Air Line Pilots Ass'n, Intern. v. C.A.B.
| Decision Date | 31 December 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 84-5225,No. 83-03047,84-5225,83-03047 |
| Parties | AIR LINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION, INTERNATIONAL, et al., Appellants v. CIVIL AERONAUTICS BOARD, et al. . Argued 11 Sept. 1984. Decided 30 Oct. 1984. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (Civil Action). Gary Green, Washington, D.C., with whom R. Russell Bailey and Sarah Perry Fleischer, Washington, D.C., were on the brief, for appellants. Catherine Lanctot, Atty., Dept. of Justice, of the Bar of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, Washington, D.C., pro hac vice, by special leave of the Court, with whom Richard K. Willard, Acting Asst. Atty. Gen., Dept. of Justice, Joseph E. diGenova, U.S. Atty., and Anthony J. Steinmeyer, Atty., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., were on the brief, for appellees. Before TAMM, WILKEY and EDWARDS, Circuit Judges. Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge WILKEY. WILKEY, Circuit Judge: The Air Line Pilots Association ("ALPA") sued the Civil Aeronautics Board ("CAB" or "the Board") in federal district court, complaining of unreasonably delayed agency action and bias. The district court found that it had jurisdiction over the matter, and then dismissed ALPA's complaint for failure to state a claim for which relief may be granted. 1 We find the district court in error as to jurisdiction, and hold that as to petitions to compel unreasonably delayed agency action, and as to claims of bias in the agency, exclusive jurisdiction lies in the Court of Appeals. The basis of our jurisdictional holding is explained in the companion case of Telecommunications Research and Action Center v. FCC 2 ("TRAC"). Having found exclusive jurisdiction in the Court of Appeals, we also find that appellants are entitled to some relief on the merits. I. BACKGROUND By enacting the Air Line Deregulation Act of 1978 ("ADA"), 3 Congress subjected the air line industry to the forces of the marketplace. Congress anticipated that deregulation would cause some injury to air line employees, and sought to provide limited assistance. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (Civil Action No. 83-03047).
Gary Green, Washington, D.C., with whom R. Russell Bailey and Sarah Perry Fleischer, Washington, D.C., were on the brief, for appellants.
Catherine Lanctot, Atty., Dept. of Justice, of the Bar of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, Washington, D.C., pro hac vice, by special leave of the Court, with whom Richard K. Willard, Acting Asst. Atty. Gen., Dept. of Justice, Joseph E. diGenova, U.S. Atty., and Anthony J. Steinmeyer, Atty., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., were on the brief, for appellees.
Before TAMM, WILKEY and EDWARDS, Circuit Judges.
Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge WILKEY.
The Air Line Pilots Association ("ALPA") sued the Civil Aeronautics Board ("CAB" or "the Board") in federal district court, complaining of unreasonably delayed agency action and bias. The district court found that it had jurisdiction over the matter, and then dismissed ALPA's complaint for failure to state a claim for which relief may be granted. 1 We find the district court in error as to jurisdiction, and hold that as to petitions to compel unreasonably delayed agency action, and as to claims of bias in the agency, exclusive jurisdiction lies in the Court of Appeals. The basis of our jurisdictional holding is explained in the companion case of Telecommunications Research and Action Center v. FCC 2 ("TRAC"). Having found exclusive jurisdiction in the Court of Appeals, we also find that appellants are entitled to some relief on the merits.
By enacting the Air Line Deregulation Act of 1978 ("ADA"), 3 Congress subjected the air line industry to the forces of the marketplace. Congress anticipated that deregulation would cause some injury to air line employees, and sought to provide limited assistance. Section 43 of the ADA 4 requires CAB to determine whether complaining employees have lost their jobs because of a "qualifying dislocation," which the Act defines as a bankruptcy or major contraction in an employer's work force, the "major cause of which is the change in the regulatory structure provided by the Act." 5 The Board began receiving applications for these determinations (that an applicant has lost his job primarily because of deregulation), called "section 43 determinations," as early as January 1979. By October 1983, the Board still had not taken direct action on any of these applications. No hearings had been held.
In the meantime, Braniff International Airways had ceased operations and declared bankruptcy in May 1982. During the summer of 1982, CAB's Chairman MacKinnon made several statements to the effect that Braniff's bankruptcy was not caused by deregulation. 6 ALPA alleges that these statements conclusively demonstrate prejudgment of the critical issue in a section 43 determination--causation. 7
ALPA's complaint filed with the district court presents two major issues: (1) whether CAB has unreasonably delayed acting on the section 43 determinations, and (2) whether CAB Chairman MacKinnon, as well as other Board members through him, have shown prejudgment of the issue by MacKinnon's statements concerning the cause of Braniff's bankruptcy. This case, together with its companion case, present a third issue: whether jurisdiction over such cases, which seek relief that may affect the Court of Appeals' future statutory power of review of final agency action, properly lies in the district court, concurrently in the district court and the Court of Appeals, or exclusively in the Court of Appeals. We will deal with each of these issues, turning first to the jurisdictional issue.
