Law Commons^™

Pepperdine University School Of Law; Legal Summaries, Nicole Banister

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

A Look Back: Developing Indiana Law; Post-Bench Reflections Of An Indiana Supreme Court Justice; Selected Developments In Indiana Administrative Law (1989-2012), Frank Sullivan Jr.

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Striving For Efficiency In Administrative Litigation: North Carolina's Office Of Administrative Hearings, Julian Mann Iii

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Engines Of Environmental Innovation: Reflections On The Role Of States In The U.S. Regulatory System, Alexandra Dapolito Dunn, Chandos Culleen

Pace Environmental Law Review

This article focuses on the role that states play in environmental regulation. Specifically, this article offers examples of the central part in the evolution of United States environmental regulation states played in the past, continue to play today, and will play in the future. First, this article explores the history of state environmental regulation, demonstrating that despite a lack of resources, states were actively engaged in environmental regulation before the advent of the modern era of federal environmental regulation in the 1970s. This article relates not only the regulatory efforts of states, but also the practical benefits of state regulation. …

From Fedspeak To Forward Guidance: Regulatory Dimensions Of Central Bank Communications, Robert B. Ahdieh

Faculty Scholarship

In the face of the financial crisis that engulfed the globe beginning in 2007, the U.S. Federal Reserve quickly found itself without the key lever of monetary policy on which it had traditionally relied: short-term interest rate adjustments designed to move long-term rates, and thereby expected levels of lending, investment, and capital retention. By late 2008, short-term rates were already close to zero, yet unemployment remained strikingly high – with no sign of any likely renewal of bank lending or commercial investment.

Famously, the Fed embraced so-called quantitative easing – the purchase of massive volumes of public and private debt …

Acus Statement # 19 (Issue Exhaustion), Jeffrey Lubbers

Jeffrey Lubbers

Benson V. State Engineer, 131 Nev. Adv. Op. 409 (Sep. 24, 2015), Cassandra Ramey

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court held that NRS § 533.395 requires a party seeking relief from the cancellation of a water permit to exhaust all available administrative remedies before seeking judicial review, even if the State Engineer is not authorized to provide the particular remedy that the party seeks. If the State Engineer is authorized by NRS § 533.395 to provide a party with a remedy, then the doctrine of futility does not apply to excuse the NRS § 533.394(4) exhaustion requirement. Therefore, the party must first show that the administrative process would afford him or her “no relief at all” before seeking …

Tate V. State, Bd. Of Med. Exam’Rs, 131 Nev. Adv. Op. 67 (Sep. 10, 2015), Nancy Snow

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court considers an appeal from a district court order denying an injunction challenging the constitutionality of a statute prohibiting stay of Board of Medical Examiners decision. The Court revered and remanded the district court’s order because the statute prohibiting district courts from entering a stay of a decision of the Board of Medical Examiners pending judicial review violates the separation of powers doctrine as a matter of first impression.

The Brazilian Clean Company Act: Using Institutional Multiplicity For Effective Punishment, Mariana Mota Prado, Lindsey Carson, Izabela Correa

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

In Brazil’s battle against corruption over the past two decades, there has been significant progress associated with the systems of oversight and investigation but very little progress in holding corrupt actors legally accountable for their transgressions. We suggest that until very recently this could be partially explained by the fact that there was institutional multiplicity (i.e., duplication of functions) in oversight and investigative institutions, while at the punishment stage, a single and underperforming institution—the judiciary—exercised monopolistic authority. To circumvent the limits associated with Brazilian courts, the government is increasingly relying on administrative sanctions for corruption. It is in this context …

Changing The Rules Of The Game: Beyond Disclosure Framework For Securities Regulation, Jena Martin

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Acus - And Administrative Law - Then And Now, Michael Herz

Articles

The Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) both shapes and reflects the intellectual, policy, and practical concerns of the field of administrative law. Its recommendations are therefore a useful lens through which to view that field. Also, because of an unfortunate hiatus, ACUS has gotten underway not once but twice. Those two beginnings provide a kind of natural experiment, and they make a revealing contrast. This article traces the transformations of American administrative law, as well as the field’s perpetual concerns, by comparing the initial recommendations of ACUS 1.0 (1968 to 1970) with the initial recommendations of ACUS 2.0 …

Underground Environmental Regulations: Regulations Imposed As Mitigation Measures Under Ceqa Violate The California Administrative Procedure Act, Jonathan Wood

Jonathan Wood

What happens when an agency adopts a regulation under the California Environmental Quality Act as mitigation for a program’s environmental impact, without complying with the procedural requirements of the California Administrative Procedure Act? According to a recent California Court of Appeal decision – Center for Biological Diversity v. Department of Fish and Wildlife – these mitigation measures, which this article refers to as underground environmental regulations, are invalid. This article defends that interpretation and addresses its consequences for agencies and the regulated public. Although these additional procedural protections benefit regulated parties in a variety of ways, they can also burden …

