Shihan and the Order of the Phoenix

With an apology to J.K. Rowling, I note with some awe that Shihan Qu and Zen Magnets has once again bested the dementors at the CPSC to live another day. Yesterday, the United States District Court for the District of Colorado reversed and remanded the Commission’s Final Decision and Order (FDO) ordering Zen to stop sale of its small rare earth magnets (SREMs).

To review, the CPSC brought an administrative complaint against Zen in 2012 to force a mandatory recall of its SREMs product.  In tandem with this administrative action, in 2014, the Commission finalized a rule banning the future sale of SREMs.  Zen challenged the rule and in 2016, the Tenth Circuit vacated and remanded the rule, finding that the evidence the Commission relied on did not support the rule.

Also in 2016, the Administrative Law Judge in the Zen administrative complaint found that the agency had not proved that the magnets were a hazard when accompanied with proper warnings and allowed Zen to continue sale. The agency lawyers appealed this decision to the Commissioners.  Given the public statements three of the Commissioners had made about the merits of the case, it was no surprise that the Commission overturned the ALJ’s decision and issued the FDO to force Zen to stop sale of its SREMs. Zen appealed this decision, and the court has now ruled in Zen’s favor.

The court’s decision was a curious one.   First, the court considered the substantive rationale offered by the Commission in its FDO and concluded that the agency did not act in an arbitrary and capricious manner—the standard for overturning the agency’s decision.  After an analysis of the Commission’s reasoning, the court found, among other things, that “[T]hough a court might come to a different conclusion if it were in the Commission’s role, that does not render the Commission’s finding arbitrary and capricious.”

However, the court then went on to consider whether the due process afforded Zen met constitutional standards. Here the court found that the Commission fell short, stating that “Zen’s due process rights were violated because Zen was deprived a fair and impartial tribunal” in its appeal from the ALJ’s decision.  Specifically, the court found that the public statements of certain Commissioners prior to the FDO decision demonstrated such a closed mind by decision makers that it was clear that Zen was not provided an impartial tribunal.  The court then, strangely, concludes that while the Commission’s decision was not arbitrary and capricious, it was nevertheless unconstitutionaly tainted by the obvious prejudgment of certain Commissioners. The result is that Zen wins and the CPSC loses.

I will leave to others to debate the nuances of the court’s decision. What bothers me greatly are the safety implications of the CPSC’s actions here.  Zen has made clear from the get-go that it does not oppose reasonable safety regulations of its product.  Indeed, it has petitioned the CPSC to issue a regulation with rigorous requirements for packaging and labeling.  Instead, the agency has petulantly insisted that it will accept nothing less than the complete capitulation of the company to the agency’s demands that it cease sale of its only product.  This insistence has led to repeated “slap-downs” by those judicial bodies that have looked at the issue.

From a safety standpoint, the CPSC’s ineffectual regulatory and litigation strategy has resulted in opening the marketplace to companies who, unlike Zen, have no interest in promoting safe use of SREMs.  Because the agency’s position on both the regulation and the recall of the Zen product have been overruled, the market is now wide open, with no requirements for safety precautions applicable to the product in place.   This result is on the agency.  If any injuries involving this product occur in the future, the agency must look internally for the cause.  Their incoherent policies, in large part, bear the blame.

In 2012, Zen was viewed by most as a small company making a principled but quixotic stand against the overreach of the federal government. Like a phoenix, Zen has prevailed against overwhelming odds.  But, beyond the story of a small company prevailing against the federal government, is the concern that, in this case, the federal government is not effectively protecting the safety of consumers.  Because of the CPSC’s actions, the marketplace is less safe. That is on the agency and they need to answer for this result.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fighting the Magnet Wars

 

This morning I watched the oral arguments before the CPSC in the staff appeal of the ALJ’s decision in the Zen Magnets case.  I felt as if I was watching World War One trench warfare in modern dress.  And like trench warfare where the combatants refuse to give an inch, insisting on holding their positions, what we saw this morning was both wasteful and futile, made worse by a predetermined outcome.

To recap, this morning’s exercise was the latest in the long running battle between the CPSC and Zen Magnets which sells small rare earth magnets (“SREMs”).  The agency argues that the magnets are defective because small children can ingest them with resulting severe injuries.  In addition, the agency argues that the magnets are “toys” and violate the toy safety standard which prescribes how powerful magnets used in toys can be.  The agency brought an administrative action to recall the magnets but the administrative law judge who heard the case did not buy the CPSC’s arguments. Instead, he found that the magnets were not defective when accompanied with proper warnings and age restrictions and that the toy standard does not apply to such magnets. The agency staff does not accept this determination and instead appealed it to the Commission—the same body that voted to bring the administrative action in the first place.  I have not found even one person who believes that a majority of the Commissioners will not vote to overturn the ALJ’s decision and order a recall.  At that point, the order will be final agency action and ripe for judicial review.

