Allen: The District Court decision

In 1980, EPA was conducting a hearing in Washington, DC under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) concerning the possible cancellation of the registration of the herbicides 2,4,5-T and silvex. Dow prevailed upon the US EPA Administrative Law Judge to issue subpoenas duces tecum on February 1, 1980, over the objection of the Office of General Counsel of the EPA, to Dr. James R. Allen and to John Van Miller, a graduate student PhD candidate ordering that they appear before attorneys for the Dow Chemical Company on February 14, 1980, and produce all of the raw data from a lengthy feeding study of TCDD (dioxin) to rhesus monkeys that were still incomplete and not ready for publication in peer reviewed Journals. Allen and Van Miller declined to honor the subpoena ands Dow and the United States EPA sought to enforce the subpoena in the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin in Madison before the Hon. Barbara B. Crabb. Because the integrity of the study was critical to the issue of causality in the Agent Orange case, Yannacone intervened on behalf of the Vietnam combat veterans, while Dow intervened on behalf of the EPA Administrative Law Judge.Judge Crabb’s opinion follows.
United States v. Allen, 494 F.Supp. 107 (W.D. Wis., 1980, Crabb, USDJ)