Administrative Law

Flashcards covering key concepts, cases, and rules from the Administrative Law lecture.

What limitations does Administrative Law impose on agencies?

Limitations on powers and actions, creating a framework for agency operation.

What are the powers of agencies granted through Enabling Acts?

Promulgate Rules, Adjudicate contested cases, and other agency actions.

What is the general analysis for agency action and adjudication?

1. What is the agency doing?

2. Did they meet the procedural minimums laid out by the APA?

3. What power does the enabling statute delegate?

4. What do the rules and regulations of the agency say?

What are the 6 ways to overturn an agency decision? (5 USC § 706)

1. Prove a decision was arbitrary and capricious

2. Prove a decision is contrary to a constitutional right/ privilege/ immunity

3. Prove a decision was made outside of the agency’s jurisdiction

4. Prove the agency did not follow the proper procedures in making the decision

5. Prove the decision was not supported by substantial evidence in the record

6. Prove the decision was unwarranted by the facts presented (to the extent that the facts are subject to de novo review)

List 4 requirements for a due process hearing when a person is deprived of a property/liberty interest by an agency.

1. Notice

2. Opportunity to be heard

3. Right to cross-examine adverse witnesses

4. Opportunity to present evidence.

What is the Matthews Test

1. What is the private interest being affected?

   1. Identify the interest (property or liberty)

2. What is the risk of error in the agencies current procedures?

   1. Can the government get it right without a hearing

3. What is the burden on the government

   1. Weigh financial and administrative burden on the agency against individual’s interests

List the interests that constitute a Property Interest.

1. Occupational/professional license granted by admin agency

2. Social welfare benefits (social security, unemployment, worker’s comp, disability)

3. Government employment (teachers and civil servise)

4. Business permits and liquor licenses

List the interests that constitute a Liberty Interest

1. Freedom to engage in occupation of choice

2. Freedom from physical restraint

3. Freedom to practice religion of choice

Name a case where the court ruled pre-termination hearings are required in welfare termination cases.

Goldberg v. Kelley

The court ruled that eliminating the need for a pre-termination hearing is acceptable when terminating disability benefits and the state looks solely to medical records.

Matthews v. Eldridge

The court determined that even enemy combatants have a constitutional right to counsel, cross-examine adverse witnesses, and to have their position heard by the factfinder.

Hamdi v. Rumsfeld

The court found that a pre-termination hearing is not required when there is no deprivation of a liberty or a property interest. (Teacher had a one-year contract). Due process only protects the liberty interest of re-employment when the state has done something to prevent the individual from seeking employment elsewhere

Board of Regents v. Roth

The court found that when there is tenure in a government job, a pre-termination hearing is required because the employee is entitled to their job.

Perry v. Sindermann

The court held that there is a property interest in civil service employment and the government must give employees pre-termination hearings.

Board of Ed. v. Loudermill

Benefits can be denied based on evidence heard at a hearing that would otherwise be inadmissible under the rules of evidence.

Richardson v. Perales

ALJs may rely on published guidelines when making decisions.

Heckler v. Campbell

A validly created rule can trump constitutional rights in the interest of protecting the public.

Airline Pilots Ass’n v. Quesada

ALJs must be independent from the agencies but the agencies can provide programs to help the ALJs to get through cases quicker

Nash v. Califano

Due process rights are not violated if a risk assessment tool is only one factor in sentencing, and sentencing is justified independently.

State v. Loomis

What are the 3 types of rules an agency can create?

Procedural, Interpretive, Legislative

What are the steps for informal rule-making process that an agency must take?

1. Publish a notice of the intended rule

2. Give public/industries, time to comment on the rule

3. Read and consider all the comments

4. Decide to adopt the rule based on the comments

5. Create a final order which gives an opinion on why the rule was adopted and the rationale for rejecting comments against it

6. Notice is published in the Federal Register.

What are the 3 findings that will overturn agency action/rule?

1. Finding that the rule is arbitrary and capricious

2. Finding that the rule exceeds the statutory authority of the agency

3. Finding that the rule was adopted without following proper procedure

Agencies can create both procedural and substantive rules.

Nat’l Petroleum Refiners Ass’n v. FTC

A rule can only be struck down as arbitrary if there is no rational connection between the rule and its purpose.

Pacific States Box & Basket Co. v. White

Rules adopted by agencies must be practicable and meet the need for which they seek to address.

Nat’l Tire Dealers & Retreaders Ass’n v. Brinegar

The standard for overturning the revocation of a rule is the same standard as overturning the adoption of a rule, which is arbitrary and capricious.

Motor Vehicle Manu. Ass’n v. State Farm

An agency must provide fair notice of its regulatory interpretations to the regulated public before imposing a fine based on the alleged violation of the regulations.

G.E. Co. v. EPA

Guidelines issued by an administrative agency that are nothing more than general policy statements with no legal force are not subject to the requirements of notice-and-comment rulemaking.

Center for Auto Safety v. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

If an administrative agency’s purported general policy statement is applied by the agency in a way that indicates that it is a binding rule, the rule requires notice-and-comment rulemaking.

Texas v. United States

The APA generally does not require an agency to show that its new policy is preferable to the existing policy it replaces.

Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations, Inc.

If an agency withholds evidence of why they are proposing a rule, it deprives the public from commenting.

U.S. v. Nova Scotia Food Prods. Corp

An agency can take late comments or seek comments from experts as long as they are docketed to give the public the opportunity to rebut them.

Sierra Club v. Costle

When an agency fails, they can try again with a new rational basis, evidence, etc.

