United States Ninth Circuit

No judicial deference to agency discretion as to methodology is appropriate when the agency ignores its own statistical methodology in its studies. In a case involving the practice of catching yellowfin tuna by encircling dolphins with purse-seine nets and whether tuna sellers may label tuna as dolphin-safe if caught with such nets, summary judgment for environmental groups in their challenge to a decision finding that a tuna fishery was not having an adverse impact on the dolphin population is affirmed where: 1) the agency's decision was arbitrary and capricious because it did not conduct the required studies for scientific population inferences; 2) the district court correctly held that the no adverse impact determination ran so counter to the best available evidence that its finding was implausible; and 3) agency's Final Finding was somewhat influenced by political rather than scientific concerns.

Appellate Information

• Argued 11/16/2006
• Decided 04/27/2007
• Published 04/27/2007

Judges

• SCHROEDER, Chief Circuit Judge., Before MARY M. SCHROEDER, Chief Circuit Judge, JEROME FARRIS and JOHNNIE B. RAWLINSON, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Laura Klaus, Greenberg Traurig, LLP, Washington, DC, for the amici curiae., Lara M. Krieger, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP, for Amicus Curiae Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission.


• For Appellees:
  
• Ryan D. Nelson, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for the defendants-appellants., Richard Mooney, Holme Roberts & Owen, LLP, San Francisco, CA, for the plaintiffs-appellees.