In re Establishment Inspection of Texas Tank Car Works

597 F. Supp. 591, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19197
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Texas
DecidedFebruary 24, 1984
DocketInspection Warrant No. 6-82-1M; No. CA-6-82-22-E
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 597 F. Supp. 591 (In re Establishment Inspection of Texas Tank Car Works) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re Establishment Inspection of Texas Tank Car Works, 597 F. Supp. 591, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19197 (N.D. Tex. 1984).

Opinion

[593]*593OPINION

MAHON, District Judge.

Petitioner Texas Tank Car Works filed its petition to quash inspection warrant on April 7, 1982. Respondent is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (hereinafter sometimes referred to as OSHA).

On October 20, 1981, OSHA Austin area Safety Compliance Officer W.B. Cunningham sought to make a general administrative plan inspection of Petitioner and was permitted to conduct an accident record review. Such review revealed that Petitioner’s lost work day injury rate (herein referred to as LWDI rate) was above the national manufacturing average. Cunningham’s request for a safety inspection was refused and OSHA thereafter obtained an inspection warrant from Magistrate Philip Lane on January 13, 1982. An attempt to serve the warrant on January 14, 1982, failed because bad weather had halted Petitioner’s operations. A second warrant request was again granted by Magistrate Lane on April 6, 1982, for inspection pursuant to a general administrative plan.

Texas Tank Car Works filed its petition to quash on April 7, 1982. Magistrate Bill Brister conducted a hearing on the petition on June 8, 1982, pursuant to the April 12, 1982 order of Chief Judge Halbert O. Woodward. In a written report and recommendation filed November 16, 1982, the magistrate recommended denial of the petition to quash, citation in civil contempt and imposition of a fine for each day that inspection under the warrant was refused following entry of a final order denying the petition to quash. Petitioner’s written objections to the magistrate’s report dated November 24, 1982, Respondent’s response to Petitioner’s objections dated December 29, 1982, and Petitioner’s answer to Respondent’s responses dated January 17, 1983, were subsequently filed. Having been referred to the court by Judge Woodward’s April 19, 1982 order and having considered the magistrate’s report and recommendation, and the parties objections, response and answer, the court determines the objections of Texas Tank Car Works should be overruled and a judgment entered substantially as recommended by the magistrate.

Petitioner objécts to the magistrate’s report and recommendations as follows:

1. OSHA Instruction CPL 2.25B (herein referred to as CPL 2.25B) was not placed in evidence at the hearing on the petition to quash and cannot be considered in the probable cause finding.
2. The inspection plan is not valid because there is no showing that Petitioner’s establishment or industry group were less safe than others not yet inspected or scheduled for inspection.
3. The warrant application does not show how Petitioner’s industry or establishment was selected under the inspection plan.
4. The evidence shows Petitioner’s LWDI rate was below the national manufacturing average, precluding inspection.
5. The scope of the inspection allowed under the warrant is overly:broad.

Petitioner’s first objection concerns the sufficiency of the evidence used [594]*594in the issuing magistrate’s probable cause determination. Probable cause in the criminal sense is not required for an OSHA inspection warrant. Marshall v. Barlow’s, Inc., 436 U.S. 307, 98 S.Ct. 1816, 56 L.Ed.2d 305 (1978). Administrative probable cause may be based either on (1) specific evidence of an existing violation, or:

(2) a general administrative plan for the enforcement of the [Occupational Safety and Health] Act derived from neutral sources such as, for example, dispersion of employees in various types of industries across a given area, (footnote omitted)

Id. 436 U.S. at 321, 98 S.Ct. at 1824. Probable cause in this case is based on the second standard,, a neutral inspection program. To meet this probable cause requirement, the applicant must at least show (1) a reasonable legislative or administrative inspection program exists and (2) the desired inspection fits within the program. Chicago Zoological Society v. Donovan, 558 F.Supp. 1147 (N.D.Ill.1983).

In its warrant application Respondent described an administrative program that led to Petitioner’s selection for inspection. A copy of the internal OSHA directive on the program, CPL 2.25B, was attached to the application and incorporated therein, according to W.B. Cunningham’s application affidavit of April 6, 1982, Paragraph No. 7.

Petitioner objects that CPL 2.25B cannot be considered by the court in reviewing probable cause because it was not in evidence at the June 8, 1982 hearing. Magistrate Brister found that a copy of CPL 2.25B had been attached to the warrant application (R. p. 7), and the application so indicates. CPL 2.25B however was not introduced at the hearing and since it is an internal operating document judicial notice cannot be taken. The absence of CPL 2.25B from the hearing is nonetheless irrelevant to a probable cause review. A reviewing court may consider only the information before the issuing magistrate except in the case of intentional or reckless falsehood. West Point-Pepperall, Incorporated v. Donovan, 689 F.2d 950, 960 (11th Cir.1982). While errors in the warrant application were found at the hearing, they were neither intentional nor reckless, nor did they affect probable cause. Since CPL 2.25B was properly before the issuing magistrate it may be considered in reviewing the probable cause determination.

Petitioner next objects that the magistrate should have examined the plan to assure that Petitioner’s establishment and the tank car repair industry were not slated for inspection before others with a greater hazard potential. In effect Petitioner asks that the magistrate review the policy considerations behind OSHA’s development of the plan. It is not the magistrate’s duty to examine the agency’s decision to adopt the plan. Donovan v. Wollaston Alloys, Incorporated, 695 F.2d 1 (1st Cir.1982). The magistrate, need only assure that the plan provides neutral and non-arbitrary selection of establishments and industries before approving an inspection scheduled pursuant to the plan.

CPL 2.25B sets out:

... the steps to be followed and the criteria to be applied in selecting workplace establishments for programmed inspection.

The affidavit of W.B. Cunningham III, describes the CPL 2.25B plan. In essence, establishments in the area are selected consecutively from a list of high safety hazard industries supplied by the national office. They are placed in an annual inspection cycle and each establishment is inspected in an order which conserves inspection resources. All establishments are to be inspected before a new cycle begins. The CPL 2.25B plan has been specifically upheld as meeting the Barlow’s neutrality requirement in Ingersoll-Rand Company v. Donovan, 540 F.Supp. 222 (M.D.Pa.1982). Similar OSHA plans have been upheld in Donovan v. Wollaston Alloys, Incorporated, supra at 2 n. 1; and Stoddard Lumber Company v. Marshall, 627 F.2d 984, 985 n. 2 (9th Cir.1980). In Wollaston Alloys, supra

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597 F. Supp. 591, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19197, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-establishment-inspection-of-texas-tank-car-works-txnd-1984.