Take It To The Limit: The Illegal Regulation Prohibiting The Take Of Any Threatened Species Under The Endangered Species Act, Jonathan Wood

Jonathan Wood

The Endangered Species Act forbids the “take” – any activity that adversely affects – any member of an endangered species, but only endangered species. The statute also provides for the listing of threatened species, i.e. species that may become endangered, but protects them only by requiring agencies to consider the impacts of their projects on them. Shortly after the statute was adopted, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service reversed Congress’ policy choice by adopting a regulation that forbids the take of any threatened species. The regulation is not authorized by the Endangered Species Act, but …

Deference Lotteries, Jud Mathews

Jud Mathews

When should courts defer to agency interpretations of statutes, and what measure of deference should agencies receive? Administrative law recognizes two main deference doctrines — the generous Chevron standard and the stingier Skidmore standard — but Supreme Court case law has not offered a bright-line rule for when each standard applies.Many observers have concluded that courts’ deference practice is an unpredictable muddle. This Article argues that it is really a lottery, in the sense the term is used in expected utility theory. Agencies cannot predict which deference standard a court will apply or with what effect, but they have a …

Strategic Delegation, Discretion, And Deference: Explaining The Comparative Law Of Administrative Review, Jud Mathews, Nuno M. Garoupa

Jud Mathews

This paper offers a theory to explain cross-national variation in administrative law doctrines and practices. Administrative law regimes vary along three primary dimensions: the scope of delegation to agencies, agencies’ exercise of discretion, and judicial practices of deference to agencies. Working with a principal-agent framework, we show how cross-national differences in institutions’ capacities and the environments they face encourage the adoption of divergent strategies that lead to a variety of distinct, stable, equilibrium outcomes. We apply our model to explain patterns of administrative law in the United States, Germany, France, and Commonwealth jurisdictions.

Occupational Safety And Health Act, Industrial Union V. American Petroleum Institute, Patrick M. Vitone

Akron Law Review

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration [hereinafter cited as OSHA] was created pursuant to Title 29 of the United States Code, to define the terms of this battle. In Industrial Union v. American Petroleum Institute, the federal judiciary has taken a hand at making these terms somewhat more clear. It is the object of this casenote to analyze the impact of the Industrial Union decision on the regulatory processes of OSHA, a task which involves a synthesis of the plurality, concurring and dissenting opinions.

Judicial Review Of An Administrative Agency Rescission: Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association V. State Farm Mutal Automobile Insurance Company, Margot F. Reagan

Akron Law Review

This casenote will summarize the legislative and political history of Standard 208. The casenote will then analyze the Supreme Court's recent decision in Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association v. State Farm Mutual. It will conclude by considering the judicial review of administrative rulemaking and how the Court's decision will affect such review in the area of rescission of an agency action.

Purposivism In The Executive Branch: How Agencies Interpret Statutes, Kevin M. Stack

Northwestern University Law Review

After decades of debate, the lines of distinction between textualism and purposivism have been carefully drawn with respect to the judicial task of statutory interpretation. Far less attention has been devoted to the question of how executive branch officials approach statutory interpretation. While scholars have contrasted agencies’ interpretive practices from those of courts, they have not yet developed a theory of agency statutory interpretation.

This Article develops a purposivist theory of agency statutory interpretation on the ground that regulatory statutes oblige agencies to implement the statutes they administer in that manner. Regulatory statutes not only grant powers but also impose …

The Bayh–Dole Act & Public Rights In Federally Funded Inventions: Will The Agencies Ever Go Marching In?, Ryan Whalen

Northwestern University Law Review

For over thirty years, the Bayh–Dole Act has granted federal agencies the power to force the recipients of federal research funding to license the resulting inventions to third parties. Despite having this expansive power, no federal agency has ever seen fit to utilize it. This Note explores why Bayh–Dole march-in rights have never been used, and proposes reforms that would help ensure that, in the instances when they are most required, the public is able to access the inventions it bankrolled.

There have been five documented march-in petitions since the Bayh–Dole Act was passed into law. Each petition was dismissed …

A Triptych Of Regulators: A New Perspective On The Administrative State, Yair Sagy

Akron Law Review

In combining past and present perspectives, this Article makes an important contribution to the literature: by isolating the three general prototypes pervading the literature, it introduces a greater degree of theoretical precision to the understanding of public regulation, and goes on to demonstrate how current regulatory schemes can be better understood using the triad of prototypes. This Article also suggests why we can expect these types to persist in future public regulation. At the same time, this Article joins and contributes to the study of the intellectual history of U.S. regulation by identifying deep undercurrents running throughout that history.

