United States Steel Corp. v. Williams

400 N.E.2d 1358, 61 Ohio App. 2d 155, 15 Ohio Op. 3d 288, 1978 Ohio App. LEXIS 7671
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedDecember 12, 1978
Docket76AP-643 and 76AP-644
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 400 N.E.2d 1358 (United States Steel Corp. v. Williams) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States Steel Corp. v. Williams, 400 N.E.2d 1358, 61 Ohio App. 2d 155, 15 Ohio Op. 3d 288, 1978 Ohio App. LEXIS 7671 (Ohio Ct. App. 1978).

Opinion

*156 McCormac, J.

These appeals have been consolidated on remand from the Supreme Court of Ohio to this court.

On or before July 18,1974, the Director of Environmental Protection (hereinafter Director) published a proposal to amend certain water quality standards. Thereafter, public hearings were held and on January 8,1975, the water quality amendments were adopted by the Director as originally proposed. No adjudicatory hearing had been conducted, but only quasi-legislative hearings in consideration of the proposed regulations.

In February 1975, United States Steel and the city of Akron appealed to the Environmental Board of Review, assigning specific errors by the Director in the promulgation of the regulations. On February 20,1975, the board issued a notice of a de novo hearing on the appeals from the Director’s regulations. At the time of the hearing, the errors, as assigned by the parties, were directed solely to the revised phenol standard. The Board conducted a quasi-legislative hearing over the entire area of water quality standards and permitted all persons who participated in the non-adjudicatory public hearing before the Director to be parties to the appeal and ruled that parties were not permitted to cross-examine the witnesses of other participants. On the basis of this non-adjudicatory hearing, the Board issued numerous amendments, deletions and additions to the water quality standards promulgated by the Director, thus rewriting the Director’s regulations, and also overruled the objections to the revised phenol standard.

Appellants appealed to this court on July 23,1976, and the appeals were dismissed on the basis that the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over appeals from orders of the Board involving quasi-legislative proceedings. The Supreme Court subsequently reversed, holding that R. C. 3745.06 grants this court jurisdiction over appeals from final orders of the Board of Review issued upon an appeal of rulemaking actions of the Director.

United States Steel has set forth the following assignments of error:

“A. The Environmental Board of Review committed error by failing to conduct an adjudicatory hearing de novo on appeal of certain rulemaking actions of the Director of Environmental Protection, aspects of which include the right oí *157 the parties to cross-examine and subpoena witnesses, as is required by Ohio Revised Code §3745.04 and 3745.05 and erred by instead inventing and conducting an unlawful second rulemaking proceeding termed a quasi-legislative appellate hearing.
“B. The Environmental Board of Review committed error in its Final Order of June 25,1976 by adopting the Director of Environmental Protection’s revised phenol standard, O.A.C. §3745-l-02(J), in that said order and standard is unsupported by reliable, probative and substantial evidence and is not in accordance with law.
“C. The Board exceeded the allowable scope of review when it almost completely rewrote the Director’s regulations.”

The Director agrees with United States Steel’s first and third assignments of error, but contends that the Board of Review correctly upheld the Director’s revised phenol standard. Additionally, the Director contends that due to his later rescission of the regulations that are the subject of this appeal, the questions presented to the court are moot.

The city of Akron has set forth the following assignment of error (essentially identical to United States Steel’s assignment “A”):

“The Environmental Board of Review erred in conducting a non-adversary ‘de novo quasi-legislative appellate hearing’ rather than conducting an adversary adjudication hearing on the issues raised in the notices of appeal filed with the Board.”

Both United States Steel and Akron strenuously argue that the appeals herein are not moot in that the amended water quality standards contain the same phenol standard to which the parties previously objected.

The first issue is whether an appeal becomes moot when regulations, of which a part is subject to objection and timely appeal, are amended while the appeal is pending when the amendment does not change the standard to which the objection is made.

Amending regulations without eliminating the objection concerning which an appeal is pending does not moot the appeal. The objection of appellants was to the Director’s adoption of a revised phenol standard, Ohio Admn. Code 3745-1, which standard was reduced from 100 ug/1 to 10 ug/1, a reduc *158 tion of 1,000 percent, or a standard ten times more stringent than the prior regulation. During the lengthy period of time in which these appeals have been pending, the Director amended certain of the water pollution standards, but not the phenol standard, which was left at 10 ug/1, the same standard to which an objection was made.

The cases cited by the Director in support of his claim that the appeals are moot are clearly distinguishable. In cases cited for this proposition, the regulation to which an objection was made was either revoked or changed so tliat the objection no longer applied. These cases do not stand for the proposition that generally amending regulations of which the objectionable matter is a part without curing or eliminating the objectionable part moots a pending appeal. Neither reason nor law supports that proposition.

The appeals are not moot and will be decided on their merits.

The next issue concerns the nature of proceedings before the Board upon an appeal from regulations adopted by the Director in a non-adjudicatory proceeding.

Any appeal to the Board of Review is conducted pursuant to R. C. 3745.05 which, in pertinent part, provides:

“***If no adjudication hearing was conducted in accordance with sections 119.09 and 119.10 of the Revised Code, the board shall conduct a hearing de novo on the appeal.
“For the purpose of conducting a de novo hearing, or where the board has granted a request for the admission of additional evidence, the environmental board of review may require the attendance of witnesses and the production of written or printed materials.
“When conducting a de novo hearing, or when a request for the admission of additional evidence has been granted, the board may, and at the request of any party it shall, issue subpoenas for witnesses or for books, papers, correspondence, memoranda, agreements, or other documents or records relevant or material to the inquiry directed to the sheriff of the counties where the witnesses or documents or records are found, which subpoenas shall be served and returned in the same manner as those allowed by the court of common pleas in criminal cases.
“The fees and mileage of sheriffs and witnesses shall be *159 the same as those allowed by the court of common pleas in criminal cases.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
400 N.E.2d 1358, 61 Ohio App. 2d 155, 15 Ohio Op. 3d 288, 1978 Ohio App. LEXIS 7671, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-steel-corp-v-williams-ohioctapp-1978.