Sturm, Ruger & Co., Inc. v. Chao

• Decision Date: 23 August 2002
• Docket Number: No. 01-5111.,01-5111.
• Citation: 300 F.3d 867
• Parties: STURM, RUGER & COMPANY, INC., Appellant, v. Elaine CHAO, Secretary, U.S. Department of Labor and Charles N. Jeffress, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

Page 867

300 F.3d 867

STURM, RUGER & COMPANY, INC., Appellant, v. Elaine CHAO, Secretary, U.S. Department of Labor and Charles N. Jeffress, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health, Appellees.

No. 01-5111.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued April 15, 2002.

Decided August 23, 2002.

Richard D. Wayne argued the cause and filed the briefs for appellant.

Brian J. Sonfield, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief were Roscoe C. Howard, Jr., U.S. Attorney, R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Eugene Scalia, Solicitor, U.S. Department of Labor, Joseph M. Woodward, Associate Solicitor, and Bruce Justh and Ronald J. Gottlieb, Counsel. Michael J. Ryan, Assistant U.S. Attorney, entered an appearance.

Before: SENTELLE, RANDOLPH, and GARLAND, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GARLAND.

GARLAND, Circuit Judge:

Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc. filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, challenging the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Data Collection Initiative as unlawful. The court concluded that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the complaint, and that the company must pursue its claims through the review process prescribed by the Occupational Safety and Health Act. We agree.

I

We begin with a description of the statutory framework and of prior proceedings involving Sturm Ruger.

A

The Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) authorizes the Secretary of Labor to promulgate workplace safety and health standards, 29 U.S.C. § 655(b), as well as regulations "necessary or appropriate for the enforcement of [the Act] or for developing information regarding the causes and prevention of occupational accidents and illnesses," id. § 657(c)(1). It further directs the Secretary to "prescribe regulations requiring employers to maintain accurate records of, and to make periodic reports on, work-related deaths, injuries and illnesses." Id. § 657(c)(2). And it gives the Secretary enforcement power, authorizing her to issue citations and to assess penalties for violations of the Act and of the standards and regulations promulgated thereunder. Id. §§ 658, 659. The Secretary has delegated the bulk of these statutory responsibilities and authorities to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

While the OSH Act charges the Secretary with rulemaking and enforcement, it gives the task of "carrying out adjudicatory functions" to an independent entity, the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC or the Commission). Id. § 651(b)(3); see Martin v. OSHRC, 499 U.S. 144, 147, 111 S.Ct. 1171, 1174, 113 L.Ed.2d 117 (1991) (explaining that the OSH Act "assigns distinct regulatory tasks to two different administrative actors"). Under the Act, employers may contest OSHA citations before OSHRC. 29 U.S.C. § 659(c). Such contests are heard first by an ALJ, whose decision becomes the final order of the Commission unless the Commission decides to hear the case. Id. § 661(j). Both employers and the Secretary may seek review of OSHRC orders in the courts of appeals. Id. § 660(a), (b).¹

In 1996, OSHA launched an annual survey called the Data Collection Initiative (DCI). See 62 Fed.Reg. 6434, 6434 (Feb. 11, 1997). Under the DCI, OSHA requires selected employers to report the number of workers they employed and the number of hours their employees worked during a specified period, as well as the number of work-related injuries and illnesses their employees suffered during that period. See, e.g., OSHA Data Collection Form for Occupational Injuries and Illnesses, 2000 (J.A. at 67). From this information, OSHA calculates injury/illness incidence rates, which it uses to identify establishments to target for inspection. See 62 Fed.Reg. at 6435; Secretary of Labor v. Sturm, Ruger & Co., OSHRC Nos. 99-1873 & 99-1874 (ALJ Order Den. Mot. to Suppress, July 5, 2000) [hereinafter July 2000 ALJ Order] (noting that OSHA uses the DCI to target "sites in high-hazard industries with average or above rates of injury and illness").²

B

In April 1997, OSHA sent Sturm Ruger a DCI survey, requiring it to provide information regarding its Pine Tree Castings Division, a New Hampshire facility that manufactures steel investment castings. Sturm Ruger complied and returned the completed survey to OSHA. In June 1998, based on information in the survey, two OSHA compliance officers arrived at Pine Tree to inspect the facility. See 29 U.S.C. § 657(a) (providing that the Secretary may enter, inspect, and investigate workplaces as necessary to "carry out the purposes of [the Act]"). Sturm Ruger refused to consent to the inspection, prompting OSHA to obtain a search warrant from the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire. See Marshall v. Barlow's, Inc., 436 U.S. 307, 311, 98 S.Ct. 1816, 1819-20, 56 L.Ed.2d 305 (1978) (holding that OSHA must obtain a warrant to conduct nonconsensual inspections of business premises). When OSHA officers arrived to execute the warrant, Pine Tree employees prevented them from doing so. On the same day, Sturm Ruger moved to quash the warrant, arguing that the data used to target Pine Tree for inspection was derived from a survey that was not authorized by regulation, and that the warrant violated the Fourth Amendment.