Pepperdine University School Of Law Legal Summaries, Nicole Banister

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Inside Agency Statutory Interpretation, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

The Constitution vests all legislative powers in Congress, yet Congress grants expansive lawmaking authority to federal agencies. As positive political theorists have long explored, Congress intends for federal agencies to faithfully exercise their delegated authority, but ensuring fidelity to congressional wishes is difficult due to asymmetries in information, expertise, and preferences that complicate congressional control and oversight. Indeed, this principal-agent problem has a democratic and constitutional dimension, as the legitimacy of administrative governance may well depend on whether the unelected bureaucracy is a faithful agent of Congress. Despite the predominance of lawmaking by regulation and the decades-long application of principal-agent …

Self-Represented Litigants, Active Adjudication And The Perception Of Bias: Issues In Administrative Law, Michelle Flaherty

Dalhousie Law Journal

This paper advocates for a more active role for adjudicators, one in which they provide direction to parties and actively shape the hearing process. Active adjudication can be an important access to justice tool. Without some direction and assistance from the adjudicator, growing numbers of self-represented litigants cannot meaningfully access administrative justice. Importantly, however, as the role of the adjudicator shifts, so too must our understanding of the notion of impartiality If it is unfair to expect self-represented litigants to navigate the hearing process without adjudicative assistance and direction, it is also unfair to insist on a vision of impartiality …

Codifying Chevmore, Kent H. Barnett

Scholarly Works

This Article considers the significance and promise of Congress’s unprecedented codification of the well-known Chevron and Skidmore judicial-deference doctrines (to which I refer collectively as “Chevmore”). Congress did so in the Dodd-Frank Act by instructing courts to apply the Skidmore deference factors when reviewing certain agency-preemption decisions and by referring to Chevron throughout.

This codification is meaningful because it informs the delegation theory that undergirds Chevmore (i.e., that Congress intends to delegate interpretive primacy over statutory interpretation to agencies under Chevron or courts under Skidmore). Scholars and at least three Supreme Court Justices have decried the judicial inquiry into congressional …

Means And Ends In City Of Arlington V. Fcc: Ignoring The Lawyer's Craft To Reshape The Scope Of Chevron Deference, Michael P. Healy

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In last year's term, the United States Supreme Court considered the question of the scope of Chevron deference in City of Arlington v. FCC. This article discusses how the decision is an example of the work of an activist Court. The case should have been resolved by a straightforward determination under the analysis of United States v. Mead that Chevron deference simply did not apply to the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) legal determination. The Court ignored this restrained approach to the case and instead addressed the question the Justices desired to decide: the reach of Chevron deference. The article …

Optimal Abuse Of Power, Adrian Vermeule

Northwestern University Law Review

I will argue that in the administrative state, in contrast to classical constitutional theory, the abuse of government power is not something to be strictly minimized, but rather optimized. An administrative regime will tolerate a predictable level of misrule, even abuse of power, as the inevitable byproduct of attaining other ends that are desirable overall.

There are three principal grounds for this claim. First, the architects of the modern administrative state were not only worried about misrule by governmental officials. They were equally worried about “private” misrule—misrule effected through the self-interested or self-serving behavior of economic actors wielding and abusing …

Agencies, Courts, And The Limits Of Balancing, Daniel A. Farber

Daniel A Farber

Courts have struggled in several very different contexts to determine when a decision maker can consider costs that are not explicitly addressed in the governing statute. This issue arises when agencies decide whether to conduct a rulemaking or what rule to issue after a rulemaking. It also arises when courts decide whether to enjoin a violation of a statute or whether to vacate an administrative rule rather than simply remanding. Judicial opinions point in different directions and often ignore each other.

This Article contends that the same principles should govern judicial and agency discretion to consider costs across all these …

Chevron'S Legacy, Justice Scalia's Two Enigmatic Dissents, And His Return To The Fold In City Of Arlington, Tex. V. Fcc, Stephen J. Leacock

Catholic University Law Review

The creation by the judiciary of the doctrine of Chevron deference to administrative agencies’ determinations, followed by the judiciary’s application and supervision of the Chevron deference doctrine in Administrative Law continue. Protection by the judiciary of the evolution of the doctrine also continues as an integral component of the judiciary’s contribution to the central objective of the three coequal branches of government to achieve for the United States a more perfect union. However, synergistic cooperation between the three branches in order to achieve that central objective requires that each branch honor its own constitutional obligation under the United States Constitution …

The Enigma Of Engineering's Industrial Exemption To Licensure: The Exception That Swallowed A Profession, Paul M. Spinden

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Choosing A Court To Review The Executive, Joseph Mead, Nicholas Fromherz

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

For more than one hundred years, Congress has experimented with review of agency action by single-judge district courts, multiple-judge district courts, and direct review by circuit courts. This tinkering has not given way to a stable design. Rather than settling on a uniform scheme—or at least a scheme with a discernible organizing principle—Congress has left litigants with a jurisdictional maze that varies unpredictably across and within statutes and agencies.In this Article, we offer a fresh look at the theoretical and empirical factors that ought to inform the allocation of the judicial power between district and circuit courts in suits challenging …