Court Opinion

ID: 9468737
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:22:26.713058+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:01.834443
License: Public Domain

KEITH, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I cannot agree with either Judge Engel’s or Judge Wiseman’s analysis, therefore I respectfully dissent.
I.
Judge Wiseman concludes that the Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 (“Act”), 30 U.S.C. § 863, eliminated any expectation of privacy Blue Diamond Coal Company (“Blue Diamond”) had in its records. I agree with Judge Engel that this position is incorrect. The Act does authorize inspection of the records by the Mine Enforcement and Safety Administration (“MESA”) inspectors, but the remedy provided by the Act in case of noncompliance is federal district court action. 30 U.S.C. § 818(f). If the inspectors had a reasonable *523fear that Blue Diamond would destroy or falsify the records in order to cover up mine safety violations, the proper remedy would be court action. However, in the instant case, the federal investigators resorted to self-help.
II.
Judge Engel’s position is that the Act so diminished Blue Diamond’s interest in controlling its records “that even if such an interest is not entirely without Fourth Amendment protection, the remedy of suppression through use of the exclusionary rule is not appropriate.” I disagree. The remedy of suppression through the use of the exclusionary rule is mandatory and in accordance with standard search and seizure analysis. The search of Blue Diamond’s records was beyond the scope of the consent imposed by the Act.
Even for purely administrative inspections, entry by government officials onto private property for inspection purposes ordinarily requires issuance of a warrant. See v. City of Seattle, 387 U.S. 541, 545, 87 S.Ct. 1737, 1740, 18 L.Ed.2d 943 (1967); Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 534, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 1733-34, 18 L.Ed.2d 930 (1967). In Colonnade Catering Corp. v. United States, 397 U.S. 72, 77, 90 S.Ct. 774, 777, 25 L.Ed.2d 60 (1970), the Supreme Court explained: “where Congress authorized inspection but made no rules governing the procedure that inspectors must follow the Fourth Amendment and its various restrictive rules apply.” Therefore, prior to the Act, Blue Diamond had a legitimate expectation of privacy, both in their offices and in the contents of the record books. Clearly, it would have been a Fourth Amendment violation for MESA agents to enter Blue Diamond’s offices without a warrant, open their record books, and search through their contents. However, the Act, a comprehensive regulatory statute, limited the scope of Blue Diamond’s expectations of privacy and enabled MESA agents to make certain inspections of records and books which would otherwise violate the Fourth Amendment. See Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U.S. 594, 101 S.Ct. 2534, 69 L.Ed.2d 262 (1981).
The Act authorizes warrantless inspections of certain record books of mine operators. Pursuant to the procedures articulated in the Act, government agents have the “right to entry to, upon, or through any coal mine” to make certain inspections or investigations. 30 U.S.C. § 813(b)(1). The mine conditions and health and safety standards compliance record books are also subject to inspection. 30 U.S.C. § 863(d)(1), (f), (g), (w). The record books must be “maintained in an area on the surface of the mine chosen by the mine operator to minimize the danger of destruction by fire or other hazard.” Id. The Act does not, however, authorize the government to take possession of the record books, compliance data, or any other private property of the operator. In fact, only a subpoena authorizes the government to physically take possession of the records absent a search warrant. 30 U.S.C. § 813(d). The government’s right of possession does not vest until a public hearing has been called to investigate a mining accident. Id.
The search provisions of the Act are an exemption to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment. Searches and inspections conducted pursuant to and in full compliance with the Act’s congressionally articulated procedure are reasonable and are not Fourth Amendment violations. The Act’s search procedures are carefully limited in time, place and scope. See United States v. Biswell, 406 U.S. 311, 315, 92 S.Ct. 1593, 1596, 32 L.Ed.2d 87 (1972); Donovan v. Dewey, supra. These procedures allegedly provide “substantially the same assurances [as a warrant].” United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 565, 96 S.Ct. 3074, 3086, 49 L.Ed.2d 1116 (1976). The rationale underlying this limited exemption is that businessmen involved in closely regulated industries such as mining, “accept the burdens as well as the benefits of their trade.” Marshall v. Barlow’s, Inc., 436 U.S. 307, 313, 98 S.Ct. 1816, 1821, 56 L.Ed.2d 596 (1978). “The businessman in regulated industry in effect consents to the restrictions placed upon him.” Id. (Emphasis added).
This consent is merely a legal fiction imposed on the mining industry. The fiction*524alized consent in effect, and in reality, waives Fourth Amendment rights guaranteed in the text of the Constitution. The waiver or consent imposed by the Act, however, is a limited one. Mine operators, such as Blue Diamond, have only consented constructively to inspections and searches conducted in accordance with the Act. “[C]on-sent searches are reasonable only if kept within the bounds of the actual consent.” United States v. Griffin, 530 F.2d 739, 744 (7th Cir. 1976). See, e.g., Mason v. Pulliam, 557 F.2d 426, 429 (5th Cir. 1977) (“when the basis for search or seizure is consent, the government must conform to the limitations placed upon the right granted to search, seize or retain the papers or effects.”); Oliver v. Bowens, 386 F.2d 688, 690 (9th Cir. 1967); United States v. Dichiarinte, 445 F.2d 126, 129 (7th Cir. 1971). Searches which exceed the scope of consent violate the Fourth Amendment. Id.
The Act indicates that MESA inspectors may visually inspect, search through, and copy the operator’s records while those records are at the mine site. The record books are the operator’s private property. The Act does not empower the MESA inspectors to take the records from the mine site. Yet, all parties in this action admit that the MESA agents did precisely what the Act does not authorize them to do. MESA agents entered the operator’s offices, illegally seized the record books, and transported them to the MESA offices in Whites-burg, Kentucky. At least two days after their initial seizure, MESA agents opened the various records and searched through their contents in the Whitesburg offices.
The fictional “consent” or waiver of Fourth Amendment rights imposed by the Act is limited to inspections and searches conducted at the mine site. The seizure and transportation of the record books from the mine site to Whitesburg exceeded the scope of the narrow exception to the Fourth Amendment that the Act created. Blue Diamond did not voluntarily consent to the taking or the subsequent search. The trial court specifically found that Blue Diamond had not consented to the search of the office or the seizure of the records. This finding is not clearly erroneous. Therefore, once the record books were seized and illegally transported from the mine site, Blue Diamond’s expectations of privacy were violated. Blue Diamond unquestionably had a right to exclude everyone not at the mine site from viewing the records first hand. The subsequent warrantless searching through the records which occurred in Whitesburg at least two days after the illegal seizure violated the Fourth Amendment.
Moreover, on these facts, there is simply no evidence that Blue Diamond would not accurately document its investigation of the accident. The report would have been made available to MESA officials. 30 U.S.C. § 863(d)(1). Significantly, there were other statutorily approved procedures MESA officials could have used to obtain Blue Diamond’s records. 30 U.S.C. § 813(b). It is not advisable to sanction such blatant violations of Fourth Amendment rights as occurred in the instant case. Accordingly, I would affirm Judge Hermansdorfer’s holding that the records obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment was subject to the exclusionary rule.