Springs Mills, Inc. v. CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY COM'N, Civ. A. No. 77-891.

Citation434 F. Supp. 416
Decision Date23 June 1977
Docket NumberCiv. A. No. 77-891.
PartiesSPRINGS MILLS, INC., Plaintiff, v. CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY COMMISSION, S. John Byington, R. David Pittle, Barbara Franklin, Lawrence M. Kushner, Thaddeus Garrett, Richard E. Rapps, Defendants, and Environmental Defense Fund, Defendant-Intervenor.
CourtUnited States District Courts. 4th Circuit. United States District Court of South Carolina

Wesley M. Walker, Mark Holmes, Leatherwood, Walker, Todd & Mann, Greenville, S. C., Emmet J. Bondurant, II, Kilpatrick, Cody, Rogers, McClatchey & Regenstein, Atlanta, Ga., for plaintiff.

Thomas E. Lydon, Jr., U. S. Atty., Columbia, S. C., James D. McCoy, III, Asst. U. S. Atty., Greenville, S. C., Arthur E. Korkosz, Atty., Consumer Affairs Section, Antitrust Division, U. S. Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., of counsel; Theodore J. Garrish, Gen. Counsel, Alan Shakin, D. Stephen Lemberg, Consumer Product Safety Commission, Washington, D. C., for defendants.

Robert J. Rauch, William Butler, Washington, D. C., Herbert Buhl (local counsel), Columbia, S. C., for defendant-intervenor.

FINDINGS OF FACT, CONCLUSIONS OF LAW AND ORDER

CHAPMAN, District Judge.

This matter was tried before the Court on June 13, 1977, as to the first cause of action in the complaint brought by plaintiff Springs Mills, Inc. against Consumer Product Safety Commission, the members of the Commission and the Director for Compliance and Enforcement of said Commission. Springs seeks a permanent injunction restraining Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) from enforcing or attempting to enforce its regulations relating to TRIS, a flame retardant used primarily in children's sleepwear, technically known as (2, 3 Dibromoprotyl) phosphate. CPSC has issued regulations finding TRIS to be a "banned hazardous substance" within the meaning of 15 U.S.C. § 1261(q)(1)(A), which is the Federal Hazardous Substances Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1261-74. The regulations issued by CPSC were published in the Federal Register on April 8, April 20, April 26, May 5 and June 1, 1977. (See 42 Fed.Reg. 18850, 2479, 21274, 22878 and 28060.) These regulations declare that all fabrics, yarns and fibers containing TRIS, and all garments made from such fabrics, yarns and fibers intended for use in manufactured children's wearing apparel are "banned hazardous substances".

By declaring these articles to be "banned hazardous substances", the provisions of 15 U.S.C. § 1274 requiring the repurchase thereof came into effect.

On May 24, 1977, this Court after a hearing in Greenville, South Carolina, issued a preliminary injunction against the CPSC and its Commissioners preventing them from attempting to enforce against Springs any of the TRIS regulations issued by defendants. Subsequent thereto Environmental Defense Fund, Inc. (EDF) moved the Court to intervene as a party defendant in this action. This motion was granted on June 9 with the understanding that EDF would be present at the trial scheduled for June 13 and would make no effort to delay such trial because of its late entry into litigation.

The complaint sets forth four causes of action, but in the interest of time, and since all parties felt that the first cause of action might be dispositive of the case, the trial held on June 13, 1977 involved only such first cause of action, which alleges that the actions of the Commission in adopting the TRIS regulations are unconstitutional, null and void because they are allegedly in violation of the plaintiff's right to procedural and substantive due process of law as guaranteed by the 5th amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

This issue was tried before the Court without a jury and the evidence received consisted of various affidavits, correspondence, reports, transcripts of Commission meetings and stipulations, but no witnesses testified at the trial.

After consideration of the evidence presented and a study of the legal issues the Court, pursuant to Rule 52 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, makes the following

FINDINGS OF FACT

1. The plaintiff, Springs Mills, Inc., is a corporation organized and existing under the laws of the State of South Carolina and is engaged in the business of spinning, weaving, knitting, refinishing and marketing a large variety of textile products, which until mid 1976 included fabrics treated with a chemical flame retardant known as TRIS.

2. The defendants are the United States Consumer Products Safety Commission, the Chairman and Commissioners thereof, the Executive Director for Compliance and Enforcement of said Commission and Environmental Defense Fund, Inc., which was allowed to intervene as a party defendant in the case.

