United States v. Pacific Gas & Electric Co.

153 F. Supp. 3d 1084, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 171579, 2015 WL 9460302
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. California
DecidedDecember 23, 2015
DocketCase No. 14-cr-00175-TEH
StatusPublished

This text of 153 F. Supp. 3d 1084 (United States v. Pacific Gas & Electric Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Pacific Gas & Electric Co., 153 F. Supp. 3d 1084, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 171579, 2015 WL 9460302 (N.D. Cal. 2015).

Opinion

ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANT’S MOTION TO DISMISS FOR MULTIPLICITY

THELTON E. HENDERSON, United States District Judge

This matter came before the Court on October 19, 2015 for a hearing on Defendant Pacific Gas & Electric (“PG&E”)’s Motion to Dismiss for Multiplicity: Counts 3, 7, 8, 10-14, 16-18, and 20-23. After carefully considering the parties’ written and oral arguments, the Court now GRANTS PG&E’s motion, for the reasons set forth below.

BACKGROUND

On September 9, 2010, a gas line owned and operated by PG&E ruptured, causing a fire that killed 8 people and injured 58 others. Superseding Indictment (“SI”) ¶ 5 (Docket No. 22). The fire damaged 108 homes, 38 of which-were completely destroyed. Id. On July 30, 2014, a grand jury returned a superseding indictment (“In[1087]*1087dictment”) charging PG&E with 27 counts of violating the minimum federal safety standards for the transportation of natural gas by pipeline (“Pipeline Safety Act”), as set forth in 49 C.F.R. § 192 (“Section 192”). SI ¶¶ 62-75. “Knowing and willful” violations of these standards are criminalized under 49 U.S.C. § 60123 (“Section 60123”).

Counts 2, 3, and 6-23 of the Indictment allege “knowing and willful” violations of Section 192’s Subpart O, known as the Integrity Management (“IM”) regulations. SI ¶¶ 62-63, 66-73. The IM regulations, set forth in 49 C.F.R. § 192.901 et seq., were issued by the Department of Transportation in 2003 in" response to a directive from Congress to “prescribe] standards to direct an operator’s conduct of a risk analysis and adoption and implementation of an integrity management program.” H. R. 3609, at 18 (2002); 49 U.S.C. § 60109(c)(2)(A). The regulations detail minimum requirements for this integrity management program. ' 49 C.F.R. § 192.901. The regulations apply to all “covered pipeline segments,” which aré segments in densely populated areas where the risk of injury or death from a gas leak or other pipeline failure is the highest. Id. § 192.903.

PG&E now moves to dismiss fifteen of the Indictment’s IM regulation counts as multiplicitous. These fifteen counts stem from five IM regulations — because the Indictment charges for each regulation on a pipeline-by-pipeline basis — as follows:

— Counts 2-3 charge PG&E with violating 49 C.F.R. § 192.917(b) by “failing] to gather and integrate existing data and information that could be relevant to identifying and evaluating all potential threats on covered segments,” on two pipelines: Lines 132 and 109. SI ¶ 63.
— Counts 6-8 charge PG&E with violating 49 C.F.R. § 192.917(a) by “fail[ing] to identify and evaluate potential threats to covered segments,” on three pipelines: Lines 132, 153, and DFM 1816-01. SI ¶ 67.
— Counts 9-14 charge PG&E with violating 49 C.F.R. § 192.919 by “failing] to include in its annual baseline assessment plan all potential threats on a covered segment and fail[ing] to select the most suitable assessment method to assess all potential threats on covered segments,” on six pipelines: Lines 132, 153, DFM 1816-01, 107, 191-1, and 109. SI ¶ 69.
— Counts 15-18 charge PG&E with violating 49 C.F.R. § 192.917(e)(3) by “failing] to prioritize covered segments of lines as high risk segments for the baseline assessment "or a subsequent reassessment, after changed circumstances rendered manufacturing threats on segments of the lines ... unstable,” on four pipelines: Lines 132, 153, DFM 1816-01, and 109. SI ¶ 71.
— Counts 19-23 charge PG&E with violating- 49 C.F.R. § 192.917(e)(4) by “failpng] to prioritize covered segments of a line, as high risk segments . for a baseline assessment plan or subsequent reassessment after a changed circumstance rendered manufacturing threats on those segments unstable, and failing] to analyze covered segments to determine the risk of failure from such manufacturing threats,” on five pipelines: Lines DFM 1816-01, 191-1, 109, 107, and 132. SI ¶ 73.

DISCUSSION

- PG&E argues that the Indictment’s pipeline-level charging is multiplicitous because “each course of conduct that is al[1088]*1088leged to violate a regulation gives rise to one, single crime — no matter how many times that course of conduct is repeated— unless Congress provides otherwise in ‘clear and definite’ language.” Def.’s Mot. to Dismiss for Multiplicity (“Mot.”) at 1 (Docket No. 124). The Government argues that “each unique count differs because it requires the government to prove, for each segment, a separate act,” and “where the separate counts charge separate acts but are part of a single scheme or purpose, the counts are not multiplicitous.” Opp’n to Def.’s Mot. to Dismiss for Multiplicity (“Opp’n”) at 2, 5-6 (Docket No. 148).

I. Multiplicity of Counts

a. The Proper Inquiry Is What Congress Has Made the Allowable “Unit of Prosecution”

Where, as here, a defendant is charged with multiple violations of the same provision of law, the Supreme Court has stated that the proper inquiry is “[w]hat Congress has made the allowable unit of prosecution.” United States v. Universal C.I.T. Credit Corp., 344 U.S. 218, 221, 73 S.Ct. 227, 97 L.Ed. 260 (1952) (emphasis added).1 In other-words, courts must determine whether Congress meant to punish each.instance of a violation as a separate crime, or punish once per violation of a single provision of law. The Supreme Court has also indicated that when such “choice has to be made between two readings of what conduct Congress has made a crime, it is appropriate, before we choose the harsher alternative, to require that Congress should have spoken in language that is clear and definite.” Id. at 221-22, 73 S.Ct. 227 (emphasis added).

The Ninth Circuit has affirmed that the rule of lenity animates this inquiry: “A court may not impose consecutive sentences for a single transaction that violates more than one statutory provision or purpose unless Congress has clearly expressed its intent to make each violation within that single transaction a separate offense subject to separate punishment.” Brown v. United States, 623 F.2d 54, 57 (9th Cir.1980) (emphasis added).

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Bluebook (online)
153 F. Supp. 3d 1084, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 171579, 2015 WL 9460302, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-pacific-gas-electric-co-cand-2015.