Alsea Valley Alliance v. Department of Commerce

• Decision Date: 24 February 2004
• Docket Number: No. 01-36154.,No. 01-36071.,01-36071.,01-36154.
• Citation: 358 F.3d 1181
• Parties: ALSEA VALLEY ALLIANCE; Mark Sehl, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, being sued as William M. Daley; National Marine Fisheries Service; Penelope D. Dalton, Director NMFS; William Stelle, Jr., Defendants-Appellees, Oregon Natural Resources Council; Pacific Rivers Council; Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Association, Inc.; Institute for Fisheries Resources; Audubon Society of Portland; Coast Range Association; Siskiyou Regional Education Project; Sierra Club, Defendants-Intervenors-Appellants. Alsea Valley Alliance; Mark Sehl, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Department of Commerce, being sued as William M. Daley; National Marine Fisheries Service; William T. Hogarth, Director NMFS; D. Robert Lohn, Defendants-Appellees, Oregon Natural Resources Council; Pacific Rivers Council; Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Association, Inc.; Institute for Fisheries Resources; Audubon Society of Portland; Coast Range Association; Siskiyou Regional Education Project, Defendants-Intervenors-Appellees, and Sierra Club, Defendant-Intervenor.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

358 F.3d 1181

ALSEA VALLEY ALLIANCE; Mark Sehl, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, being sued as William M. Daley; National Marine Fisheries Service; Penelope D. Dalton, Director NMFS; William Stelle, Jr., Defendants-Appellees, Oregon Natural Resources Council; Pacific Rivers Council; Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Association, Inc.; Institute for Fisheries Resources; Audubon Society of Portland; Coast Range Association; Siskiyou Regional Education Project; Sierra Club, Defendants-Intervenors-Appellants.

Alsea Valley Alliance; Mark Sehl, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Department of Commerce, being sued as William M. Daley; National Marine Fisheries Service; William T. Hogarth, Director NMFS; D. Robert Lohn, Defendants-Appellees,

Oregon Natural Resources Council; Pacific Rivers Council; Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Association, Inc.; Institute for Fisheries Resources; Audubon Society of Portland; Coast Range Association; Siskiyou Regional Education Project, Defendants-Intervenors-Appellees, and

Sierra Club, Defendant-Intervenor.

No. 01-36071.

No. 01-36154.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted May 8, 2003—Portland, Oregon.

Filed February 24, 2004.

Russell C. Brooks, Pacific Legal Foundation, Bellevue, Washington, for the plaintiffs-appellees-appellants.

Ellen J. Durkee, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., for the federal appellees.

Patti Goldman, Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, for the defendants-intervenors-appellees-appellants.

Galen G. Schuler, Perkins Coie, Seattle, Washington; Peter J. Ampe, Assistant Attorney General, Denver, Colorado, for the amici curiae.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Oregon, Michael R. Hogan, District Judge, Presiding. CV-99-06265-HO.

Before Donald P. LAY,^* J. Clifford WALLACE, and Richard C. TALLMAN, Circuit Judges.

WALLACE, Senior Circuit Judge.

Oregon Natural Resources Council and several other organizations (collectively Council) appeal from an order invalidating a National Marine Fisheries Service (Service) final rule and remanding to the Service for further consideration (Remand Order). The order that allowed the Council to intervene for purposes of bringing this appeal (Intervention Order) is challenged by Alsea Valley Alliance (Alsea), and opposed by the government on jurisdictional grounds, in a separately docketed companion case. We lack jurisdiction over both appeals, and accordingly we dismiss them.

I.

Acting under authority derived from the Endangered Species Act (ESA), 16 U.S.C. §§ 1531-1544, and pursuant to several of its own policies, the Service promulgated a final rule designating as "threatened" the "naturally spawned" populations of Oregon coast "Evolutionarily Significant Unit" (ESU) coho salmon, but excluding "hatchery spawned" populations from the "threatened" listing. See Threatened Status for the Oregon Coast Evolutionarily Significant Unit of Coho Salmon, 63 Fed. Reg. 42,587 (Aug. 10, 1998) (to have been codified at 50 C.F.R. pt. 227 (redesignated as pt. 223)). Alsea brought suit in federal court seeking in part to have the ESA listing overturned as invalid, and Alsea prevailed on summary judgment. Alsea Valley Alliance v. Evans, 161 F.Supp.2d 1154, 1163 (D.Or.2001). According to the district court, "[t]he central problem with the [Service] listing decision of August 10, 1998, is that it makes improper distinctions, below that of a [distinct population segment (DPS)], by excluding hatchery coho populations from listing protection even though they are determined to be part of the same DPS as natural coho populations." Id. at 1162. "Listing distinctions below that of subspecies or a DPS of a subspecies," the court continued, "are not allowed under the ESA." Id. The district court thus ruled that distinguishing between "hatchery spawned" and "naturally spawned" coho salmon was arbitrary and capricious. Id. at 1163.

In granting Alsea summary judgment, the district court remanded the case to the Service for additional consideration consistent with its decision. Id. at 1163-64. The Service was "further directed to consider the best available scientific information, including the most recent data, in any further listing decision concerning the Oregon coast coho salmon." Id. at 1164.