The ALJ’s decision is not the only skirmish on this subject that the agency has lost.  At the end of last year, the Tenth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals overturned a federal safety standard issued by the Commission which effectively banned the sale of SREMs by restricting the permissible strength and size of the magnets. The court found that the agency failed to properly address the degree of the risk posed by the product and also the utility of the product.  As a result of these shortcomings, the court overturned the rule. A majority of the Commissioners have now voted to re-propose the rule to correct the deficiencies identified by the court—in other words, beef up the record but still ban the product.

Today’s hearing covered a lot of ground.  For example, even though the agency put incident data into the administrative record, the staff sidestepped shortcomings found in the data (since the incidents could not be attributed to Zen), indicating that no injuries or incidents are needed to support a defect finding.  There was a great deal of discussion about the role of consumer misuse, and the adequacy of warnings and labels.  The Commission asked about the applicability of the toy standard to a general use product

While this all may be interesting to students of martial arts or administrative law, what should be of concern is that consumer safety has gotten lost in these protracted battles—and this must be laid at the doorstep of the agency.  Putting Zen Magnets out of business—which seems to be the objective of the exercise—will not stop SREMs from getting into the hands of consumers.  By shutting down the remaining U.S. company that has aggressive warnings and marketing practices that minimize children’s exposure to the product, the agency leaves the field open to the many other companies, based outside the U.S., that are now selling the product without warnings—and without any interference from the CPSC.

If the agency had spent the resources that it has devoted to this case to looking at what is now going on in the market, rather than seeking to stop the leading proponent of safe and responsible magnet use and who is seeking to bring better safety awareness to the industry, it would be fulfilling its safety mission.  If the agency had accepted the many offers that have been made to educate the public on magnet safety, it would be fulfilling its safety mission.  Instead, it just feels like the agency is fighting a grudge match—what a waste!

The futility of the agency’s position is also maddening.  The magnet recalls that have been done resulted in a dismal return rate.  In other words, the public likes the product—not just because it is very cool but also because it has high utility as an educational, creative and artistic product. While the agency discounts these uses, the public does not.  What the agency has not done and refuses to do is consider whether there are any ways to reconfigure the packaging, beef up the warnings, put in place marketing restrictions, and engage in education efforts so that the public can have access to the product with safety considerations part of the equation. It has done this with other products that present much greater risks to children—button batteries, for example. However, this would require the agency to get out of the trenches and this it refuses to do.  So the magnet wars continue into the future and real consumer safety is the main casualty.

 

 

 

 

Closing the Books on 2016

This is a time for reflection.  Looking back on the past year, it really was not a great
one for the CPSC. And, sadly, many of the agency’s problems were of its own making. While many of the initiatives that are either ongoing or started in 2016 will continue into 2017, others will be consigned to the dustbin of bad ideas.  And most importantly, 2017 will bring new leadership and with it fresh ideas and perspectives to address the important and complex issues with which the agency must struggle as it works to fulfill its mission to protect consumers from unreasonable risks.
From my perspective, as a past regulator and now as a practitioner trying to help those in the regulated community who sincerely want to stay on the right side of the compliance line but who find that line often moves or disappears altogether, here are some areas where the agency fell down and one hopes could do better next year.

