Oman Fasteners, LLC v. United States
| Decision Date | 08 August 2019 |
| Docket Number | Court No. 18-00244,Slip Op. 19-108 |
| Parties | OMAN FASTENERS, LLC, Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES, Defendant, and MID CONTINENT STEEL & WIRE, INC., Defendant-Intervenor. |
| Court | U.S. Court of International Trade |
Before: Richard K. Eaton, Judge
MEMORANDUM OPINION[Defendant's motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction is denied; Plaintiff's unopposed motion to consolidate is granted.]
Michael P. House, Perkins Coie, LLP of Washington, DC, for Plaintiff.
Sosun Bae, Trial Attorney, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division, U.S. Department of Justice, of Washington, DC, for Defendant. With her on the brief were Joseph H. Hunt, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Jeanne E. Davidson, Director, and Patricia M. McCarthy, Assistant Director. Of Counsel on the brief was Kristen McCannon, Attorney, Office of the Chief Counsel for Trade Enforcement and Compliance, U.S. Department of Commerce, of Washington, DC.
Adam H. Gordon and Ping Gong, The Bristol Group PLLC of Washington, DC, for Defendant-Intervenor.
Plaintiff Oman Fasteners, LLC ("Plaintiff" or "Oman Fasteners") commenced this action to challenge certain aspects of the final results of the United States Department of Commerce's ("Commerce" or the "Department") second administrative review of the antidumping duty order on certain steel nails from the Sultanate of Oman. See Certain Steel Nails From the Sultanate of Oman, 83 Fed. Reg. 58,231 (Dep't Commerce Nov. 19, 2018) ("Final Results"); see also Certain Steel Nails From the Rep. of Korea, Malay., the Sultanate of Oman, Taiwan, and the Socialist Rep. of Viet., 80 Fed. Reg. 39,994 (Dep't Commerce July 13, 2015) ("Order"). Plaintiff was a mandatory respondent in that review and received a zero percent weighted-average dumping margin.
The Final Results are also the subject of a separate lawsuit, commenced by Mid Continent Steel & Wire, Inc., a U.S. manufacturer of the domestic like product, captioned Mid Continent Steel & Wire, Inc. v. United States, Court No. 18-00235 ("Mid Continent"). Oman Fasteners is a defendant-intervenor in the Mid Continent case. Mid Continent is stayed pending the final resolution of an appeal currently before the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Mid Continent Steel & Wire, Inc. v. United States, Court No. 2018-1250 (appeal filed Dec. 4, 2017) ("Appeal").1
Before the court are two motions: (1) the motion of Defendant the United States ("Defendant") to dismiss Oman Fasteners' complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1),2 and (2) Oman Fasteners' motion to consolidate3 this action with the Mid Continent case, pursuant to Rule 42(a). See Def.'s Mot. Dismiss, ECF No. 30 ("Def.'s Mot.");Def.'s Reply Br. Supp. Mot. Dismiss, ECF No. 36 ("Def.'s Reply"); see also Pl.'s Unopposed Mot. Consolidate and Stay, ECF No. 39 ("Pl.'s Mot.").
By its motion to dismiss, Defendant claims that Oman Fasteners lacks constitutional standing to bring a lawsuit challenging the Final Results, for the sole reason that it received a zero percent margin in the administrative review. See generally Def.'s Mot. Because of the zero percent margin, Defendant contends, Oman Fasteners "cannot demonstrate that it has suffered an injury in fact." Def.'s Mot. 2; see also U.S. CONST. art. III, § 2, cl. 1.
Plaintiff opposes the motion to dismiss, maintaining that it has alleged sufficient injury for constitutional standing purposes, namely, "a concrete procedural injury—the potential for permanent loss of its right to challenge Commerce determinations that Oman Fasteners believes were unlawful." Pl.'s Opp'n Def.'s Mot. Dismiss, ECF No. 35 at 6 ("Pl.'s Opp'n"). Specifically, notwithstanding its zero percent margin, Oman Fasteners disputes certain of Commerce's determinations as unsupported by substantial evidence and otherwise not in accordance with law. Since its claims are beyond the scope of issues in the Mid Continent complaint, however, Oman Fasteners cannot raise them as defendant-intervenor in that action. See Pl.'s Resp. Ct. Order, ECF No. 41 at 3-4 (quoting, inter alia, Vinson v. Wash. Gas Light Co., 321 U.S. 489, 498 (1944)). Thus, by commencing this action, Plaintiff seeks to "ensure that it is afforded due process to present its arguments with respect to [those allegedly unlawful] determinations underlying the Final Results . . . ." Pl.'s Opp'n 3. For Plaintiff, unless it is permitted to bring its claims in this action, it may only get the chance in a separate, expensive lawsuit, or not at all. Thus, Plaintiff asks the court to deny Defendant's motion to dismiss.