3. In 1953 Congress enacted the Flammable Fabrics Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1191 et seq. covering the standard for measuring flammability of wearing apparel. Thereafter the Secretary of Commerce was granted authority by the Congress to issue mandatory flammability standards and in 1971 the Secretary issued his apparel flammability standard FF-3-71 (16 C.F.R. § 1615) prohibiting the sale in interstate commerce of all children's sleepwear sizes 0 to 6X that fail to comply with certain flammability standards. In order to comply with this standard it was necessary that this size children's sleepwear be treated with a chemical flame retardant, and TRIS was the only flame retardant available to effectively treat polyester, acetate and triacetate fabrics used for children's sleepwear, which would enable the sleepwear to comply with the Secretary's standards. This had the practical effect of the Federal Government ordering that TRIS be used. Now another department of the same Government has not only banned TRIS, but ordered the repurchase of articles containing it.

4. On or about March 24, 1976, CPSC received from EDF a petition to require labeling of TRIS treated sleepwear directing that it be washed three times before wearing. CPSC did not publish the contents of this petition, or any proposed regulation suggested thereunder, and took no official action thereon. However, CPSC solicited information from certain selected sources, including EDF itself. In October 1976, EDF complained of the Commission's lack of action on its March 24 petition and CPSC responded in a letter dated December 16, 1976, which stated in part:

"We agree that section 701(e) of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C. § 371(e)) applies to your petition (See also an applicable regulation at 16 C.F.R. 1500.201(a))."

Nothing was done by CPSC to notify interested parties of the petition or to set a hearing or otherwise allow interested parties the opportunity to present their views thereon as set forth in 21 U.S.C. § 371(e).

5. On February 8, 1977, EDF filed an additional petition with CPSC seeking a ban on the sale of all wearing apparel containing TRIS, and CPSC failed to publish this petition and failed to afford interested persons an opportunity to comment, but continued to receive data from selected sources such as EDF, NCI and certain doctors and professors. All of these contacts represent ex parte communications with the Commission at a time when it had petitions pending.

6. On February 4, 1977, officials of CPSC and NCI held a meeting to review the data and findings of NCI. Notice of this meeting was not given to Springs or anyone else who might be affected by the information obtained from NCI. The minutes of this meeting show the data supplied by NCI was unverified, uninterpreted and uncertain.

7. The Commission thereafter had meetings with EDF personnel, including Robert J. Rauch, counsel of record for EDF in the present case, and received a letter from Rauch, Drs. Harris and Highland, all of EDF, outlining the procedure to be used by CPSC in banning TRIS treated garments, which is the procedure that CPSC has attempted to follow under § 1261(q)(1)(A).

8. During this same period members of the Commission received information and opinions from outside sources by telephone.

9. At a meeting of the technical staffs of CPSC and EDF held in Bethesda, Maryland on February 18, 1977, the various tests and results of tests were discussed and indicated that the tests done on mice, rats and rabbits relating to the ingestion and absorption of TRIS were anything but conclusive, that the effects were not necessarily cumulative and Dr. Harris of EDF stated frankly that there was no scientific method for extrapolating from animals to humans in terms of carcinogenicity and near the end of the meeting Mr. Rauch, representing EDF at such meeting, and presently in this court, stated at page 31:

"One of our concerns here, of course, is the Commission act promptly on this. I think a concern that has developed in my mind as I listened to some of the discussion this afternoon is that certainly we want to get all of the necessary information to make this judgment. But it seems to me some decisions are going to have to be made with certain questions you cannot get perfect answers for, as you all know; there is always some degree of uncertainty.
EDF has now had some petition pending before you for quite some time. This is not a new problem. We now have the NCI data. It seems to us in the interest of protecting public health, if there is any doubt in this case, that the public has got to be given the benefit of that doubt; therefore, we would like to see the Commission, of course, act promptly on this.
This afternoon I have dictated a letter which would be arriving to each Commissioner requesting a meeting on this early next week. We realize your need to accumulate additional information, but I would like a sense of how soon you think you are going to be able to act on this."

Later at page 34 of the transcript of said meeting Mr. Rauch continues:

"If you look at the statute, the section quoted back and forth in several letters dealing with what the Commission is required to do upon receipt of a petition showing reasonable ground, I would like to know whether in your judgment right
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