Administrative Law Commons^™

Responsible Regulation: A Sensible Cost-Benefit, Risk Versus Risk Approach To Federal Health And Safety Regulation, Steve Calandrillo

Articles

Federal health and safety regulations have saved or improved the lives of thousands of Americans, but protecting our citizens from risk entails significant costs. In a world of limited resources, we must spend our regulatory dollars responsibly in order to do the most we can with the money we have. Given the infeasibility of creating a risk-free society, this paper argues that a sensible cost-benefit, risk versus risk approach be taken in the design of U.S. regulatory oversight policy. The goal should always be to further the best interests of the nation, rather than to satisfy the narrow agenda of …

"Validly Adopted Interpretations": Defining The Deference Standard In Aviation Certificate Action Appeals, Denise A. Banaszewski

Washington Law Review

The split-enforcement model of agency administration creates a dilemma for the adjudicating agency regarding how much deference it should allot interpretive documents promulgated by the agency with rulemaking authority. In 1992, Congress sought to resolve this problem in the area of aviation safety by statutorily mandating that the adjudicating agency, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), defer to "validly adopted" interpretations generated by the rulemaking agency, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Ironically, the statute created even more uncertainty because the term "validly adopted" is vague and remains undefined. Subsequent decisions have not clarified exactly when the NTSB considers itself bound. …

Simply A Matter Of Growing Pains? Evaluating The Controversy Surrounding The Growth Management Hearings Boards, Derek W. Woolston

Washington Law Review

In 1990, the Washington Legislature enacted the Growth Management Act (GMA) intending to reduce urban sprawl and manage development throughout the state. In 1991, the GMA was amended to include an administrative dispute resolution system, involving three independent regional Growth Management Hearings Boards ("Boards") empowered to hear petitions and to determine whether a county or city is complying with the GMA. The breadth of discretion given to the Boards to scrutinize local government land use policies has prompted a barrage of criticism from both local governments and the regulated community. The tension is attributable to factors within the control of …

Judicial Deference To Administrative Agencies' Legal Interpretations After Lechmere, Inc. V. Nlrb, Susan K. Goplen

Washington Law Review

In Lechmere, Inc. v. NLRB, the Supreme Court held that when interpreting administrative statutes, the Court will defer to its own previous interpretations rather than defer to administrative agencies' interpretations of statutes. Thus, the Court determined that stare decisis is dominant over judicial deference to administrative agencies. The Court decided Lechmere, Inc. v. NLRB wrongly. The rationales for deference to agencies exist whether or not the courts have addressed the statute in question. Therefore, courts should apply the doctrine of judicial deference even when courts have previously interpreted a statute.

The 1988 Washington Administrative Procedure Act—An Introduction, William R. Andersen

Washington Law Review

The Washington Legislature passed a new Administrative Procedure Act ("APA") in the spring of 1988, effective July 1, 1989. The Article guides the reader through the new APA, discusses its connection to general principles of administrative law and the policies underlying the Act, describes its organization, suggests solutions to interpretative problems, and recommends methods for evaluating future proposed amendments to the Act.

Becket At The Bar--The Conflicting Obligations Of The Solicitor General, Eric Schnapper

Articles

This Article suggests that the Solicitor General has five quite distinct responsibilities: to provide the Supreme Court with accurate and balanced information, to help to shape the Court's docket, to assure that the government's presentations maintain a high level of professionalism, to frame government positions which strike an appropriate balance between justice and advocacy, and to identify the interests and policies of the government client whom he represents. These responsibilities at times place the Solicitor General under conflicting obligations, not merely conflicts between his or her duties to the Court and to the administration, but conflicts in the Solicitor General's …

The Supreme Court's Interpretation Of Section 1988 And Awards Of Attorney's Fees For Work Performed In Administrative Proceedings: A Proposal For A Result-Oriented Approach—North Carolina Department Of Transportation V. Crest Street Community Council, Inc., 107 S. Ct. 336 (1986), Richard Gans

Washington Law Review

In 1976, Congress enacted the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act, amending 42 U.S.C. § 1988. Section 1988 authorizes courts to award attorney's fees to claimants who prevail in actions or proceedings to enforce civil rights under any of the laws enumerated in the Section. In North Carolina Department of Transportation v. Crest Street Community Council, Inc., the United States Supreme Court for the first time addressed the issue of whether a party may seek attorney's fees in a court action apart from the action or proceeding in which the party seeks to enforce civil rights. Justice O'Connor, writing for …

The Scope Of Judicial Review Of Agency Actions In Washington Revisited—Doctrine, Analysis, And Proposed Revisions, Tim J. Filer

