretary’s October 21, 1985 conduct is viewed as a breach of contract or merely as another in a long series of arbitrary and capricious delaying tactics, and whether it was in good faith or Machiavellian, the obvious result was to deprive the plaintiffs of both of their rights under the settlement agreement and to further delay the issuance of uniform standards for the only group of workers not protected by such standards. The Secretary’s conduct was particularly egregious since the admittedly unsanitary conditions continue to adversely affect not only the farmworkers but all consumers of agricultural products handled by the farmworkers.
So viewed, this case is not about administrative inaction at all. Rather, it is about an agency taking affirmative steps to delay the performance of its legal duties while evading judicial review. A more compelling case for judicial intervention is difficult to imagine.