A three-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned a lower court’s decision that would have required the Environmental Protection Agency to conduct new safety assessments on fluoride levels in drinking water. The appellate court determined that Senior U.S. District Judge Edward Chen exceeded his judicial authority when he delayed his ruling to await results from an additional study that neither party had included in their case.
The lawsuit originated in 2017 when Food & Water Watch, along with other organizations including Moms Against Fluoridation and several individuals, challenged the EPA’s rejection of their petition to examine whether fluoride in drinking water poses health risks. The plaintiffs argued that the current concentration of 0.7 milligrams per liter in artificially fluoridated drinking water presents an unreasonable risk to human health.
Judge Chen had initially sided with the plaintiffs, ordering the EPA to use the Toxic Substances Control Act guidelines to assess the safety of fluoridated drinking water. In his 80-page ruling, Chen acknowledged that while his finding did not definitively conclude that fluoridated water injures public health, there existed sufficient risk to warrant regulatory action from the EPA.
The appeals panel, however, found that Chen violated the party presentation principle, a fundamental legal doctrine establishing that litigants, not judges, control the framing of disputes and development of evidence. The unsigned opinion stated that the district court abused its discretion by refusing to rule based on the original trial record and by holding the case in abeyance to await completion of an additional study.
During oral arguments in March, Deputy U.S. Attorney General Robert Stander argued that Chen’s approach would render the petition process meaningless. He contended that it would create a situation where plaintiffs could present one set of studies to the EPA and then introduce entirely different studies in district court, undermining the requirement that petitions establish facts necessitating regulation.
The plaintiffs’ attorney, Michael Connett, criticized the appellate panel’s decision, describing it as an unprecedented application of the party presentation principle. He argued that the ruling would force the lower court to make its decision based on what he characterized as stale factual records from August 2020, preventing experts from relying on groundbreaking new studies relevant to the case.
The appeals court has now sent the case back to Judge Chen with specific instructions to rule based solely on evidence presented during the first bench trial. This directive prevents the inclusion of any additional evidence that the judge had independently decided to consider for a second bench trial.
The panel consisted of Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Sidney Thomas and U.S. Circuit Judge Ronald Gould, both appointed by President Bill Clinton, and Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Morris from the U.S. District Court of Montana, an Obama appointee who sat on the panel by designation.
The decision represents a significant procedural victory for the EPA, though it does not address the underlying scientific questions about fluoride safety. The case will now return to the district court, where Judge Chen must issue a new ruling based exclusively on the original trial record, without consideration of any subsequent studies or evidence not presented by the parties during the initial proceedings.
Leave a Reply