• A penalty policy that hardly qualifies as any kind of rational “policy” at all. The agency rewrote the regulation dealing with the factors to be considered when applying penalties back in 2009 to give more transparency to the process. Instead, the process has become anything but transparent. Agency enforcement staff has made clear that it has little interest in negotiations over penalty amounts, which is where the application of the penalty factors would come in.  Current agency leadership has stated that its penalty policy is “more is better.” In trying to appear as a tough cop, the agency instead comes across as a bully.  While that result may be an effective scare tactic, it serves to drive away companies who might otherwise seek out the agency when potential problems arise and does not help to advance collaborative problem solving which the agency needs to advance its mission.  Much has been written about the agency’s shortcomings in this area and let’s hope that 2017 brings about needed change here.
• An “ends justifies means” mentality that allows for skirting regulatory fairness and due process. Or put another way, government always knows best. What better illustration of this attitude than the agency’s attempts to regulate small rare earth magnets (SREM’s). Even though the industry leaders proposed a collaborative effort to regulate warnings and packaging of the product back in 2011, the agency rejected that offer and instead, through recalls and regulation, acted to ban the product.  The last hold-out, a tiny U.S. company in Colorado—Zen Magnets–has consistently been prevailing in court against the full force of the U.S. Government.  In the meantime, Chinese imports of SREM’s are being sold without any effort by the CPSC to crack down.  I guess that the CPSC thinks that only magnets sold by U.S. companies are dangerous. Certainly magnets present a hazard if swallowed.  However, they can be used safely in many different art, science, educational and recreational applications.  Perhaps in 2017, the agency could consider how to step back from a ban to a regulation that allows the product into the market while providing the kind of warnings and child-proof packaging that alerts parents to the hazards the product presents if swallowed by small children.
• Will the agency consider applying modern regulatory concepts to rule writing to assure they are effective? In a recent statement, Commissioner Mohorovic is critical of the agency’s purported effort review its standard dealing with mattress flammability.  This review is required by the Regulatory Flexibility Act which mandates review of significant rules every 10 years and the mattress rule falls into that definition.  Even though the staff found that the rule was not as effective in protecting the public as the agency had predicted when it was issued 10 years ago, it did not recommend changes.  This is just one example of the agency’s reluctance to go back to see if what it is doing is really working to protect consumers.  Commissioner Mohorovic’s suggestion that a retrospective review plan be built into rules as they are being developed is a good one and would help assure that the rules the agency writes actually provide the protection the agency says they will.  To date, agency leadership has only given lip-service to the suggestion but has done nothing real to effectuate such a plan.  Perhaps in 2017, this will change.
• Will 2017 bring some closure to the never-ending dithering on upholstered furniture flammability regulation? For a while in 2016, it looked like Commissioner Buerkle had found a path forward for addressing upholstered furniture smoldering hazard, but that was not to be. Instead, a majority of the commissioners decided that virtually every flammability hazard needed to be regulated so are now looking at how to address the hazard of large open flame fires  where upholstered furniture is not necessarily the first ignition source but could possibly be the second or even the third source of ignition.  To do this, commercial grade materials, expensive barriers and flame retardants will necessarily be part of the equation. In the meantime, pending before the agency is a petition to ban flame retardants.  Boy, what a mess! A consumer rebellion may be on the way!
• We started the year with flaming hover boards and ended it with flaming cell phones—both caused by lithium ion batteries. Rather than looking at the application first, would it not be better to start by looking at the batteries? The agency seems to be going about this from the wrong direction.
• A continual point of concern for agency stakeholders is a communications and press office that makes policy rather than communicates it. In the meantime, complaints are common about press releases that contain inaccuracies or are held up for trivial reasons, thereby delaying recalls. This result directly impacts consumer safety, cannot be defended, and yet is occurring.  Again, room for improvement in 2017.

I could go on and on but 2017 is just around the corner.  Change will not happen immediately but is inevitable.  Working together and in a spirit of support for the agency, 2017 can be a great year for the CPSC. What a happy thought to take us all through the holidays and into next year!

 

Court to CPSC: Your Magnet Rule’s a Turkey

Zen Magnets, the tiny Colorado company that has challenged the CPSC’s actions regulating small, powerful magnets, will be having a very good Thanksgiving this year.  That is because, once again, Zen has shown that it is possible to fight the federal government and win.  Today the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled that the CPSC’s safety standard banning the magnets sold by Zen did not withstand judicial scrutiny.  The court told the agency that if it wanted to regulate magnets it needed to follow the requirements of the Consumer Product Safety Act, and that it should go back to the drawing board and rethink its justifications for the rule.

The CPSA requires that the agency do a cost-benefit analysis and make findings that identify the nature and degree of the risk of injury weighted against the public’s need for the product and then regulate in the least burdensome manner possible.  The Court found that the agency’s analysis was deficient.  The court found that the agency overstated the number on injuries and neglected to consider the public utility of many of the uses of the product.  In other words, the statutory requirement to weight the costs and benefits of a proposed action is a critical part of regulating.  My experience in the last several years of my term as a CPSC Commissioner was that this statutory requirement was seen as an annoyance rather than as a tool for informed decision-making.  Perhaps the Tenth Circuit’s decision will change the agency’s approach to using this statutory tool.

The agency’s approach to regulating magnets has been characterized by an “ends justifies means” mind-set.  The agency worked to cut off the ability to sell the magnets through retail channels by “asking” retailers to stop selling the product.  The agency sought to recall the product, knowing that consumers would not respond to the recall but also knowing that this device could stop further sales.  The agency sued those few distributors who had the fortitude to challenge the agency’s action.  The one company that has stayed the course is Zen, and its success rate has been quite remarkable.  The administrative law judge that heard the recall action ruled in Zen’s favor.  Now an appellate court has found that the rule the agency issued to ban future sales of the product is defective because it blew by statutory requirements that provide for balanced decision-making.