Washington Law Review

This Comment analyzes current Washington law on the scope of judicial review, and compares it to recently proposed revisions to the Washington Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Part I discusses the doctrine surrounding the review of agency actions by Washington courts. Part II examines Washington case law and identifies several elements that determine the intensity with which the court will examine a particular agency action, regardless of the doctrinally prescribed deference. Part III compares and discusses the proposed revisions to the Washington APA. While based primarily on the latest Model State APA, 6 the proposed revisions contain some significant variations. The …

Administrative Agency Inaction: Misapplication Of The Finality Doctrine—Sierra Club V. Gorsuch, 715 F.2d 653 (D.C. Cir. 1983), Jacqualee Story

Washington Law Review

This Note first summarizes the finality doctrine, and then examines the Sierra Club court's misapplication of the finality analysis. The Note suggests an alternate analysis of the agency inaction in Sierra Club and proposes that such an analysis be applied in factual situations similar to that in Sierra Club.

Administrative Adjudication—A New Legal Standard For Its Use—Ford Motor Co. V. Ftc, 673 F.2d 1008 (9th Cir. 1981), Cert. Denied, 103 S. Ct. 358 (1982), Barbara Himes Schuknecht

Washington Law Review

This Note examines prior case law concerning agency use of adjudication for policy formulation. It also analyzes policy considerations both for and against that practice. The Note concludes that the Ninth Circuit's formula for abuse of discretion represents a new, and inadvisable, legal standard. Although Ford may have been an appropriate case for rulemaking, the court created an overly broad standard for when rulemaking must be used. This standard may preclude judicial consideration of policy factors favoring adjudication when the result of the adjudication is one which changes existing law and has widespread application. Furthermore, the Ford standard might deprive …

The Natural Law Of Administrative Law, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

Articles

Law teachers and researchers are inveterate seekers of metaphors. The metaphor, even if glib and obvious, invariably suggests further parallels and relationships, the conjoinder of phenomena. This is the road to uncovering unsuspected linkages and building simple descriptive models.

Theory building, in administrative law as elsewhere, begins with the capture and expression of the convincing metaphor. Extracting metaphors from the natural sciences to account for social happenings begins with a figure of speech and often ends there. Legislatures now are squeezing fat out of administrative agencies, an apt biological picture of a weight watcher's rigor being imposed on flabby, middle-aged …

Experiments In Agency Justice: Informal Adjudicatory Procedures In Administrative Procedure Acts, Karen E. Boxx

Washington Law Review

The 1961 Revised Model State Administrative Procedure Act and most state administrative procedure acts ("APAs") provide for only one type of agency adjudication: a formal, trial-type hearing. The 1981 Model Act and five state APAs have departed from this approach by providing additional, more informal adjudicatory procedures. This Comment examines the developments since 1961 that prompted the drafters of these acts to include informal procedures. The major impetus for the change was the "due process explosion," which extended hearing rights to interests that had been considered too minor for formal hearings. The Comment then compares the 1981 Model Act and …

Quis Custsodiet Ipsos Custodes?: Gubernatorial And Legislative Review Of Agency Rulemaking Under The 1981 Model Act, David S. Neslin

Washington Law Review

Legislatures frequently delegate broad rulemaking powers to administrative agencies to implement and enforce statutes. To control the use of this delegated authority, most states subject agency rulemaking to legislative or executive review. Through the use of various kinds of nonjudicial review, the states have served as innovative laboratories for the development of this concept. This Comment first outlines the history of nonjudicial review of agency rulemaking. It then describes and evaluates the gubernatorial and legislative review provisions of the 1981 Model Act. Finally, drawing upon the experiences of several states, it proposes a modification of the Act's approach to nonjudicial …

Environmental Regulation And Regulatory Reform, Douglas M. Costle

Washington Law Review

Regulatory relief asks the wrong question when it asks whether a regulation's benefits justify its costs. True regulatory reform asks how to make regulation fair, reasonable, and effective-that is, both efficient in spending social resources and successful in achieving compliance. Instead of simply devising new procedural burdens to impede the regulator, we ought to focus our regulatory reform efforts on finding effective ways to regulate by stimulating and rewarding industry's efficient compliance with regulation.

Judicial Review Of Risk Assessments: The Role Of Decision Theory In Unscrambling The Benzene Decision, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

Articles

[Reprinted in 13 Land Use & Envtl. L. Rev. 629-48 (1982).]

Benefits, Costs, And Risks: Oversight Of Health And Environmental Decisionmaking, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

Articles

This article considers problems of "regulatory reform" in the context of environmental and health decisionmaking. Specifically, in Part I, this article defines cost-benefit analysis, explores its advantages and limitations, and assays cost-benefit practice in light of descriptive theoretical and practical demands of formal decisionmaking within administrative agencies.

