Federal mining tribunal undermines fairness and rule of law

Building a future for a struggling local economy is a family affair for Army veteran Russell Tidaback and his daughter Jordan. In June 2021, they bought American Tripoli, a 150-year-old mining company in the small town of Seneca, Missouri, whose operations straddle the Oklahoma state line.

The open-pit mine has produced silicon dioxide, or “tripoli,” since 1869, for use in everyday products like glass and toothpaste, and as an anti-caking agent in common powdered foods like spices.

The father-daughter team went to work, hoping to rejuvenate the mine and the community. But their aspirations hit a major roadblock when their business—and their rights—became entangled in a labor dispute with a miner they had let go.

The Mine Act prohibits mine owners from retaliating against miners for talking to mine inspectors.

According to the fired miner, he was let go because he spoke to a mine inspector. According to American Tripoli, he was let go because his output fell below standards.

This kind of disagreement over facts is exactly the kind of dispute juries are supposed to settle. The Constitution guarantees the right to a civil jury trial in the Seventh Amendment. The facts of the case may be in dispute, but no reasonable person should favor denying Russell his right to a jury trial.

However, instead of a regular courtroom with a real judge and jury, the MSHA brought the case and the proceedings that followed to an agency tribunal.

Without the protections guaranteed in federal courts, Russell argued his case to an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ)—an employee of the executive branch, not an independent Article III federal judge. The judge ruled against American Tripoli and ordered it to pay more than $40,000 in penalties. The company appealed the ALJ’s ruling to the agency itself, which upheld the ruling.

But the agency proceeding is unconstitutional on several fronts. Because the government wants to impose financial penalties on a private citizen, the Constitution guarantees Russell’s right to a fair trial before an impartial judge and jury. The administrative hearing, with court-like procedures concocted by executive agencies, conducted by an administrative “judge” who is not in an actual court’s chain of command, and with no jury blatantly violates this right. The Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed these protections, and labor disputes are no exception.

However court-like their procedures might look, agency tribunals are not courts. They are executive agencies within the president’s chain of command. And as executive agencies, they cannot be independent from the head of that agency—the president. Therein lies the constitutional problem. Due process of law means that actual judges, with juries where appropriate, decide matters of guilt and penalties—not some bureaucrat.

With their due process rights on the line, Russell, Jordan, and American Tripoli are fighting back. Represented by Pacific Legal Foundation free of charge as part of our efforts to end agency adjudication, they filed a federal appeal of the agency’s ruling, its authority to decide cases within its own walls, and its unconstitutionally unaccountable structure.