On January 22, 1999, the district court denied the motion to quash and enforced the warrant. Sturm, Ruger & Co. v. United States, No. Civ. 98-418-JD, 2000 WL 36931, at *11 (D.N.H. Jan. 22, 1999). Sturm Ruger appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and sought a stay of execution of the warrant pending appeal. The First Circuit denied the stay, and OSHA executed the warrant. After inspecting the Pine Tree facility, OSHA announced that it was considering issuing citations for violations of safety and health standards discovered during the inspection. Sturm, Ruger & Co. v. OSHA, 186 F.3d 63, 63 (1st Cir. 1999).

In August 1999, the First Circuit dismissed Sturm Ruger's appeal for failure to exhaust administrative remedies. Noting that the OSHA inspection had already occurred and that citations could soon issue, the court of appeals held that Sturm Ruger had to pursue its challenge by contesting the citations through the review process established by the OSH Act. The court noted that this process "would involve initial review by an administrative law judge, discretionary review by the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, and eventual review by this court." Id. at 63 (citing 29 U.S.C. §§ 659-61).

The First Circuit reached its conclusion notwithstanding Sturm Ruger's insistence that its claim "involve[d] a `purely legal' issue consisting of a `facial' challenge" to the DCI. Id. at 64. The court found that Sturm Ruger had "not suggested that its claims cannot be adequately adjudicated in the ... anticipated enforcement proceeding," id. (internal quotation marks omitted), and that in fact "a successful appeal following exhaustion of administrative remedies" would vindicate its rights, id. at 65. Moreover, the court held that, while the company had "not shown that requiring exhaustion would subject it to irreparable harm," permitting the district court to hear the claim would interfere with "agency autonomy." Id. at 64-65.

On September 2, 1999, OSHA issued citations to Sturm Ruger based on its inspection of the Pine Tree facility. In accordance with the OSH Act's review provisions, the company contested those citations before an ALJ appointed by OSHRC. See 29 U.S.C §§ 659(c), 661(j). At the outset of the proceeding, Sturm Ruger moved to suppress the evidence obtained during the Pine Tree inspection, arguing that no regulation authorized OSHA to collect the survey data that it used to target employers for inspection, and that the use of the data violated the Fourth Amendment. The ALJ denied the motion on the ground that, by responding to the survey, Sturm Ruger had waived the right to challenge its legality. July 2000 ALJ Order at 4.

After the ALJ issued a final decision on the merits, Sturm Ruger petitioned for, and the Commission granted, discretionary review. Sturm Ruger's petition argued that the citations should be vacated because they were discovered in an inspection based on data collected through an unlawful and unconstitutional survey. Pet. for Discretionary Review ¶ 15, reprinted in Secretary of Labor v. Sturm, Ruger & Co., OSHRC Nos. 99-1873 & 99-1874, 2001 WL 95794 (ALJ Final Order, Jan. 23, 2001). The DCI was unlawful under the OSH Act and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. § 706, the company contended, because no regulation required employers to maintain the data sought by the survey. Id. ¶¶ 4, 7. And it was unconstitutional because Sturm Ruger had "a privacy interest protected by the Fourth Amendment in the information that the survey form compelled it to produce." Id. ¶ 23. Sturm Ruger's case is currently pending before the Commission.

C

On May 9, 2000, two months before the ALJ denied its motion to suppress, Sturm Ruger filed a complaint against the Secretary of Labor and the Assistant Secretary responsible for OSHA in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Sturm, Ruger & Co. v. Herman, 131 F.Supp.2d 211 (D.D.C.2001). Like its filings before the Commission, the company's complaint alleged that the DCI was unlawful under the OSH Act, the APA, and the Fourth Amendment. It sought both a declaratory judgment and an injunction barring OSHA from compelling compliance with the DCI survey, from conducting inspection programs that rely on survey data, and from "pursuing enforcement proceedings under the unlawful targeting inspection programs." Compl. at 13-14.

In its complaint, Sturm Ruger made the same argument now pending before the Commission: that the DCI was invalid because it required employers to report...