First Circuit Upholds Rhode Island Lobster Regulation

Medeiros v. Vincent, 2005 U.S. App. LEXIS 27093 (1st Cir. Dec. 12, 2005).

Stephanie Showalter

Fisheries lawsuits move through the First Circuit like clockwork. Most recently, the court was called on to examine the constitutionality of a Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) regulation restricting the number of lobsters harvested by methods other than lobster traps.

Background
The fifteen Atlantic States and the District of Columbia jointly manage the fish stocks within state waters (three miles from shore) through the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (Commission). The Commission develops interstate fishery management plans (IFMP) for the various East Coast fisheries. The Atlantic Coastal Act authorized the Commission to require member states to adopt and comply with IFMP terms the Commission deems are “necessary.”1 If a state refuses to comply with a necessary term, the Secretary of Commerce may impose a fishing moratorium in the offending state’s coastal waters.

In December 1997, the Commission promulgated a number of “necessary” measures for the Atlantic lobster fishery. Almost all lobsters caught along the Atlantic coast are harvested by lobster traps. A very small percentage are harvested by netting or trawling. Amendment 3 reduced the number of lobster traps a vessel could carry and, in an attempt to allow more juvenile lobsters to escape the traps, reduced the trap capacity and the size of trap vents. For the other gear sectors, Amendment 3 limited the daily harvest to 100 lobsters, 500 for vessels at sea for five or more days.

The Rhode Island Marine Fisheries Council (RIMFC) issued Regulation 15.18 implementing these provisions soon thereafter. Not all state officials were supportive of Amendment 3, however, and in June 2000, the RIMFC repealed Regulation 15.18. The Commission quickly notified the Secretary of Commerce that Rhode Island was no longer in compliance with the necessary terms of Amendment 3. Rhode Island avoided a lobstering moratorium only by reinstating Regulation 15.18.

While all this was going on, Stephen Medeiros was indicted in June 1999 for violating Regulation 15.18 after he landed 131 lobsters harvested with trawl gear. Although the charges were ultimately dismissed, Medeiros, most likely due to the recission of the regulation, filed suit in state court against the Commission and the DEM alleging that Amendment 3 and Regulation 15.18 are unconstitutional. The case was removed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the governmental agencies. The First Circuit affirmed the district court’s rulings.

Equal Protection
Medeiros first argued that Amendment 3 and Regulation 15.18 violate the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Unless a statute or regulation employs a suspect classification, such as race or gender, or impairs a fundamental right, it need only bear a rational relationship to a legitimate government purpose. Medeiros conceded that non-trap lobstermen are not a suspect class. He argued instead that Amendment 3 and the state regulation infringed on his fundamental right to pursue the livelihood of his choosing. As there is no fundamental right “to make a living,” the court dismissed Medeiros’s argument and subjected the provisions in question to a rational relationship review.

The Commission and Rhode Island defended their differing treatments of trap and non-trap lobstering based on the gear’s impacts on lobsters. To ensure adequate egg production, regulators focus on protecting “soft shedders,” newly molted lobsters. Soft shedders are generally not caught in lobster traps because they can escape through the trap vents. This is not true of trawl and net gear. Trawl gear can cause extensive shell damage if lobsters are unfortunate enough to be run over while on the bottom and nets provide no escape routes. Furthermore, lobsters are not the target species of trawlers
.
Trawlers are fishing for finfish and the lobsters are caught as unintentional bycatch.

The First Circuit found that, in light of these differences, it was reasonable for the regulators to enact different limits for the different gear sectors. For example, increasing the mesh size of nets as with the vent sizes would diminish the ability of trawlers to catch finfish. The 100/500 limit reasonably accounted for the historic incidental catch. The low limit on lobster harvesting by trawlers may also provide some conservation benefit in the future, the court found. The limit is “a prophylactic measure to prevent any future redirection of efforts from trap lobstering and finfishing into non-trap lobstering methods.”2 There was sufficient evidence that Amendment 3 and Regulation 15.18 were rationally related to the legitimate government purpose of lobster conservation.

Tenth Amendment
Medeiros also argued that the Atlantic Coastal Act, specifically the moratorium provision, is an impermissible “commandeering” of the states’ legislative prerogatives by the federal government.3 Basically, Medeiros claims that the mere threat of a moratorium caused Rhode Island to adopt the provisions of Amendment 3 against its will. The defendants countered by challenging Medeiros’s standing to raise this issue.

The Tenth Amendment states that “the powers not dedicated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that private citizens lack standing to maintain Tenth Amendment claims.4 The Tenth Amendment protects states, not individual citizens, against power grabs by the federal government. Only a state, therefore, may raise a “commandeering” claim.

Conclusion
The First Circuit upheld the rulings of the District Court affirming the constitutionality of Amendment 3 and Rhode Island Regulation 15.18. The 100/500 limit remains in effect.

Endnotes
1. See 16 U.S.C. § 5101(a).
2. Medeiros v. Vincent, 2005 U.S. App. LEXIS 27093 at *15 (1st Cir. Dec. 12, 2005).
3. Id. at *19.
4. See Tenn. Elec. Power Co. v. Tenn. Valley Auth., 306 U.S. 118, 144 (1939).