Me. Forest Prods. Council v. Cormier
| Docket Number | 22-1198 |
| Decision Date | 12 October 2022 |
| Parties | MAINE FOREST PRODUCTS COUNCIL, Pepin Lumber, Inc., and Stéphane Audet, Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Patty CORMIER, in her official capacity as Director of the Maine Bureau of Forestry, and Aaron Frey, in his official capacity as Attorney General for the State of Maine, Defendants, Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
Jason D. Anton, Assistant Attorney General, with whom Aaron M. Frey, Attorney General, Thomas A. Knowlton, Deputy Attorney General, Chief, Litigation Division, and Sarah E. Coleman, Assistant Attorney General, were on brief, for appellants.
Nolan L. Reichl, with whom Joshua D. Dunlap, Kellie MacDonald, and Pierce Atwood LLP, were on brief, for appellees.
Before Barron, Chief Judge, Selya and Howard, Circuit Judges.
This appeal requires us to consider whether federal law preempts a Maine law fashioned to prevent Canadian truck drivers from hauling logs within the state under the auspices of the federal H-2A visa program. Finding that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in their challenge and that the equities counseled in their favor, the district court preliminarily enjoined enforcement of the law before it took effect. See Me. Forest Prods. Council v. Cormier, 586 F.Supp.3d 22 (D. Me. 2022). Concluding, as we do, that the challenged law is likely preempted as an obstacle to the federal H-2A program, we affirm the district court's issuance of a preliminary injunction.
The logging industry is a fixture of northern Maine. In June of 2021, the Maine legislature enacted Public Law 280, titled "An Act Regarding the Transportation of Products in the Forest Products Industry" (P.L. 280). The relevant portions of the law, codified at Me. Stat. tit. 12, § 8006, prohibit motor carriers and landowners owning at least 50,000 acres of Maine forest land from hiring anyone who is not a "resident of the United States" to drive a vehicle "transport[ing] forest products" from one place to another within Maine. Id. The law imposes an escalating series of fines for violations, reaching as high as $25,000 per violation for a landowner and $10,000 per violation for a motor carrier. See id.
The sparse legislative history of P.L. 280 indicates that the Maine legislature's primary concern was the federal government's issuance of H-2A visas to Canadian truck drivers, who would then secure employment moving Maine logs. Consistent with this emphasis, P.L. 280 states that a " ‘[r]esident of the United States’ does not include a person eligible to be in the United States under the United States H-2A visa program." Id. § 8006(1)(E). Broadly speaking, the H-2A visa program (which we shall discuss in more detail below) authorizes foreign agricultural workers to perform seasonal work in this country when qualified U.S. workers cannot be found to fill available jobs.1 See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1101(a)(15)(H)(ii)(a), 1188 ; Overdevest Nurseries, L.P. v. Walsh, 2 F.4th 977, 980 (D.C. Cir. 2021).
The parties direct our attention to testimony presented to the legislature's Joint Standing Committee on Taxation by one of the law's principal sponsors, Senator Troy Jackson. Senator Jackson asserted that "Maine loggers and truckers face an uphill battle competing against their counterparts in Canada, who benefit from a favorable exchange rate and government-sponsored health insurance." This competition, he continued, is facilitated by the federal government's practice of issuing H-2A visas to Canadian truck drivers who transport logs within Maine — a practice that Senator Jackson claimed "has depressed wages for Maine people working in the woods and handed large landowners extraordinary power in the industry." According to Senator Jackson, granting H-2A visas to Canadian truck drivers to transport Maine logs within the state is a "misuse of the H-2A program" and causes "injustice to Maine workers."2
On October 7, 2021 — just a few days before P.L. 280 was to take effect — this action was brought. Maine Forest Products Council (a logging industry trade association), Pepin Lumber, Inc. (a Maine logging company), and Stéphane Audet (a Canadian truck driver working for Pepin Lumber under an H-2A visa) jointly filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Maine against the Director of the Maine Bureau of Forestry and the Attorney General of Maine (together, the State). Their complaint, which sought injunctive and declaratory relief, alleged that P.L. 280 is preempted under the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution and violates the Equal Protection Clauses of both the United States and Maine Constitutions.
