Ruling gives family its day in court
If the American concept of responsive, representative government means anything, it's that bureaucracies don't have unchecked power. Unelected regulators and administrators answer to the legislative branch, which enacts the laws that they administer.
And they answer to the courts for how they interpret and apply those laws.
It follows that average people who believe they have been wronged by a government agency can go to court to challenge the rules or enforcement actions that they consider illegal.
These are clear, basic guarantees. But sometimes it takes effort and persistence to make sure they're not ignored.
Case in point: In a legal saga that recently reached a climax, a family business in Humboldt County had to fight for more than a decade to ensure that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency isn't beyond judicial review.
The business is Barnum Timber Co., a small timber growing and harvesting operation. Several weeks ago, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave the Barnum family a victory they'd been seeking for years: the right to challenge EPA regulations that threaten to turn their business into sawdust.
The 9th Circuit's ruling in Barnum Timber v. EPA reverberates far beyond Humboldt County and the Barnum family's situation. It will allow other property owners and businesses to fight back in court when regulations hurt them in the pocketbook, even if they aren't the regulators' direct targets.
Barnum Timber's survival has been in jeopardy since the 1990s, when the EPA designated a local stream — Redwood Creek — as "impaired." The agency claimed there was too much dirt in it and temperatures were too high for a healthy salmon population.
This decree effectively shut down the Barnums' business, because it triggered restrictive state land-use rules in the area around the creek.
From the beginning, the Barnums wanted to challenge the government in court. They compiled thousands of pages of information contradicting the EPA's findings about the creek's condition.
They pointed out that current salmon numbers are consistent with historic levels. And they argued that the EPA's sediment measurements were questionable or even meaningless. For instance, the agency had used far-away regions as a standard for comparison, or past conditions at Redwood Creek that weren't typical because they were measured after floods.
However, for years the Barnums found the doors of the courts closed to them. A state court tossed out their lawsuit against California regulators, on the grounds that the Barnums needed to file in federal court, against the EPA. Then, a federal district court ruled that Barnum Timber didn't have "standing" because it couldn't show a legal "injury" from the EPA's findings about Redwood Creek.
But now, a 9th Circuit panel has reversed that ruling, in an important victory for property rights and the rule of law. In a 2-1 decision, the panel held that if a regulation shrinks a property's value, the owner has standing to challenge the regulation's validity in court.
This principle applies, according to the court, even if the regulation targets adjacent land — such as Redwood Creek, which is near, but not on, Barnum Timber's property.
The court based its analysis on "a commonsense assessment of the market for real property — in general, regulatory restrictions on one property that affect the uses to which a second property can be put will lower the second property's value."
So, the Barnums will now be able to return to the federal district court to argue their claim that the EPA's assessment of Redwood Creek is soggy at best.
Moreover, in the nine-state region covered by the 9th Circuit, the Barnum ruling affirms that agencies such as the EPA aren't a law unto themselves.
When regulations create financial harm for people, including property owners and businesses, the victims have a right to their day in court. In the Barnum case, the 9th Circuit has performed a service by affirming that principle.
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