Zen is like a little Yorkie terrier that has grabbed ahold of the ankle of the CPSC and will not let go.  Yet, through its determination to challenge what it believes is over-reach by the federal government, it has forced the agency to reexamine its approach to a serious issue.  It may be that, through Zen’s actions, the CPSC will come to understand that it can protect consumer safety without disregarding basic notions of due process.  What a good Thanksgiving that would be.

Shihan vs Goliath, Addendum

It is nice to know that folks out there read what I write.  When I started this blog I really wanted to have a conversation with people who are impacted by the actions of the CPSC, both positively and otherwise.  In response to my last blog post, I got a response from Shihan Qu, among others, and I thought I would share his comments.

Shihan takes issue with my notion that the magnets rule applies only to magnet sets that are intended to be used as adult desk toys and manipulatives.  He reminds me that the final rule blew a hole through this interpretation when the Commission added the phrase “commonly used” to the definition of magnet set.  The definition states “magnets sets are aggregations of separable magnetic objects that are marketed or commonly used as a manipulative or construction item.”  By expanding the definition this way, all powerful small magnet spheres may well end up within this definition since it is the end user, not the manufacturer, who determines whether the product is regulated or not.  One problem is that US based industrial magnet companies who never considered themselves within the definition may well be in for a nasty surprise if their products fall into the hands of the wrong user.

In response to my observation that magnets are easily available for sale online, Shihan responds, “Indeed you can still purchase magnet spheres easily by searching “neocube” or “buckyball” online. The rest of the companies are based in China, and are not easily targeted by the CPSC like we are. As long as there is demand, there will continue to be suppliers who will provide them. What can the CPSC do about them, if anything?”

Finally, I again emphasize that, in its latest action, the CPSC has targeted Mr. Qu personally, as it did when it went after Craig Zucker, in his individual capacity, in the Buckyballs matter.  It seems that the agency is really prickly when it comes to young entrepreneurs who still think that they can challenge the government.  Oh, when will they grow up?!

However, for those who are not willing to accept the notion that the government is always right, this is a troubling development.  And for CPSC attorneys who represent small companies, best let your clients know that, apparently if you want to fight the CPSC, be prepared to put your entire bank account on the line.

Shihan vs Goliath

As the saga of the magnets ban continues to unfold, last week another chapter was added when the CPSC brought yet another action against Zen Magnets, the one company that has refused the CPSC’s demand to do a recall.  But this time the agency sued not only the company but also its young founder, Shihan Qu, in his personal capacity.  The CPSC alleges that Zen purchased, and then illegally resold, the inventory of a competitor, Magnicube, that was negotiating a recall with the CPSC.

The law is pretty clear—it prohibits the sale of a product which a manufacturer (including an importer) has recalled.  However, Mr. Qu argues forcefully in the attached newsletter that the products were totally fungible, one magnet being indistinguishable from another, and it was still legal for him to sell magnets identical to those sold by his competitor.  Mr. Qu argues that Magnicube could have sent its remaining inventory back to the factory in China to be comingled with other identical magnets and then shipped to Zen–a more complex transaction but achieving the same result.

In raising this latest action by the federal government against tiny Zen Magnets, it is not my purpose to argue the merits of the case being brought.  Instead, I raise it because, to me, it poses questions of proportionality and discretion. I have repeatedly expressed my concerns about the agency’s troubling willingness to disregard fair process in an “ends justifies means” mindset, at least with respect to this product.   This latest action seems to smack of a vendetta against the one company that did not give in to the agency’s demands, especially since the issue of whether Zen’s magnets should be recalled is well into the latter stages of litigation and, presumably, will be resolved soon.

The government is no doubt arguing that its latest action is needed to keep products it sincerely believes are unsafe out of the hands of consumers.  However, as noted above, the exact same magnets were easily available to Zen from China at the time so the agency’s action would not accomplish this purpose.   Further, with a ban on prospective sales of these products now going into effect (unless it is overturned by judicial review at some point down the road), consumers seem to be protected.

Recalls—the remedy the agency was originally ostensibly seeking from Zen—have been totally ineffectual in getting this product out of consumers’ hands. (It seems consumers like the product and do not want to hand it over, even for money.)  And remember, in spite of the CPSC’s rule banning magnet sets sold as adult desk toys, it is possible to go online to buy sets of magnets, like those at issue here.  I did so this morning.  As long as they are not advertised as having entertainment value, they can be sold.

I wonder whether this latest action, rather than making the government appear strong, makes it appear vindictive and petty, given the force the federal government can bring against a tiny company that dares to challenge it.  I wonder whether the government could not have advanced whatever safety purpose it had in a less Goliath-like way. I am curious what you think.