The same day, the plaintiffs (whom we shall sometimes refer to collectively as "the Loggers") moved for a temporary restraining order (TRO) and a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of P.L. 280. During a conference with counsel that day, the TRO motion was dismissed following the State's agreement that it would not enforce P.L. 280 until further order of the district court. See Me. Forest Prods. Council, 586 F.Supp.3d at 27. The parties — agreeing on the relevant facts — subsequently briefed the preliminary injunction motion. See id. at 28 n.1. On February 18, 2022, the district court preliminarily enjoined the enforcement of P.L. 280 in its entirety on two independent grounds: preemption and equal protection. See id. at 64–65.
This timely appeal ensued. In it, the State challenges only the substance of the preliminary injunction, not its breadth or scope. We limit our review accordingly.
We begin with a cautionary note: "[a] preliminary injunction is an extraordinary remedy never awarded as of right." Winter v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 24, 129 S.Ct. 365, 172 L.Ed.2d 249 (2008). To obtain this remedy, the moving parties must show that the balance of four factors tips in their favor: a "likelihood of success on the merits; whether and to what extent the movant[s] will suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary injunctive relief; the balance of relative hardships ... ; and the effect, if any, that either a preliminary injunction or the absence of one will have on the public interest." Ryan v. U.S. Immigr. & Customs Enf't, 974 F.3d 9, 18 (1st Cir. 2020).
We review a district court's grant of a preliminary injunction for abuse of discretion. See We the People PAC v. Bellows, 40 F.4th 1, 9 (1st Cir. 2022). Under this multifaceted standard, "we review the district court's answers to legal questions de novo, factual findings for clear error, and judgment calls with some deference to the district court's exercise of its discretion." Akebia Therapeutics, Inc. v. Azar, 976 F.3d 86, 92 (1st Cir. 2020).
On appeal, the State has challenged only the district court's determination that the Loggers have shown a likelihood of success on the merits. We have made it pellucid that this is the factor that "weighs most heavily in the preliminary injunction calculus." Ryan, 974 F.3d at 18. It is, moreover, the "sine qua non" for preliminary injunctive relief. Id. (quoting New Comm Wireless Servs., Inc. v. SprintCom, Inc., 287 F.3d 1, 9 (1st Cir. 2002) ).
The district court found that the other three factors were compatible with the issuance of a preliminary injunction. See Me. Forest Prods. Council, 586 F.Supp.3d at 61–65. On appeal, the State has not advanced any arguments relevant to those factors, and we deem any such argument waived. See United States v. Zannino, 895 F.2d 1, 17 (1st Cir. 1990).
The upshot is that, for present purposes, the preliminary injunction rises or falls on the plaintiffs' likelihood of success on the merits of their claims. It is to that singular issue that we now turn. And although the district court found that the Loggers' challenge to P.L. 280 was doubly likely to succeed — on the separate grounds of preemption and equal protection — it is unnecessary for us to address both aspects of the district court's decision.3 See Toll v. Moreno, 458 U.S. 1, 9-10, 102 S.Ct. 2977, 73 L.Ed.2d 563 (1982) (). We conclude that P.L. 280 is likely preempted and — with that conclusion as the linchpin — we hold that the plaintiffs have carried their burden of showing a likelihood of success on the merits.
Our system of overlapping federal and state sovereignties gives rise to "the possibility that laws can be in conflict or at cross-purposes." Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387, 399, 132 S.Ct. 2492, 183 L.Ed.2d 351 (2012). The constitutional rule in such cases, embodied in the Supremacy Clause, makes federal law "the supreme Law of the Land," which overwhelms "any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary." U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2. Congress thus "has the power to pre-empt state law." Arizona, 567 U.S. at 399, 132 S.Ct. 2492.
Preemption has three branches: "express," "field," and "conflict." Id.; see Consumer Data Indus. Ass'n v. Frey, 26 F.4th 1, 5 (1st Cir. 2022). In this instance, the parties have focused their arguments solely on conflict preemption — specifically, the offshoot of conflict preemption called "obstacle preemption." We follow their lead.
Obstacle preemption is implicated when "the challenged state law ‘stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.’ " Arizona, 567 U.S. at 399, 132 S.Ct. 2492 (quoting Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U.S. 52, 67, 61 S.Ct. 399, 85 L.Ed. 581 (1941) ). Cases of obstacle preemption (like all forms of preemption) fit into the following mold: "Congress enacts a law that imposes restrictions or confers rights on private actors; a state law confers rights or imposes restrictions that conflict with the federal law; and therefore the federal law takes precedence and the state law is preempted." Murphy v. Nat'l Collegiate Athletic Ass'n, ––– U.S. ––––, 138 S. Ct. 1461, 1480, 200 L.Ed.2d 854 (2018...
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