SEC v. Chenery Corp

An individual who is part of agency rulemaking can express opinions on the subject. They only need to recuse themselves from rulemaking if there is clear and convincing evidence that are they are unchangeably close minded

Nat’l Advertisers v. FTC

Consider the statutory authority to which the agency is acting pursuant to. If a statute is silent on the rule-making process informal rule-making is permissible but all the steps must be followed.

Automotive Parts & Accessories Ass’n v. Boyd

An agency does not have to follow more rule-making procedures than those required by § 553 of the APA unless Congress demands more or the agency itself chooses at its discretion to provide more

Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Co. v. Nat’l Resources Defense Council, Inc.

What are the steps to the rule making analysis?

1. What is the rule being challenged?

2. What agency adopted the rule and what does it require?

3. Why was the rule adopted?

4. Which statute was the adoption pursuant to?

5. Who is challenging the rule and why?

6. Under what act was the agency given the authority to enact the rule?

7. What grounds is the rule being challenged on?

8. Has Congress imposed any additional procedural restraints on the agency?

Name 6 ways agencies acquire information.

1. Reporting and record-keeping

2. Physical inspections

3. Tax returns

4. Subpoenas

5. Voluntary compliance

6. Information the agency created

Name all of the FOIA exceptions.

1. Classified documents related to national security/foreign policy

2. Internal rules/practices of the agency

3. Materials expressly prohibited from disclosure by statute

4. Trade secrets and commercial/financial information

5. Attorney work-product communication

6. Medical and personal files of agency employees

7. Law enforcement records/investigatory reports

8. Bank audits

9. Geological/geophysical information and data

Agencies’ enabling acts allow them to do their jobs and acquire information. Institutions and individuals must follow them, even if broad

University of Pennsylvania v. EEOC

Agencies are bound by the Constitution and must stay within its protections when seeking information (no violating the Fourth Amendment)

Marshall v. Barlow’s

Name the two exceptions that don’t allow an agency decision (to act or failure to act) to come under judicial review

1. Statutory preclusion

2. Decision is committed to the discretion of the agency

Informal agency action does not need to be accompanied by formal findings and conclusions but the agency must nonetheless give reasons for its actions. A decision is not discretionary if the agency had a specific law that it had to apply

Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe

Statute expressly gives agency discretion to the decision but petitioner’s claim was constitutional.

Constitutional claims always receive judicial review

Webster v. Doe (agency discretion)

Johnson v. Robinson (statutory preclusion)

When there is no law to apply to a situation, the decision of how to regulate is left up to agency discretion

Managerial agencies are presumed to carry out discretionary functions and these are not judicially reviewable.

So. Utah Wilderness

An administrative agency’s decision not to take enforcement action (when there is no law requiring them to take action) is presumed immune from judicial review.

Heckler v. Chaney

List the 4 elements of standing.

1. Plaintiff suffered a concrete, particularized injury (Injury in fact)

2. Injury is actual, immediate, direct or imminent (not speculative)

3. Injury must be caused by the defendant (traceability)

4. Likely a favorable decision will redress the injury (redressability)

States can be Plaintiffs and have standing as long as all elements of standing are met.

Mass. v. EPA

Judicial review is only available to final agency action.

Abbott Labs v. Gardner

In order to have standing, there must be final action from an agency.

Dalton

Plaintiff must suffer injury-in-fact and the injury must be within the zone of interest under the applicable statute.

Ass’n of Data Processing Service Organization, Inc. v. Camp (Data Processors)

Individuals can have standing, but so can organizations/associations as long as at least one member has suffered an injury-in-fact.

Sierra Club v. Morton

Redressability can’t be speculative – must be a causal connection between agency decision and injury suffered (traceability standard).

Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife

Zone of interest test

1. Interest protected by statute must be determined

2. Complainant’s interest must be what the statute was intended to protect

3. Do not look at the legislative history to determine the zone of interest, look only at the text of the law.

Nat’l Credit Union Admin v. First Nat’l Bank

In rare and important scenarios, an injury in fact may be laid out by statute

FEC v. Akins

Speculation that an injury may happen at some point does meet the standard of “direct, immediate, and concrete injury.

Toilet Goods v. Gardner

What are the steps for rulemaking analysis?

1. What is the rule being challenged?

2. What agency adopted the rule and what does it require?

3. Why was the rule adopted?

4. Which statute was the adoption pursuant to?

5. Who is challenging the rule and why?

6. Under what act was the agency given the authority to enact the rule?

7. What grounds is the rule being challenged on?

8. Has Congress imposed any additional procedural restraints on the agency?

Due Process Cases

1. Goldberg

2. Perry

3. Loudermill

4. Matthew

5. Roth

6. Perales

7. Nash

8. Campbell

9. Rumsfield

10. Airline Pilots

Proper Notice and Comment Cases

1. Costle

2. Chenery

3. G.E.

4. Nova Scotia

5. Nat’l Advertisers

6. Nat’l Petroleum

7. Boyd

8. White

9. Brinegar

10. Vermont Yankee

11. State Farm

12. Center for Auto Safety

13. Texas

FOIA cases

1. U Penn

2. Barlow’s

Judicial Review Cases

1. Volpe

2. Webster

3. So. Utah Wilderness

4. Fox Television

5. Robinson

6. Chaney

Standing Cases

1. Mass. v. EPA

2. First National Bank

3. Akins

4. Abbott Labs

5. Toilet Goods

6. Dalton

7. Data Processors

8. Sierra Club v. Morton

9. Lujan