The two remaining sections of this article focus on the question of how Congress and the courts can, do, and should structure environmental and health regulation. In Part II, the article explores legislative models for agency consideration of costs and benefits in promulgating regulations. It examines four alternative models, and identifies normative considerations …

A Hard Look At Vermont Yankee: Environmental Law Under Close Scrutiny, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

Articles

In Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. the Supreme Court unanimously reversed the District of Columbia Circuit in two cases that closely scrutinized decisions of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and, in so doing, questioned settled habits of judicial review of administrative action affecting the environment. In this article Professor Rodgers analyzes four implications of Vermont Yankee—substantive judicial review under the National Environmental Policy Act, judicial imposition of procedures upon agencies beyond the statutory minima of the Administrative Procedure Act, the obligation of the agencies to consider alternatives in the environmental impact statement without regard to …

Administrative Law—Licensing By Municipal Bodies: A Judicial Function—Standow V. City Of Spokane, 88 Wn. 2d 624, 564 P.2d 1145 (1977), Leila Taaffe

Washington Law Review

In this note, the reasoning behind the court's decision will be examined and it will be urged that, despite flaws in the analysis, the result in this case is a sound one. Discretionary municipal action which cannot be reviewed under the Washington Administrative Procedure Act but which "involves application of existing law to past or present facts for the purpose of declaring or enforcing liability... resembles the ordinary business of courts" and should be susceptible to judicial review on petition for a writ of statutory certiorari.

Administrative Law—Freedom Of Information Act—Agency Secrecy Continues—Nlrb V. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 421 U.S. 132 (1975); Renegotiation Board V. Grunman Aircraft Engineering Corp., 421 U.S. 168 (1975), Greg Adams

Washington Law Review

Sears, Roebuck and Company brought an action under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to compel disclosure of Advice and Appeals Memoranda issued by the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board. In ordering disclosure of both sets of documents, the district court held that Advice Memoranda qualified under the Act as "'instructions' [to staff] which affect a member of the public," but that Appeals Memoranda were "final opinions" which did not fall within the Act's exemption for "intra-agency memoranda." The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia affirmed without opinion. In another case requiring interpretation of the …

Administrative Law—Shorelines Management—Judicial Review Of Shorelines Hearings Board Decisions—Department Of Ecology V. Ballard Elks Lodge No. 827, 84 Wn. 2d 551, 527 P.2d 1121 (1974), Glenna Spitzer Hall

Washington Law Review

Appellant, a fraternal lodge owning a parcel of real estate including tidelands on Shilshole Bay in Seattle, Washington, applied to the City for a substantial development permit pursuant to requirements of the Washington Shoreline Management Act (SMA). The initial application proposed an over-the-water lodge building, constructed entirely on filled tideland, exceeding the SMA's 35-foot height restriction. A second, modified application reduced the building's height, provided an easement for public access to the water's edge, and proposed construction of the lodge building over the water on pilings rather than on filled tidelands. The area selected for construction was one of relatively …

Administrative Law—Judicial Review—"Mental Process" Privilege Prevents Discovery Of Existence Of Agency Head's Statutorily-Required Personal Decision—National Nutritional Foods Association V. Food & Drug Administration, 491 F. 2d 1141 (2d Cir. 1974), Robert O'Callahan

Washington Law Review

Within 13 days of being named Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Commissioner Schmidt issued "14 final regulations, 13 proposed regulations and six notices stretching over many pages of the Federal Register. Schmidt was authorized to make the requisite final review of the National Nutritional Foods Association's objections prior to issuing final FDA regulations. The final regulations, which govern the public sale of dietary supplements, were preceded by a recital that the Commissioner had considered the evidence from public hearings, the hearing examiner's report and all the later exceptions and written arguments filed against the regulations. Petitioners argued …

Comment On The Coal Lease Forfeiture Decision: The Hypothetical Case Of United States V. Peabody Coal Co., William H. Rodgers, Jr.

Articles

This Comment will (1) summarize the antitrust litigation that put Peabody in jeopardy of losing its leases under section 27 of the Mineral Lands Leasing Act of 1920, and (2) criticize the decision of the Justice Department to forego a test case, thus drastically narrowing by administrative fiat the coal lease forfeiture provisions of the Mineral Lands Leasing Act.