Plaintiff's consolidation motion asks the court to consolidate this case with Mid Continent. Plaintiff asserts that judicial economy favors consolidation because both the Mid Continent case and this action dispute aspects of the same Final Results, and some issues in the Appeal (pending the resolution of which Mid Continent is stayed) overlap with Plaintiff's claims in this action. See Pl.'s Mot. 2-3 (); Pl.'s Mot. 3 ().
For the reasons below, the court denies Defendant's motion to dismiss, and grants Plaintiff's motion to consolidate.
Oman Fasteners is a foreign producer, exporter, and U.S. importer of steel nails that are subject to the Order. See Compl., ECF No. 10, ¶ 1. It participated in the second administrative review of the Order as a mandatory respondent. Compl. ¶ 8.
On November 19, 2018, Commerce published the Final Results, in which it determined a zero percent weighted-average dumping margin for Oman Fasteners. Compl. ¶ 19.
On November 28, 2018, Mid Continent Steel & Wire, Inc., a U.S. manufacturer of the domestic like product and Defendant-Intervenor here, commenced the Mid Continent case to challenge the Final Results with respect to (1) Commerce's determination that Oman Fasteners and its largest U.S. supplier were not affiliated, and (2) Commerce's choice of a Japanese company as the source of information to construct the value for profit and indirect selling expenses. See Mid Continent, Ct. No. 18-00235, Compl., ECF No. 8, ¶¶ 15-26. Should Mid Continent ultimately prevail, a natural result would be a positive dumping margin for Oman Fasteners.
On December 19, 2018, Oman Fasteners filed the complaint, alleging that this Court has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1581(c) (2012) and 19 U.S.C. § 1516a(a)(2)(A)(i)(I) and (B)(iii) (2012), and that Plaintiff had standing as an "interested party" as defined in 19 U.S.C. § 1677(9)(A). Compl. ¶¶ 4, 5. In its complaint, Oman Fasteners alleges three claims: (1) "Commerce's failure to calculate, or attempt to calculate, a profit rate cap as expressly required by statute is unsupported by substantial evidence and contrary to law," Compl. ¶ 22 (Count I); (2) "Commerce's failure to base [constructed value] ratios on a home market source in this review is unsupported by substantial evidence and contrary to law," Compl. ¶ 24 (Count II); (3) "Commerce's application of its so-called 'differential pricing' methodology in this review is unsupported by substantial evidence and contrary to law." Compl. ¶ 26 (Count III). Plaintiff asks the court to "enter judgment holding unlawful the decisions of Commerce identified [in the complaint]; [and] remand this matter to Commerce for a re-determination consistent with the [court's] holding." Compl. ¶ 27. So, as Mid Continent does in its case, Oman Fasteners, too, seeks to challenge aspects of the Final Results.
On December 20, 2019, the day after commencing this action, Oman Fasteners moved to intervene as of right, pursuant to Rule 24(a), as defendant-intervenor in Mid Continent. The court granted that motion. See Mid Continent, Ct. No. 18-00235, Order dated Dec. 20, 2019, ECF No. 19.
On February 6, 2019, Defendant moved to dismiss this action. See Def.'s Mot.
On April 1, 2019, Plaintiff moved to consolidate this action with Mid Continent. See Pl.'s Mot.
On April 23, 2019, the court ordered Oman Fasteners to submit a statement explaining, "with specificity, how [it] will be prevented from raising the exact same issues in [Mid Continent,] Court No. 18-00235, that it has sought to raise in this case," and afforded Defendant an opportunity to submit a response. Order dated Apr. 23, 2019, ECF No. 40. The parties timely filed their respective statements. See Pl.'s Resp. Ct. Order; Def.'s Resp. Pl.'s Submission Resp. Ct. Order, ECF No. 42.
Whether this Court may exercise subject-matter jurisdiction over the claims asserted in a complaint is a threshold inquiry. "The requirement that jurisdiction be established as a threshold matter springs from the nature and limits of the judicial power of the United States and is inflexible and without exception." Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env't, 523 U.S. 83, 94-95 (1998) (citation omitted). In deciding a Rule 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, the court is "obligated to assume all factual allegations to be true and to draw all reasonable inferences in plaintiff's favor." Henke v. United States, 60 F.3d 795, 797 (Fed. Cir. 1995) (citations omitted).
"[J]urisdiction is a question of whether a federal court has the power, under the Constitution or laws of the United States, to hear a case." Davis v...
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