Following the district court's dismissal, ALPA filed notice of appeal and moved for expeditious consideration and summary reversal. This Court denied the motion for summary reversal and granted the motion for expeditious consideration. Because the cases presented a significant jurisdictional question left open by our prior case law, we specifically requested that the parties in this case and in TRAC address the jurisdictional issue. 8 We now hold that jurisdiction over cases which seek relief that may affect our future statutory power of review over final agency action lies exclusively in the Court of Appeals.
We leave full explanation of the principles governing our jurisdictional decision to our opinion in TRAC. 9 We note, however, that the basis of our holding is the exclusive jurisdiction given to the Court of Appeals over review of final agency action. In the case of the Civil Aeronautics Board, this exclusive jurisdiction is provided by Section 1006 of the Federal Aviation Act. 10 This grant of exclusive jurisdiction over final action must be read in conjunction with the All Writs Act, which provides that "the Supreme Court and all courts established by an act of Congress may issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their prospective jurisdiction ...." 11 Read together with the relevant case law, these statutes form the foundation of the principle of exclusive Court of Appeals' jurisdiction over cases which affect its future jurisdiction over final agency action.
Those principles apply just as squarely to a claim of bias on mandamus (an issue only in this case) as they do to a claim of unreasonable delay (an issue common to this case and TRAC). The bias claim has equal power to affect our future jurisdiction over final agency action. In both instances, the Court of Appeals is acting in aid of its future jurisdiction, and has exclusive jurisdiction.
There is one important difference between this case and TRAC. In this case, ALPA originally filed its complaint in the district court, and appealed to this Court after dismissal by the district court. Under a very technical analysis, if (as we have held) the district court had no jurisdiction, then this Court could not obtain jurisdiction on appeal. However, it will not be necessary to dismiss this suit for lack of jurisdiction. Congress has provided for just such a turn of events with a statute allowing transfer to cure lack of jurisdiction. 12 The statute states that when a civil action is filed in a court that lacks jurisdiction (including cases on appeal), that court shall,
if it is in the interest of justice, transfer such action or appeal to any other such court in which the action or appeal could have been brought at the time it was filed or noticed, and the action or appeal shall proceed as if it had been filed in or noticed for the court to which it is transferred on the date upon which it was actually filed in or noticed for the court from which it is transferred. 13
We have already acknowledged the urgency of this case by granting ALPA's motion for expeditious consideration. Even the district court's dismissal of this case was "without prejudice to plaintiff's rights to invoke the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals." 14 No useful purpose would be served by forcing ALPA to start over. In addition, we recognize that the precedent in this circuit may have implied that the district court had concurrent jurisdiction over these claims. Therefore, we find it "in the interest of justice" to proceed on the merits of this case as though it originally had been brought in this Court.
It should be noted that normally the most efficient means of reviewing agency action is to wait until the relevant agency proceedings have concluded. This is related to the general judicial doctrine of ripeness, as well as notions of effective agency administration. In Abbott Laboratories, Inc. v. Gardner 15 the Supreme Court explained that the
basic rationale is to prevent the courts, through avoidance of premature adjudication, from entangling themselves in abstract disagreements over administrative policies, and also to protect the agencies from judicial interference until an administrative decision has been formalized and its effects felt in a concrete way by challenging parties. The problem is best seen in a twofold aspect, requiring us to evaluate both the fitness of the issues for judicial decision and the hardship to the parties of withholding court consideration. 16
As this Court explained in Association of Nat'l Advertisers, Inc. v. FTC, 17 withholding review until after final agency action "permits an administrative agency to develop a factual record, to apply its expertise to that record, and to avoid piecemeal appeals." 18
Despite this general policy, claims of unreasonable delay fall within a narrow class of interlocutory appeals from agency action over which we appropriately should exercise our jurisdiction. By definition, a claim of unreasonable delay cannot await final agency action before judicial review, since it is the very lack of agency action which gives rise to the complaint. It is also obvious that the benefits of agency expertise and creation of a record will not be realized if the agency never takes action. In addition, judicial review of claims of unreasonable delay do not prematurely inject the courts into the agency's consideration of the merits of the issue before it. Finally, agencies operate under a mandate to decide matters in a reasonable time, 19 and Congress has instructed statutory review courts to compel agency action which has been unreasonably delayed. 20
CAB first began receiving applications for section 43 benefits in January 1979. 21 For several years, no direct action was taken on these applications. The Board did set out preliminary orders which interpreted section 43 and set guidelines for the Administrative Law Judges. 22...
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