Administrative Searches And Seizures: What Happened To Camara And See?, Mark A. Rothstein, Laura F. Rothstein

Washington Law Review

In recent years the Government's efforts in promoting health, safety and welfare have necessitated an increased number of administrative inspections of commercial and noncommercial premises. Although such inspections were previously held to be excluded from the fourth amendment's ban on unreasonable searches and seizures, the Supreme Court held in Camara v. Municipal Court and See v. Seattle that administrative inspections must comply with the warrant provision of the fourth amendment. Since those decisions, the Court has emphasized the exceptions to, rather than the strictures of, the warrant requirement. This article analyzes developments in the law concerning administrative searches and seizures …

A Survey Of The Washington Industrial And Safety Act’S First Months Of Operation, Hugh D. Spitzer

Articles

The still brief existence of the Washington Industrial Safety and Health Act (WISHA)' has not begun to yield a full view of its operations, effects, strengths and weaknesses. But a look at the preliminary data compiled by the Division of Industrial Safety and Health of Washington's Department of Labor and Industries does give one an idea of the shape that the Act's enforcement will take, as well as its effect on the business and working communities.' This comment will provide a brief overview of Washington's early experience with the Act, based on statistics and interviews with the individuals responsible for …

Administrative Law—Scope Of Review: Review Court May Not Examine The Wisdom Of Local School Board Decision, But May Determine Whether Fundamental Rights Have Been Violated—Citizens Against Mandatory Bussing V. Palmason, 80 Wn.2d 445, 495 P.2d 657 (1972), Anon

Washington Law Review

Defendant, the Seattle School Board, attempted to implement a plan to desegregate the Seattle school system. The plan included the restructuring of school grade classifications in accordance with a "middle school" concept,' and mandatory reassignment of approximately 850 black and white sixth, seventh and eighth grade children from their "neighborhood schools"' to schools in other areas of the city. Mandatory bussing was not required, but bus transportation was to be available for those students who desired it. Plaintiffs, Citizens Against Mandatory Bussing (CAMB), obtained an injunction restraining implementation of the plan for one year. The basis for the injunction was …

The National Industrial Pollution Control Council: Advise Or Collude?, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

Articles

This article analyzes three aspects of the National Industrial Pollution Countrol Coucil's performance: (1) the promise and risks it has presented; (2) its procedural performance, as tested by governing law; and (3) its accomplishments, both on the record and sub rosa, as measured by the expectations. In brief, NIPCC is portrayed as a dangerously anticompetitive institution occasionally doing business in violation of the law. The Council has published both public relations material and some useful data, but it has served more importantly as a lobbying forum for industries chafing under the regulatory bit. The experience of NIPCC forms the basis …

Due Process—Administrative Law—Public Assistance: Applicant's Right To A Fair Hearing—Davis V. Toledo Metropolitan Housing Authority, 311 F. Supp. 795 (N.D. Ohio 1970), Anon

Washington Law Review

Plaintiff applied for admission to a low income housing program administered by the Toledo Metropolitan Housing Authority. The Authority's regulation concerning admission to the program provided several standards for determining an applicant's character eligibility. The regulations required that applicants of unqualified character be declared ineligible on the general grounds of "non-desirability." Plaintiff was denied a place on the waiting list for housing program vacancies on those grounds. Her request for the specific facts supporting the Housing Authority's decision was denied, and her appeal for a "fair hearing" to contest the decision was refused. Plaintiff brought suit to enjoin the Housing …

Administrative Law—Combination Of Functions: May An Administrative Tribunal Be Both Prosecutor And Judge?—State Ex Rel. Beam V. Fulwiler, 76 Wn.2d 313, 456 P.2d 322 (1969), Anon

Washington Law Review

Respondent Beam was Chief Examiner and Secretary to the Spokane Civil Service Commission. About two years before the instant action, the Commission requested Beam to retire. When he refused, the Commission was instrumental in reducing his pay and in demoting him by creating a position superior to his for another person. Beam successfully brought action to have his duties restored and to set aside the new position created by the Commission. Subsequently, the Commission members investigated Beam's conduct, formed conclusions, promulgated charges, transmitted accusations personally signed by four of the five board members to the City Manager and recommended his …

The Right To Fair Hearing In Japanese Administrative Law, Nathaniel L. Nathanson, Yasuhiro Fujita

Washington Law Review

The right to fair hearing in contemporary Japanese administrative law is a tender plant, lacking deep roots in historical tradition, and struggling for survival in a relatively hostile environment, Fair hearing was a concept practically unknown to the administrative law of pre-war Japan, which, taking its cue from German and French law, relied principally, not on the procedural rights of the individual, but rather upon the skill and dedication of administrators for the achievement of efficiency and justice, with only occasional judicial review by the Administrative Court. The Anglo-American maxim that "he who decides must hear" was indeed foreign to …

Judicial Review Of Administrative Actions In Japan, Ichiro Ogawa

Washington Law Review

The reform of administrative litigation under the new Constitution involves a shift from an "administrative state" to a "judicial state." This does not mean, however, that the system of administrative litigation is now the same as the system in the Anglo-American "judicial state." The distinction between public and private law is still maintained in Japan, and "administrative acts" (Gyosei-koi) are regulated by principles of public law quite different from rules applicable to private persons.