Instead of contesting the Remand Order on appeal, the Service informed the district court it would comply. The Service unveiled a four-step "Action Plan" that envisioned (1) a public rulemaking process to formulate ESA listing standards for salmon ESUs containing, in part, hatchery-raised fish, (2) application of these standards to all relevant salmon and steel-head ESUs, (3) interim local measures to continue the purported recent successes in rebuilding salmon populations, and (4) maintenance of the ESA listings for ESUs not covered by the district court's Remand Order. This "Action Plan" evinced the Service's intent to conduct a comprehensive review of its hatchery salmon policy along the West Coast. Subsequent agency action has confirmed that this exercise will not be limited to Oregon coast coho salmon. See Endangered and Threatened Species: Findings on Petitions to Delist Pacific Salmonid ESUs, 67 Fed.Reg. 6215 (Feb. 11, 2002) (to be codified at 50 C.F.R. pts. 223-24, 226) (soliciting information to assist in updating the ESA statuses of a variety of salmon ESUs).

Fearing that the Service would opt not to appeal the district court's order, the Council sought to intervene as of right under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(a)(2) and simultaneously lodged a Notice of Appeal. In its November 14, 2001, Intervention Order, the district court determined that the Service no longer adequately represented the Council's interests and ruled "that the applicants are permitted to intervene for purposes of appeal only." Alsea subsequently appealed from the Intervention Order. We have considered these appeals as companion cases so both the Intervention Order and Remand Order are before us. We stayed the Remand Order pending appeal.

II.

Subject to a few exceptions discussed later, appellate jurisdiction only extends over "final decisions of the district courts," 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and remand orders generally are not "final decisions" for purposes of section 1291. Chugach Alaska Corp. v. Lujan, 915 F.2d 454, 457 (9th Cir.1990). A remand order will be considered "final where (1) the district court conclusively resolves a separable legal issue, (2) the remand order forces the agency to apply a potentially erroneous rule which may result in a wasted proceeding, and (3) review would, as a practical matter, be foreclosed if an immediate appeal were unavailable." Collord v. United States Dep't of the Interior, 154 F.3d 933, 935 (9th Cir.1998). We need not decide whether the Remand Order meets the first two criteria because we conclude that the third prerequisite is lacking. Denying the Council an immediate appeal does not, as a practical matter, foreclose review.

In previous cases, the remand orders we have recognized as satisfying this requirement have been uniform in one respect: all were challenged on appeal by an administrative agency. See, e.g., id. at 935 (Secretary of the Interior); Rendleman v. Shalala, 21 F.3d 957, 959 & n. 1 (9th Cir.1994) (Secretary of Health and Human Services); Chugach Alaska Corp., 915 F.2d at 456 (Secretary of the Interior); Regents of the Univ. of Cal. v. Heckler, 771 F.2d 1182, 1186-87 (9th Cir.1985) (Secretary of Health and Human Services), overruled on other grounds by Good Samaritan Hosp. v. Shalala, 508 U.S. 402, 113 S.Ct. 2151, 124 L.Ed.2d 368 (1993); Kaho v. Ilchert, 765 F.2d 877, 880-81 (9th Cir.1985) (San Francisco District Director for the Immigration and Naturalization Service); Stone v. Heckler, 722 F.2d 464, 466-68 (9th Cir.1983) (Secretary of Health and Human Services). This is no mere coincidence. Rather, it underscores that only agencies compelled to refashion their own rules face the unique prospect of being deprived of review altogether. An agency, after all, cannot appeal the result of its own decision. Chugach Alaska Corp., 915 F.2d at 457 ("Should the Secretary lose on remand, there would be no appeal, for the Secretary cannot appeal his own agency's determinations."). From the agency's standpoint, in other words, a remand order is "final."

Although we conceive of none, there may be circumstances that would afford a non-agency litigant the ability to appeal a remand order, but we need not reach that question. Our decision reaffirms that we will not exercise our jurisdiction over a remand order unless "a holding of nonappealability would effectively deprive the litigants of an opportunity to obtain review." Stone, 722 F.2d at 467; see also Shapiro v. Paradise Valley Unified Sch. Dist. No. 69, 152 F.3d 1159, 1161 (9th Cir.1998) (per curiam) (refusing to consider a remand order final for purposes of appeal because "appellate review would not be foreclosed to any party if an immediate appeal were not allowed"). The Remand Order, as a practical matter, may have left the Service without an avenue for review. This alone, however, does not entitle the Council to appeal. See Smoke v. Norton, 252 F.3d 468, 472 n. 1 (D.C.Cir.2001) (Henderson, J., concurring) (acknowledging that "[t]he agency's right to appeal such an order is based on the fact that if it were limited to an appeal only after remand proceedings, it would lose the opportunity to appeal in the event the decision to remand was in error," but stating that the appellant-intervenors "do not succeed to the agency's right to appeal which is unique to itself"). Indeed, no aspect of the district court's ruling vitiates the Council's access to appellate review of the eventual outcome of the district court's decision.

Before the proceedings even reach the appeal stage, it is possible that the action taken by the Service on remand will provide the Council with all the relief it seeks. The...